Matthew 22: 1-14
Once more Jesus spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Cooperate With Grace
Some commentators consider the final paragraph of today’s Gospel reading a separate parable about the guest who is invited to a wedding feast (is “called”) but does not come properly dressed (is not “chosen”).
Matthew reports Jesus as saying, “Many are called but few are chosen.” “Chosen” here means, perhaps, “elect” or “saved.”
Are the saved really few? Perhaps we are meant to read this saying of Jesus as an example of his use of hyperbole or rhetorical exaggeration to make a point. Perhaps Jesus here is exhorting us to take grace seriously and cooperate with it, to respond to it with faith and conversion, to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” knowing that it is grace that enables us both to desire salvation and work to be saved (Philippian 2:12-13).
So, today’s Gospel supports the first reading, urging us to: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).
—Father Bob Hagan, SJ, is a member of a community of senior Jesuits at Saint Ignatius Hall in Florissant, Missouri. He does limited spiritual direction, mostly online; gives sacramental care to the lay Catholics in the adjacent retirement community; writes occasional reflections for Jesuit Prayer; posts various daily items and a longer weekly reflection on the Sunday Mass readings on his Facebook site at Bob Hagan SJ; and drives fellow Jesuits who no longer drive wherever they want to go.
Prayer
Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity; and, in whose spirit, there is no deceit. While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
—Psalm 32: 1-5