Is 25:6-10a | Ps 23 | Phil 4:12-14, 19-20 | Mt 22:1-14

Jesus likened the kingdom of heaven to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. Notice that the father (God the Father) is giving a banquet for his son (God the Son) and bride (the Church). Jesus is the marriage of divinity and humanity. This is sung in the Exsultet (the Easter Proclamation) at the Easter Vigil: “O truly blessed night, when things of heaven are wed to those of earth, and divine to the human.” We his followers are invited to join in the joy of this union.

The joyful intimacy of the Father and Son is now offered to us to be shared. Listen to Isaiah to learn the details of this banquet: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines” (Is 25:6).

Now, there is an edge to all of this. For it is the king who is doing the inviting and it is a wedding banquet for his son. We can see how terribly important it is to respond to the invitation of the King of kings.

We have heard the invitation of God to enter into intimacy with God, to make God the center of our lives, to be married to God in Christ—and often, we find the most pathetic excuses not to respond.

It is God’s plan to give all people full life, peace, and joy. As seen in the vision of Isaiah and in this parable, the unimaginable generosity of God is a gift that is freely given to us all. But do we gratefully receive the gift that is given? Does the generosity of God move us or change us? The answers to these questions aren’t only seen in the indifference of the invited guests, but they are at the heart of why the parable ends the way it does.

At first glance, it may seem harsh or unfair that the king throws this one guy out of the banquet, but the reality is that even though the guests came from the crossroads, we are told that they were invited to come, not that they were brought in off the streets and dragged against their will.

And this is important because even the poorest, most unlikely character to be invited would have had enough self-respect, dignity, and regard for the king that they would have dressed appropriately. This guy seems to have heard the invitation and just gone along, looking to take full advantage of a good thing without putting in any effort or taking responsibility for this presence there. Because of this, he is banished from the feast.

In this lesson, we see an important message about the kindom, for while God’s promise of life in the kingdom is a gift given unconditionally, we do share in a responsibility: we must receive the gift and act on it. In other words, having been loved so generously by our God, we are called to move out of ourselves and be changed by love: to put on Christ. The ejected guest does not change. He misses the point that coming to the feast requires being changed—that we are to be changed by the generous gift we are given by God.

In his commandment to us, Jesus does not say, “Feel good about the love I have shown you.” He says, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34). The kingdom is about God’s unfathomable love poured out upon us—not based on our merit, not based on whether we deserve it, but poured out as a generous gift.

And the kingdom is about action. It is about receiving the love, being changed by the love, and putting that love into action by loving others as we have been loved. We have been given much; we are promised even more. We must strive faithfully to live out our calling as grateful recipients of and loyal heirs to the kingdom that God has prepared for us.