The Invitation Has Been Offered – Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, we have another parable today in our gospel. And, you know, like all the parables, it's kind of unsettling. It's a little strange. It's meant to disconcert us. See, once you understand that, I think you can approach the parables better. If we think of them as just straightforward, you know, moralizing allegories, we're going to miss it. And they're meant to shake things up. They're meant to throw us off balance. So we're told here that Jesus is speaking to the chief priests and elders. So he's kind of going after the leadership of his people. And he tells this kind of crazy story, honestly, about the king inviting people to the banquet for his son. People make excuses. They don't show up. He sends more messengers out. People still ignore them. And then they kill the messengers. and then he finally sends, you know, go out to the hills and the dales and bring in everyone you can find. And then, to make it even weirder, so these, you know, kind of the rabble all come into the party, but he noticed someone, well, you're not wearing a wedding garment, and he throws him out.

1:05 In the meantime, at one point in the story, he destroyed their entire city. So you think, what are we dealing with here? God, if the king in the story is supposed to be God, he seems to be a kind of psychotic maniac. What do we make of this? Well, first of all, think about this, everybody. Go back to my friend Flannery O'Connor, I think the greatest Catholic fiction writer of the last century. She said famously, because her stories were a bit like this. They were macabre, and they were violent, and they were over the top and shocking. And when people asked her, this kind of demure Southern lady, why do you write such stories? Her answer was, in the land of the deaf, you have to shout. It's a very good insight. What are people deaf to? Boy, she thought it was true. That's back in the 1950s. How much more today? People are deaf to spiritual realities.

1:58 If you're whispering a little spiritual story, they're not going to hear it. You got to shout in the land of the deaf to be heard. And so her stories in all their kind of macabre quality did that. Well, that's what these parables are doing. This is a good example. It is, of course, over the top and exaggerated to make the point. Okay, so how can we parse this now? How can we bring out a spiritual power? Well, let's take it from the beginning. Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. Now, this is not just any old party, right? Not just any old person inviting people to a gathering. No, the king. So it's the highest figure in the society. Inviting people to a banquet for his son, a wedding banquet. It's like the highest invitation you could possibly receive.

2:55 That's the point. To make our comparison, I know whenever you mention presidents, you get people's political hang-ups. But if you receive an invitation, a formally engraved invitation from the President of the United States to come to the White House for a special banquet, you'd say, yes. People say, yes, I'll clear my calendar. How about for Catholics? The Pope, the Pope has invited you personally to come to the Vatican for a special banquet. Or let's say the Pope is visiting America. We'll make it easier. And he says, I want you to come to this banquet that's being held in your hometown. But I, the Pope, am inviting you. What would you say? You know what? I'm busy that night.

3:48 You know, I've already got plans, Holy Father. I'm sorry. I'm going out with my buddies bowling. I'm sorry, Mr. President. It's a very fine invitation. But I'm, you know, rearranging my sock drawer that night. But see, what you're meant to see right away is this greatest of invitations possible. Now, not just the president, not just the pope, the Lord God Almighty is inviting you personally to come to a banquet, a wedding banquet for his son. Now, see, Christians, what are we hearing? God the Father sent his son as groom to his bride, the church. This invitation, everybody, is the most important thing ever that you could ever imagine coming your way. Come to a banquet, wedding banquet, for my son, and I'm going to provide for you the best of everything.

4:53 And what's our response? that's great, but I can't make it. I'm already busy. Or, yeah, I got this thing in the mail, but I just threw it away. You see, what you're meant to see right away is the tragedy of our sinful lives. All of us biblical people, we've received this invitation from God the Father to share his life by coming to the wedding banquet of his son. I'd say in the Catholic context, coming to the Mass. This is the highest thing you could possibly want or imagine. And what do most of us say? Can't make it.

5:43 It's meant to make you smile, to make you laugh at the sheer irony of it, the strange irony of it. We say no to this. Okay, so what does the king do? A second time, he sends his servants saying, look, I've prepared a banquet, wedding banquet for my son. My calves and fattened cattle are killed. Everything's ready. Come to the feast.

6:10 He's already been insulted. Suppose you're the president and you've sent these engraved invitations and everyone ignores them. I mean, you'd be mortified. You're the pope. You've sent a special Vatican invitation and everyone's ignored it. Well, nevertheless, he a second time sends them out. What do we hear? Some ignored the invitation and went away. One to his farm, another to his business. Now, look how weird this gets. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. Now, what are we talking about? Well, we know God the Father inviting, inviting, inviting. We keep saying no. He sends more. Who are these now? But his patriarchs and prophets, his great representatives, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hezekiah, the rest of them.

