Fourteenth Sunday of Matthew

Today we also commemorate the Beheading of John the Baptist, which is depicted in this icon.  You can read about this event in Mark 6:14-30

 

Today's Gospel reading for the Divine Liturgy is Matthew 22:1-14.

Just as last week, this week's Gospel reading reminds us of our duties as Christians.  We can read the parable at face value, and come away with a very negative view of God.  (Thrown into darkness for wearing the wrong clothes?)  But as with all parables, a closer reading will reveal several deeper meanings.  We will concentrate on just one.

Like the wedding guests, we are called to enter into new life with Christ, even though we might not realise it, or think we don't deserve it.  Remember, the wedding hall was filled with guests "both bad and good".  God's love for us is absolute and unconditional: there is nothing that we can do to make Him love us less, although there is much that we as individuals can do to build up barriers which prevent His love reaching us.  If we are to participate fully in that new life, we must share it with others.  If you put a candle in a bucket and seal the lid, pretty soon it will use up all the oxygen and extinguish itself.  So it is with the new life that God gives us.  It cannot be emphasised enough: God gives us life that it may shine out for all to see.  We are not sealed buckets: we are lanterns of the Holy Spirit.

In the parable, this new life is symbolised by the wedding garment.  A wedding custom at the time the Gospel was written was for the host of the feast to provide a new garment to each of the guests, probably a simple robe or shawl, so that everyone could honour the wedded couple by wearing something bright and new - no matter how ragged and dirty their own clothes may be.  To refuse the garment would have been a grave insult.  The man who was not wearing a garment has smothered the new life deep inside himself, where it could neither be seen nor be nurtured - and certainly could not be shared.  He has excluded himself from the feast, and has no place there: not because God did not call him, but because his response was selfish.

Pray that God's new life in you may shine out in the world, through your love for your brothers and sisters and your care for all of Creation.  Wear your wedding garment openly for all to see, and may you be a living sign to others that all are invited to the feast.