The parable of the wedding feast
Today’s gospel is yet another parable that our Lord Jesus Christ used to teach and preach about the ways of God, because we humans only understand our human ways, which is not the ways of God. You can read this scripture in Matt.22: 1-14.
“1 Jesus again in reply spoke to [the chief priests and elders of the people] in parables saying, 2”The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a King who gave a wedding feast for his son. 3 He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. 4 A second time he sent other servants saying, “tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready, come to the feast.
5 Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The King was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 then he said to his servants, ‘the feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
10 The servants went out in to the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. 11 But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. 12 He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment? But he was reduced to silence. 13 Then the King said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. 14 Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
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To understand this parable, you must first find out how the ancient Jews gave so much importance to weddings. In those days, more often than not, the betrothed couple did not even see each other until the wedding day. A marriage contract is usually planned by their parents. Once betrothed, a couple doesn’t really live together (usually for a year) until the wedding day.
So finally when the day of the wedding feast arrives, the parents of the groom or the bridegroom would invite their very special guests to the wedding feast. These guests are notable personalities in their village and would do honor to the father of the bride or the bridegroom by attending the feast (which often lasts a whole week) and wear their best garments.
So as today’s parable goes, the king announces that the wedding feast is about to begin…the fatted calf had been slaughtered and so he sent his servants to make the announcements to the invited guests. But instead of honoring the king’s invitation, they go about their daily chores and do not give any importance to the king’s invitation. The servants return to the king with sad news…no one was coming to the wedding feast.
So the king sent his servants once again to invite his guests. But this time around, the servants were maltreated and some of them even killed. When the king learned of this, he sent his troops to kill those murderers and burned their cities. As my favorite Catholic author, Scott Hahn would say, “God is the king, Jesus the bridegroom, the feast is the salvation and eternal life that Isaiah prophesies in today’s First Reading. The Israelites are those first invited to the feast by God’s servants, the prophets. For refusing repeated invitations and even killing His prophets, Israel has been punished, its city conquered by foreign armies.”
So now the king (God) sends new servants into the streets and invited many people… good or bad to his wedding feast… and when the banquet hall was filled… the king noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the appropriate garments that people would wear in a wedding and he demanded an answer from that man. But the man could not give any answer and so the king said, “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
The banquet hall as Scott Hahn said, resembles the Catholic Church, which is filled with both the good and the bad, which our Lord Jesus Christ also compares in the Parable of the Sower, where both wheat and weeds grow together. Yes, our Lord Jesus Christ built a perfect Church filled with imperfect men and women, which is why the Catholic Church goes from crisis to crises. But as the Lord promised, “The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail upon her.”
In summary, God is the king and the bridegroom is our Lord Jesus Christ and the first invited to the wedding feast are the Jews, but they spurned God’s invitation. So now the Catholic Church is filled with Gentiles, who must wear the clothes of righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ so we could all be worthy to dine with God in his eternal feast.
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