Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Introduction

After the par­able in Mat­thew 21:33–43, the chief priests and the scribes real­ized Jesus was refer­ring to them. Their plan to have him arres­ted was hal­ted by the fear of the people, who retained Jesus as a true proph­et of God (cf. Matt 21:45–46). In Mat­thew 22:1–14, priests, Phar­isees, scribes, and eld­ers remain the recip­i­ents of the par­able of the wed­ding gar­ment. In order to under­stand the true nature of the king­dom of God, people must over­look the teach­ings of the Jew­ish author­ity and con­cen­trate on Jesus’ par­ables, the king­dom par­ables, as they are called. The king­dom of God must be com­pared with the par­able of the two sons, the par­able of the landown­er, and the par­able of the mar­riage feast.

Safeguarding your wedding garment

“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” (Matt 22:11–12). On enter­ing the ban­quet hall, the king saw a man not put­ting on the wed­ding gar­ment and asked him why. The king did not ask him why, but how he man­aged to get into the ban­quet hall without the appro­pri­ate attire. Mat­thew observes that the man was speech­less. Yes, he was speech­less because he nev­er expec­ted the king to single him out. But he did not reas­on well. If oth­ers were put­ting on their wed­ding gowns and he was the only per­son there in a dif­fer­ent attire, how did he think he would not be noticed? Since he could not answer the ques­tion, the king ordered him to be arres­ted and be thrown into dark­ness, where there would be weep­ing and gnash­ing of teeth. But was it this man’s fault that he entered the ban­quet hall? If he had not been called by the king’s ser­vants, he would not have been there. Why, then, should the king pun­ish him? Yes, the king­dom of God is for all, but…

Conclusion         

After order­ing the man without the wed­ding robe to be thrown out and pun­ished, Jesus con­cluded the par­able thus: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt 22:14). The invit­a­tion to sal­va­tion is a uni­ver­sal call. The gos­pel is for all, but not all will believe. After the post-resur­rec­tion com­mis­sion­ing, Jesus told the apostles to pro­claim the gos­pel to all. Who­ever believes and is bap­tized will be saved, while who­ever does not believe will be con­demned (cf. Mark 16:16). Beloved read­er, how would you feel if you were the per­son without the wed­ding gar­ment in the ban­quet hall? Do you ever real­ize there is a wed­ding gar­ment meant for every­one? Do you know where yours is? How do you take care of it? We should neither dirty, change, tear, or even for­get the beau­ti­ful gar­ment with which God has clothed his unworthy people (cf. Ezek 16:10–13). Remem­ber, your wed­ding gown is your visa to etern­al bliss, so you should take prop­er care of it. May God always find you with your wed­ding gar­ment in every situ­ation. If you find your­self rab­bit-trail­ing on the part of sin, that is, risk­ing los­ing your wed­ding gar­ment, you can eas­ily find your way back to the ori­gin by chan­ging your way. This implies being just, hon­est, faith­ful, obed­i­ent, altru­ist, con­vinced, and com­mit­ted to your faith and Chris­ti­an life. This is the only way to safe­guard your wed­ding gar­ment and avoid being pushed out of the ban­quet hall. Always have your wed­ding gar­ment ready to par­ti­cip­ate in the sump­tu­ous meal pre­pared by God for his chil­dren (cf. First Read­ing). May God grant you suc­cess this week and always. Sha­lom!     

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SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 28^th Sunday of the year (A) is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 478–487. Happy reading!

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