Shades of Miss Manners! Many of us remember her; she had much to say about etiquette in her daily news column. What would she say about those ungrateful guests who refused to attend the wedding feast? Mind you, not just any wedding feast. A king hosted this feast for his son.
What catches my attention isn’t that many guests snubbed the king’s invitation, rudely treated his servants and chose not to attend. Rather, wasn’t the king a bit harsh, throwing out a guest who did come, even if he came not properly attired? Apparently, much more is expected of a guest than simply showing up. Jesus is warning us that God expects the guests to come properly vested. In case you have forgotten, when we were baptized, we were “clothed in Christ.”
The unwelcomed guest responded to the king’s invitation, not on the king’s terms, but on his own. He refused to conform to the etiquette that was normal in ancient times when people entered the king’s presence.
Here the parable takes on a personal meaning for us today. We are amongst the guests God has invited to the eternal banquet. But Jesus is cautioning us that this invitation will only be honored on God’s terms. God is expecting a mature committed response from us as Christians to the values of Jesus Christ.
By virtue of our baptism, we have accepted God’s invitation to be guests at the eternal banquet, but saying yes isn’t enough. If we want to be welcomed, we must continually prepare for the moment when we arrive. Are we following or ignoring the king’s terms as outlined repeated in scripture?
Our values reflect how readily we care about God’s invitation to come to the eternal banquet.
How attentive are we to God’s word given in scripture and proclaimed through the teachings of our Church and at Mass? Do we apply its lessons in our daily lives or like the expelled guest, are we refusing or reluctant to abide by God’s expectations of the guests who accept his invitation?
Perhaps you are wondering, “What must I do?” A starting point would be to look at your moral values, outlined for us briefly in the Ten Commandments but elaborated in numerous ways through the teachings of our Church. Do you even know the Ten Commandments? I used to think that any Christian could recite them from memory but I have learned over the years that is not always the case. Anyone who rarely attends Sunday Mass might not even know what the third commandment is. Do you?
The moral attitudes of many Christians have been as varied as a buffet line at a wedding feast. “I disregard those moral teachings of our church that I don’t agree with,” is a common stance taken by some Catholics who otherwise consider themselves as being faithful. They feel there is nothing wrong with ignoring certain moral tenets of our faith, such as abortion, artificial contraception, euthanasia, or capital punishment but they ignore the fact that our morals are not based on popular opinion polls, but on the gospel.
In his encyclical, The Splendor of Truth, St. John Paul II raised this concern when he cautioned, “In a widely de-Christianized culture, the criteria employed by believers themselves in making judgments and decisions often appear erroneous or even contrary to the Gospels.” Not surprisingly some criticized him for being out of touch with where people are in today’s world, yet the Holy Father cautioned that they were out of touch with what Jesus expected of us.
Pope Francis in his latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, “All Brothers,” wrote, “It is my desire that, in this our time, by acknowledging the dignity of each human person, we can contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity. Fraternity between all men and women.”
Human fraternity, Pope Francis notes, will be nourished by a re-discovery of love. Love, which unites by drawing a person out of his/her own self, allows us to experience the depth and fullness of life. The Pope writes, “Love, then, is more than just a series of benevolent actions. Those actions have their source in a union increasingly directed towards others, considering them of value, worthy, pleasing and beautiful apart from their physical or moral appearances. Our love for others, for who they are, moves us to seek the best for their lives. Only by cultivating this way of relating to one another will we make possible a social friendship that excludes no one and a fraternity that is open to all.” (94) He also said,
“The world exists for everyone, because all of us were born with the same dignity. Differences of color, religion, talent, place of birth cannot be used to justify the privileges of some over the rights of all. As a community, we have an obligation to ensure that every person lives with dignity.” That to me sums up the message of Respect Life month.
There is no dress code in scripture for us, you could say, except to be ”clothed in Christ.” This garment, placed on us when we were baptized, is the only garment the king will look for at the eternal banquet. Put on Christ and then you need not worry if you are properly attired to be in God’s presence. But if you ignore the messages sent by prophets, past and present, choosing not to respect all human life from conception to natural death, your garment may be too ragged to be recognized by the king at the eternal banquet.
