TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY OF YEAR "A"

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY OF YEAR    I

Mt. 22, 1 - 14: The Marriage Feast of the Son

Who can resist a dinner party?  Especially a party which offers rich food, fine wine and good company? The great English Catholic writer, Hillaire Belloc, penned the line: “Wherever the Catholic sun does shine, there is always laughter and good red wine.”  As you know, it takes eleven face muscles to smile but all of forty-three muscles to frown. We would do well to recall that laughter is the only tranquilliser yet developed that has no side effects. Yet, how many of us know fellow-Christians, some of them priests and nuns, who never smile.  They may be mad or sad, and it’s very bad.

To be happy you don’t have to be erotic, erratic, exotic or ecstatic. You can get out of bed ready to make the day an adventure. Or you can drag yourself out of bed dreading the hours ahead. Your attitudes help create your circumstances, and not the other way about.

In today’s parable, Jesus is reminding his Jewish audience that when the Messiah comes, one perk will be a first class sit down dinner with Dresden china and Baccarat crystal. The menu is alluded to in Isaiah, chapter 25: “juicy red food and pure choice wines.”  Clearly it will be the mother and father of all parties.  This is what God has to offer.  But we are so absorbed in the demands and dull routines of life that we do not even hear the invitation.  And perhaps we have turned religion itself into another dull routine, another tiresome demand and constraint.

Well, yes, indeed, life is not all happy-clappy.  Religion is not an escape route from the pressures of life. The apostle Paul knew this well. His little letter to the Philippians is quite special. Not only does Paul have to cope with the wearisome rivalries and personal vanities of the Christian community, but is also himself stuck there in prison, within the narrow confines of a filthy malodorous cell.  And yet his letter is full of joy - “I say to you, rejoice” (Phil 4, 4) is its constant theme.

Now let’s talk about Jesus. It is good to note that Jesus compares running around with him to enjoying a sumptuous banquet.  Clearly he feels the Church should be a happy place.  If Jesus was not a happy attractive person, how was it the children came around almost pestering him, literally sprawling all over him.  Kids avoid sad Sacks.  Why would be change water into so much wine if he didn’t believe in a good time?  His enemies called him a “glutton and a wine drinker.”  Again, had he been a spoilsport, why would he have hosted a sit-down supper party the very night before he died?  Would you and I have the guts and heart for that?

Jesus used amusing illustrations for his talks, and must have raised chuckles and giggles when expressing his opinion about certain people like Herod. Calling him a “fox”.  I’d raise chuckles and giggles here if I explained what that meant, but it’s too embarrassing!   The Gospel tells us that Jesus often went to the mountains alone.  Why?  G. K. Chesterton speculates that the apostles often made funny, even ridiculous remarks.  Jesus did not want to offend them by laughing in their faces. So he ran into the mountains holding his sides till be could burst out laughing, and tell his Dad, “These kids say the darndest things.”  If ever the Teacher had given us the 8th. Sacrament, it might have been the sacrament of laughter.

The early Christians got the point...  The biblical scholar, William Barclay, notes that the early Christians were called “Hilares”  - the Latin adjective from which the word “hilarious” comes. They possessed what one author has called “a certain holy hilarity.”   They went about their lives with a bounce in their steps and a smile on their faces. They behaved as though they were forever at a party.  As a result they attracted millions and millions of converts.  When Beethoven composed his Ode to Joy in the 9th. Symphony he might well have been thinking of the good news of Jesus.

May your joy help people to sense that Jesus does make a great difference in your life.

PRAYER:      Lord Jesus, we are your disciples. So may we share your joy in and amidst the pressures and troubles that life hands down to us.  With you in us we shall not be rocked by troubles, but take the rough with the smooth in pure detachment and faith in you.  As you have walked before us, lead us to the banquet of your Father in heaven.