Meditation: Trinity 20 – 2023

22 Oct 2023

Text: Matt 22:1-14 (Isa 55:1-9, Eph 5:15-21)

Note: This was read by the Deacon.

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The prophet Isaiah invites “everyone” to a feast.  And it is free: “Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”  Even water is free in this invitation.  And Isaiah makes it clear that this is a spiritual banquet: “that your soul may live.”  The prophet asks why we spend money on things that don’t satisfy us, because the best and richest food is free.

And so, dear friends, let us “seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.”

And because of this promise of grace, St. Paul warns us to “Look carefully” as you walk your Christian walk, “making the best use of your time, because the days are evil.”  Instead of getting “drunk with wine,” we should be “filled with the Spirit” with “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” 

And these two readings lead us to our Gospel, in which Jesus tells a parable about a wedding feast.  It is the same banquet that Isaiah talks about: an invitation to dine at the King’s table, “without money and without price.”  For the King’s Son is getting married, and the King has invited certain chosen people to come.  The meal is prepared.  The banquet hall is decorated.  “Everything is ready.”

But one by one, the chosen people who were invited decide that they have better things to do, other plans that seem to be a better deal.  And in fact, those who were invited even kill the messengers of the King.

And so, what would you think happens in Jesus’ story?  The King “was angry.”  And “He sent His troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.  Clearly, the people who were originally invited “were not worthy.” 

But the King still wants the wedding hall filled.  And so He sends servants out bearing invitations to the feast, going out into all nations, taking to the streets and inviting everyone, “both bad and good” into the King’s palace for the feast.  “So the wedding hall was filled with guests.” 

This banquet is God’s Kingdom.  It’s a feast.  And it’s free.  But to those who try to sneak in “without a wedding garment,” those who try to come to the banquet on their own terms, will be thrown out.

But the good news is that you are invited.  You were given a wedding garment at your baptism.  You are worthy to sit at the King’s table and dine with the Son.  And remember Isaiah’s invitation: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on Him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Come to the wedding feast!  Everything is ready!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.