Bishop Barron's Sunday sermon on the Parable of the Wedding Banquet
Bishop Robert Barron delivers a Sunday sermon unpacking the Parable of the Wedding Banquet from Matthew's Gospel.
Summary
Bishop Barron preaches on the Parable of the Wedding Banquet, in which a king invites guests to his son's wedding feast, only to be repeatedly refused, insulted, and have his messengers killed. He argues that the parable's deliberately exaggerated, unsettling quality is intentional — drawing on Flannery O'Connor's insight that "in the land of the deaf, you have to shout." The central spiritual tragedy the parable exposes, he contends, is humanity's persistent refusal of God's grace. He closes by addressing the parable's puzzling final scene — a guest thrown out for lacking a wedding garment — arguing that it illustrates the necessary relationship between grace and works: grace always comes first and gets us into the party, but once inside, God expects us to live accordingly.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The Parable's Deliberate Strangeness
Bishop Barron: Peace be with you. Friends, we have another parable today for our gospel, and like all the parables, it's kind of unsettling. It's a little strange. It's meant to disconcert us. Once you understand that, I think you can approach the parables better. If we think of them as just straightforward moralizing allegories, we're going to miss it. They're meant to shake things up. They're meant to throw us off balance.
We're told here that Jesus is speaking to the chief priests and elders — so he's going after the leadership of his people — and he tells this crazy story about a king inviting people to a banquet for his son. People make excuses, they don't show up. He sends more messengers out, people still ignore them. And then they kill the messengers. And then he finally sends word: "Go out to the hills and the dales and bring in everyone you can find." And then, to make it even weirder, the rabble all come into the party, but he notices someone and says, "You're not wearing a wedding garment," and throws him out. In the meantime, at one point in the story, he destroyed their entire city.
So you think: what are we dealing with here? If the king in the story is supposed to be God, he seems to be a kind of psychotic maniac. What do we make of this?
Flannery O'Connor and Shouting in the Land of the Deaf
Well, first of all, go back to my friend Flannery O'Connor — I think the greatest Catholic fiction writer of the last century. She said famously, because her stories were a bit like this: they were macabre and violent and over the top and shocking. When people asked her, this demure Southern lady, "Why do you write such stories?" her answer was, "In the land of the deaf, you have to shout." It's a very good insight.
What are people deaf to? She thought it was true back in the 1950s. How much more today? People are deaf to spiritual realities. If you're whispering a little spiritual story, they're not going to hear it. You have to shout in the land of the deaf to be heard. And so her stories, in all their macabre quality, did that. Well, that's what these parables are doing. This is a good example. It is of course over the top and exaggerated to make the point.
The Greatest Invitation Imaginable
So how can we parse this now? How can we bring out its spiritual power? Let's take it from the beginning. "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son." Now, this is not just any old party, not just any old person inviting people to a gathering. No — the king. The highest figure in the society, inviting people to a banquet for his son, a wedding banquet. It's the highest invitation you could possibly receive. That's the point.
To make our comparison — I know whenever you mention presidents, you get people's political hangups — but if you received a formally engraved invitation from the President of the United States to come to the White House for a special banquet, you'd say yes. You'd say, "Yes, I'll clear my calendar." How about for Catholics? The Pope has invited you personally to come to the Vatican for a special banquet. Or let's say the Pope is visiting America — we'll make it easier — and he says, "I want you to come to this banquet being held in your hometown, and I, the Pope, am inviting you." What would you say? "You know what? I'm busy that night. I've already got plans, Holy Father. I'm sorry. I'm going out bowling with my buddies." "I'm sorry, Mr. President. It's a very fine invitation, but I'm rearranging my sock drawer that night."
What you're meant to see right away is this: the greatest invitation possible. And not just the President, not just the Pope — the Lord God Almighty is inviting you personally to come to a banquet, a wedding banquet for his son. Christians, what are we hearing? God the Father sent his son as groom to his bride, the Church. This invitation is the most important thing that could ever come your way. Come to a banquet — a wedding banquet for my son — and I'm going to provide for you the best of everything.
And what's our response? "That's great, but I can't make it. I'm already busy." Or, "Yeah, I got this thing in the mail, but I just threw it away." What you're meant to see right away is the tragedy of our sinful lives. All of us, as biblical people, have received this invitation from God the Father to share his life by coming to the wedding banquet of his son. In the Catholic context, that means coming to the Mass. This is the highest thing you could possibly want or imagine. And what do most of us say? "Can't make it." It's meant to make you smile, to make you laugh at the sheer irony of it. We say no to this.
