Living for Jesus Is 25:6-10a; Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Phil 4:12-14, 19-20; Mt 22:1-14 The Scriptures for this Sunday all speak of food in one way or another. Isaiah imagines a future for Israel in which God will arrange a banquet of “rich food and choice wine.” The psalmist is confident that God will set out a table for him. Paul assures the Christians of Philippi that he has “learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry.” In the reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus compares the coming reign of God to a banquet that a king gave on the occasion on his son’s marriage. This focus on food and eating is not at all exceptional in the Bible. One might even say that the Scriptures are food obsessed. The Bible comes from a place and time when having enough food to eat was a source of great anxiety. The geography of the Holy Land made food shortages and even famine an ever-present possibility. There was a local climate change in Canaan at the end of the late Bronze Age that caused a famine that lasted for 150 years. A few years after the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jerusalem was hit hard by the effects of a famine that gripped the entire Roman world. Paul asked the Christian communities he founded in Asia Minor and Greece to help the poor Christians of Jerusalem purchase food. Queen Helene of Adiabene used her own resources to help the Jews of Jerusalem survive the famine. These famines not only led to catastrophic food shortages but also to economic chaos, social dislocations, migrations and political collapse. All this was especially hard on the poor. It is little wonder then that banquets with abundant food and drink became a feature of people’s expectations of the world to come. Matthew depicts Jesus employing the image of God’s reign as a banquet, but he adds two discordant notes. First, some people who were invited to the banquet chose not to come. The invitation to the banquet is just that — an invitation. We all have found it necessary to turn down invitations for a variety of reasons. The invitation to participate in the banquet in the reign of God is not one more social obligation among many. The invitation Jesus offers requires not only our acceptance but also our decision to make the reign of God and its justice the integrating force in our lives. Every other aspect of our lives is to be judged on whether and to what extent it is an expression of our commitment to Jesus and the Gospel. The tragedy is that some people choose to disregard this invitation. The other discordant note is the expulsion of the guest without the “wedding garment.” The expectation that the last-minute invitee has the appropriate dress appears unreasonable. How could the king expect the guests he literally pulled off the street to be properly attired for a wedding celebration? But that is precisely the point Jesus is making with this seemingly unrealistic expectation. We must be ready at any minute for the arrival of God’s reign. It will come at a time we least expect. When it does come, we are to be clothed with deeds of love that are to characterize the life of the authentic disciple of Jesus. It is not enough just to accept the invitation. It is not enough to simply show up at the banquet. Believing in God, accepting Jesus Christ, coming to church for worship are necessary, but they are not enough. The Christian life is just that, a life. The irony is that in living our life for Jesus and the Gospel rather than for ourselves, we will find our truest happiness. A life of selfishness and sin inevitably leads to isolation and unhappiness. Living for God leads us to find our truest self and our truest happiness.
About the Author Father Leslie Hoppe, OFM, is professor emeritus of Old Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union, 5416 S. Cornell Ave., Chicago.