Highly unusually for me, I recently went to two weddings a month apart. I didn’t officiate either, so the usual pressure to perform was off, and at best I played only a minorly ornamental role. Obviously, all wedding guests’ attention was squarely on the bride and groom, yet everyone had made an effort to look the part: coiffed ladies in their beautiful dresses, gentlemen in their best suits, even children in their “Sunday best”. Everyone was on their best behaviour so as not to ruin the newlyweds’ wedding day, but to make it even more special. Having been invited to the wedding, a clear sign of a special place in the newlyweds’ hearts, the guests kindly responded by turning up in style. Everyone who has ever organised a party knows how devastating rejection can be, and how particularly hurtful it is when it comes at short notice. For that reason, Jesus’ audience in today’s gospel instantly understood how harsh his judgment of the Jewish elites was when they had heard the parable.
But the parable had another side, especially when retold in early Christian communities made up of Jewish members and pagan converts, often torn between two apparently irreconcilable ways of religious practice. For the former, they understood their faith in Jesus as the Messiah as a spiritual continuation of their ancient religion and, consequently, religious practices should continue, topped with a new messianic layer. When early communities reluctantly admitted Gentiles, the natural expectation was that they would effectively convert to Judaism by adopting and practising it in minute detail. When they didn’t, an ever fiercer conflict erupted within the primal Church. Like “the chief priests and the elders of the people”, addressed by Jesus in the gospel, who considered themselves guardians of the true faith, so too did many Jewish members of the early Christian communities. It was extremely hard to shake off their sense of superiority, deeply rooted and ingrained over many generations. St Paul, a fierce opponent of such thinking, addressed it in his Letter to the Romans: “You say you are a Jew. You trust in the law and proudly claim to be close to God. You know what God wants you to do. And you know what is important, because you have learned the law. You think you are a guide for people who don’t know the right way, a light for those who are in the dark. You think you can show foolish people what is right. And you think you are a teacher for those who are just beginning to learn. You have the law, and so you think you know everything and have all truth.” (2:17-20) Having said that, he echoed Jesus’ allegorical accusations of double standards: “You teach others, so why don’t you teach yourself? You tell them not to steal, but you yourself steal. You say they must not commit adultery, but you yourself are guilty of that sin. You hate idols, but you steal them from their temples. You are so proud that you have God’s law, but you bring shame to God by breaking his law.” (2-21-23) In the context of such an intense conflict, the invitation of “second-class” wedding guests in Jesus’ parable offered pagan converts great hope and support. Two thousand years later, we, people of non-Jewish stock, are spiritual beneficiaries of those early struggles, which the early Church authorities eventually resolved in a conciliatory manner (see Acts 15).
We can find a third meaning of today’s parable when we listen to it in the context of 21st-century Scotland. In biblical tradition, a feast or banquet is a common metaphor of close relationship with God; today’s first reading is just one of many examples. In the New Testament, it acquired an additional, eucharistic meaning. Very early gatherings were akin to banquets, as hinted by St Paul in one of his letters: “When you all come together, it is not really the Lord’s Supper you are eating. I say this because when you eat, each one eats without waiting for the others. Some people don’t get enough to eat or drink, while others have too much. You can eat and drink in your own homes.” (1 Corinthians 11:20-22) It quickly evolved into a more sombre, serious religious Sunday gathering, increasingly similar to what we know as Sunday Mass. The Letter to the Hebrews hinted at a challenge that persists to this day: “We must not quit meeting together, as some are doing.” (10:25) In the parable, those first invited found their excuses to miss the wedding feast: “they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business,” while others turned volatile and killed the servants. There are Catholics who find their own excuses to treat Sunday Mass as optional at best. They are not here, so there’s no point in ranting about it. You who have made the effort and are here can play the role of the servants in the parable, sent out “to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.”
