HOMILY WEEK 20 04 – Year II
Wearing the Wedding Garment:
(Ezk 36:23-28; Ps 51; Mt 22:1-14)
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Have you ever felt out of place because you were not dressed right for a particular occasion?
Today’s readings invite us to put on the garments of profound repentance, deep faith and genuine love.
In the gospel, Jesus uses a parable, a literary tool that seeks to loosen our “stuckness” to one worldview and open us up to a bigger world view. This parable is aimed at the corrupt religious leaders of his day who have failed utterly in being the holy people of God that God wanted and who, worse, actually thought they were.
The first reading from the prophet Ezekiel and the psalm both carry the same message – God will forgive them, heal them and renew them if only they admit their failure, repent and allow that to happen. That is a clear call to us to come to Jesus for forgiveness of our sins, healing of our shortcomings, and then to pass on the love we have received through selfless service.
The wedding garment of the gospel stands for that radically new way of life making up the kingdom of God – a response of humble repentance to God’s unconditional love, genuine faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and a life of fidelity to God’s will manifested through heartfelt compassion and love.
Ephesians 6:14 is a good description of that kingdom reality: Fasten the belt of truth around your waist, put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these take the shield of faith. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Colossians 3:12 adds these qualities: Clothe yourself in “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California, shared the example of a bishop visiting a leper colony. The chain on the bishop’s pectoral cross broke as he leaned over to talk to a leper, and the cross fell into the man’s puss-filled wound. The bishop, filled with Christ-like inspiration and love, reached down into the wound and picked up the cross. That is our task as Christians, he pointed out, to reach down, put our hands into the leprous wounds of our world, and pick up the cross.
The fellow in the parable thrown out into the wilderness represents those religious leaders of Jesus’ day whose hypocrisy gave them the appearance of holiness, but they were missing the essentials of all those qualities described above. He also represents those of us today who act nice to others on the outside, but are full of anger and bitterness from our “family of origin” wounds about which we are in denial, have never faced or healed, and take out on those close to us whom we are supposed to love.
The Eucharist is both an experience of the unconditional love of God made present through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and a mandate to live out the Eucharist by sharing that love with the world through selfless compassion and service. May our celebration today empower us to clothe ourselves with the garments of profound repentance, deep faith and genuine love.