7:03 It's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's all of them. He sends his messengers again and again and again. What do we do? Well, most of us look the other way, ignore them. Who cares? At the limit, the guy's inviting you to a banquet. it. And you kill the messengers? But that's the prophets, right? Who were at best ignored, at worst brutalized by the people to whom they were sent. What a world. That's what you're meant to see here. What a world we live in. Now, are we off the hook? Of course not. Yes, I'm talking about ancient Israel now, but does this invitation go out to us? You bet all the time. That's what religion's all about. That's the whole purpose of the church is to evangelize, is to offer this invitation. God the Father keeps inviting you, inviting you, come, come to the banquet, come to grace, come to the wedding feast of my son, come to the mass and eat the finest, the bread of the finest weed, right? What do we say? Too bored, I'm too busy, can't make it. Or at the limit, I'm going to mock.

8:15 I'm going to mock the preachers of religion. Look at the new atheists today. Look at the aggressive secularists just throwing mockery and disdain at the messengers of God. See, that's what we're meant to see here, everybody. The central tragedy of the spiritual life is that we received the invitation and we said no. Go back to Flannery O'Connor. She was asked, what are your stories about? She said, the offer of grace usually refuse. That's pretty good. That's humanity. That's humanity in our sin. Grace is offered. We say no. Okay, so he said now two rounds of invitation. So then in his frustration, he says, all right, go out to, not just my friends and people that I know, go out to the highways and byways.

9:07 Go out to the whole world and bring in anybody. the rich the poor everyone invite everyone to the party what's this but the extravagant quality of god's grace refused yep again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again refuse what does he do he keeps inviting he keeps inviting okay they said no well how about you and they said no too all right well then how about you think of the parable of the sower he sows on you know, on the path, on rocky soil, and some seed falls on good soil. Okay, that's God's way, is when we refuse him, he just keeps offering grace, right? So go out into the main roads, invite to the feast whomever you find. And so they went out into the streets and gathered all they found, good and bad alike. Do you need to be good to get the invitation?

10:06 mm-mm. He invites the good and bad alike. What does Jesus say? He makes his sun to shine on the good and bad alike. He makes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. No, no. God's invitation is extravagant. It's over the top. It's incessant. Whether we're saints or sinners. Look, to the table of Jesus came the righteous and the unrighteous. Came the saints and the sinners, the prostitutes and the scribes and Pharisees. They all were invited. That's God's way, right? Now, here's the last part of it, which people, maybe over the years I've preached on this, they find most kind of puzzling. So the king now comes in to meet his guests, all these people he's invited. And he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.

11:01 The king said to him, My friend, how is it? You came in here without a wedding garment. But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, Bind his hands and feet, cast him into the darkness outside, where there's wailing and grinding of teeth. Many are invited, but few are chosen. So you think, okay. I guess, Bishop, I'm with you. This really is a story about grace. The extravagance of grace. The tragedy of our refusal. I get all that. I get all that. But then what's going on here at the end? This poor guy who, you know, wasn't expecting a wedding invitation, and so he shows up and he doesn't have the proper garment on, and he gets thrown out and there's wailing and gnashing of teeth? Are we back to this king as sort of a psychotic tyrant? Now, here's the thing in the spiritual order, everybody. Grace first, always. Grace first.

11:53 Extravagant, yes, yes. Over the top, yes. Despite resistance, yes, again and again and again, God offers, God invites, come to the banquet. But then, in the spiritual order, once you're in God's house, God expects you to be clothed with his righteousness. God expects you now to be clothed with the good works of cooperation with his grace. You're inside the house through his grace. You're inside the party through his grace. But now he wants you to behave as someone who's worthy of being in that space. Now, I'm gesturing toward this famous old problem of grace versus works in the church. And I keep insisting, if you listen to me over the years, yes, grace is always first.

12:49 We don't earn our way into the party. We're invited. But once in the party, I say once in the church, now Christ expects us to live in accord with the rules of the house. See, that's where I think the symbolism of not having his wedding garment on, that's what it means. If through God's grace you receive the invitation, you accept the invitation, okay, but now behave as someone who's worthy of being in that house. I think if we unpack this simply told but really beautifully complex story, we see the essential dynamics of the spiritual life.