Jesus’ Challenging Parable

Dear Friend,

As I write this, the horrific violence that is tearing apart Israel and Gaza – and which continues to lay waste to Ukraine – continues unabated. And so it will be when we gather for Eucharist this weekend - unease, anger, grief, and fear will come with us, as will the searing questions - debated across all media outlets – about how in the world we’ve reached this place of political and social unravelling.  

It so happens that in the Gospel this Sunday we’ll hear Jesus tell a parable of a people in similar circumstances. What is meant to be the finest of wedding banquets becomes an occasion for communal fracturing and the head-long fall into violent disarray.  Matthew too was looking to his experience of the Risen Christ to make sense of his world, for he was writing to a community that had itself experienced the violent invasion of Jerusalem by Roman armies and the flattening of the Temple, the holiest of holy places.

As Matthew has Jesus address the parable to the religious authorities, there’s no doubt he meant to call that leadership to task in a shocking way. Today, as our church leadership gathers in Rome, they are wrestling, as leaders, with the question of how to make the church a place of intimate access to God for all people and a light of hope and reconciliation in a society tearing itself apart. I believe that Pope Francis was inspired when he wrote: "More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving." Come Holy Spirit!  

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor