Many are called but few are chosen

Here is Father David Kennerley's homily given on the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time  based on the parable of the wedding feast, Matthew 22:1-14

Jesus growing up would have often heard that the time would come when everyone in his family, his village and nation would be sat down by God to enjoy the most fabulous banquet, in God’s final kingdom. As in Isaiah, the meal would consist of the finest food and wine available anywhere and the pervading atmosphere would be one of unimaginable warmth and intimacy – the full impact of being God’s blest and chosen would be physically palpable!

Whatever dreams & visions such talk might have sown in the young boy’s mind would have been tempered by his own reflection on the history of the prophets, and later by what he saw happen to John the Baptist in his preaching – and hence, today’s sobering parable.

And yet Jesus was not deterred – one of the most distinctive, telling features of his ministry were the meals he shared, (some he even miraculously arranged!); meals that were at times highly charged because he went out of his way to include the bad and good alike. Jesus not only told parables about what being in the kingdom of God is like – he also literally acted out his parable of the wedding banquet, thereby emphasizing that the kingdom really is God universally breaking into our lives, our world – here and now.

The tragic irony in our readings today is that in Jesus’ time, the very leaders whose duty it was to proclaim and teach such a fabulous and enriching message, were engrossed instead in the dynamics of personal purity and of spiritual self-satisfaction, in fact, of exclusion. Both then and now, we need to attend to those last ringing words of Jesus: many are called but few are chosen.

So, cast your minds back to when Prince William and Kate announced their wedding plans: can you remember the interest and hype surrounding who was invited – and for that matter, who wasn’t?! To make it onto their guest list was to be very publicly recognized and honoured, nationally and even internationally.  

In our gospel, surprisingly, the first reaction to the royal invitation is one of considerable contempt. After initially accepting, when the big day actually arrives, these original guests declare that they are now going off instead to their land… their business! They no longer see it as an honour to be publicly associated with their king & they have little or no interest in the affairs, nor values, of his kingdom.

The man who enters the banquet hall without the appropriate garment is much the same. He simply can’t be bothered putting himself out to do the minimum required for attending. The king might have called him, but this man chooses to enter on his own terms, as he sees fit, disregarding the well-known convention.

What does this mean for us? Perhaps a story about a Scottish inter-national rugby player will help. His name was Eric Liddell and he is better known as an athletics star. Liddell was chosen to represent Great Britain in the 100m race at the 1924 Olympics. On discovering that he would have to run on a Sunday, the Sabbath, he refused to compete. In spite of tremendous pressure, including from the heir to the throne, Liddell persevered in his stand. However, when a friend offered him his place later in the 400m, Liddell accepted and as we saw in the film, Chariots of Fire, in spite of the great odds, he won the gold medal. Liddell raced, he said, because he believed that in his running he ‘gave glory to God’ – that is, here & now! 

There’s the point. The kingdom of Heaven is not simply a banquet that begins after life, nor something we participate in just one day a week at Mass. Jesus has initiated God’s kingdom! We are called to now live it out, practicing the values of its king in every dimension of our lives: our family, work, friendships, even our politics & sport. Our business is to give glory to God! Our efforts might not result in gold medals, nor even in a great deal of public success. On the other hand, it will mean that we live our lives delighting in being chosen, a status, that one day, God will indeed then come and confirm on us.

Father David Kennerley sm