The parable of the Wedding Banquet presents three kinds of guests invited to the wedding feast, which refers to the heavenly Kingdom. The first, those who are invited but refuse to come, are God’s chosen people: the Israelites.

God sends them prophets whom they refuse. In the fullness of time, God sends them John the Baptist and Jesus. Again the invitation to repentance falls mostly on deaf ears. Israel’s refusal opens the door to the Gentiles. Through the Apostles and the Christian missionaries, the banquet is opened to all kinds of people, “good and bad alike.”

But then the newly invited who constitute the new community of God cannot rely merely on the fact that they belong to the Church. They are required to be dressed in the wedding garment which represents a life lived in keeping with God’s call, a new life of good deeds, “the righteous deeds of the holy ones” (Rv 19:8).

The parable is thus an admonition to Christians to watch out for spiritual complacency and arrogance. Are we like the initial guests, too preoccupied with our own lives to heed God’s call? Or do we recognize the immense privilege of being invited to God’s banquet and respond with joy and gratitude?

May we be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, by living lives that reflect the love and grace we have received, so that we may be worthy participants in the eternal banquet of God’s Kingdom.

Thus says the Lord: I will prove the holiness of my great name, profaned among the nations, in whose midst you have profaned it. Thus the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when in their sight I prove my holiness through you.

For I will take you away from among the nations, gather you from all the foreign lands, and bring you back to your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees. You shall live in the land I gave your ancestors; you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Jesus spoke to the chief priests and the Pharisees in parables, saying, “The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: ‘Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.’

“Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

“Then the king said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.

“He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that 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, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.”