The Prophets as Messengers
So what does the king do? A second time he sends his servants, saying, "Look, I've prepared a banquet — a wedding banquet for my son. My calves and fat cattle are killed. Everything's ready. Come to the feast." He's already been insulted. Suppose you're the President and you've sent these engraved invitations and everyone ignores them. You're the Pope. You've sent a special Vatican invitation and everyone's ignored it. Nevertheless, he sends them out a second time.
What do we hear? Some ignored the invitation and went away — one to his farm, another to his business. And then it gets even weirder: the rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.
What are we talking about? God the Father inviting, inviting, inviting. We keep saying no. He sends more. Who are these messengers? His patriarchs and prophets, his great representatives — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hezekiah, and the rest of them. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All of them. He sends his messengers again and again and again. What do we do? Most of us look the other way, ignore them, who cares? At the limit, the king is inviting you to a banquet and you kill the messengers — but that's the prophets, who were at best ignored and at worst brutalized by the people to whom they were sent. What a world. That's what you're meant to see here.
Now, are we off the hook? Of course not. Yes, I'm talking about ancient Israel, but does this invitation go out to us? You bet — all the time. That's what religion is all about. That's the whole purpose of the Church: to evangelize, to offer this invitation. God the Father keeps inviting you. "Come, come to the banquet, come to grace, come to the wedding feast of my son, come to the Mass and eat the bread of the finest wheat." What do we say? "Too bored. I'm too busy. I can't make it." Or, at the limit, we mock — we mock the preachers of religion. Look at the new atheist today, the aggressive secularist, throwing mockery and disdain at the messengers of God. That's what we're meant to see here.
The central tragedy of the spiritual life is that we received the invitation and we said no. Go back to Flannery O'Connor. She was asked, "What are your stories about?" And she said, "The offer of grace, usually refused." That's pretty good. That's humanity in our sin. Grace is offered. We say no.
The Extravagance of Grace
So he's sent two rounds of invitation. In his frustration, he says, "All right, go out — not just to my friends and people I know, but go out to the highways and byways. Go out to the whole world and bring in anybody. The rich, the poor, everyone. Invite everyone to the party."
What is this? The extravagant quality of God's grace. Refused — again and again and again and again — refused. What does he do? He keeps inviting. They said no. Well, how about you? And they said no too. Well, then how about you? Think of the parable of the sower: he sows on the path, on rocky soil, and some seed falls in good soil. That's God's way — when we refuse him, he just keeps offering grace.
"Go out into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find." And so they went out into the streets and gathered all they found, good and bad alike. Do you need to be good to get the invitation? He invites the good and bad alike. What does Jesus say? He makes his sun to shine on the good and bad alike. He makes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. God's invitation is extravagant. It's over the top. It's incessant, whether we're saints or sinners. To the table of Jesus came the righteous and the unrighteous, the saints and the sinners, the prostitutes and the scribes and Pharisees. They were all invited. That's God's way.
The Wedding Garment: Grace and Works
Now, here's the last part of it, which people — maybe over the years I've preached on this — find most puzzling. The king comes in to meet his guests, all these people he's invited, and he sees a man not dressed in a wedding garment. The king says to him, "My friend, how is it you came in here without a wedding garment?" But the man was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, "Bind his hands and feet, cast him into the darkness outside where there is wailing and grinding of teeth. Many are invited, but few are chosen."
I get that this is a story about grace, the extravagance of grace, the tragedy of our refusal. But then what's going on at the end? This poor man who wasn't expecting a wedding invitation shows up without the proper garment and gets thrown out, with wailing and gnashing of teeth. Are we back to the king as a psychotic tyrant?
Here's the thing in the spiritual order: grace first. Always. Grace first. Extravagant, yes. Over the top, yes. Despite resistance, yes. Again and again and again, God offers, God invites — come to the banquet. But then, in the spiritual order, once you're in God's house, God expects you to be clothed with his righteousness. God expects you to be clothed with the good works of cooperation with his grace. You're inside the house through his grace. You're inside the party through his grace. But now he wants you to behave as someone worthy of being in that space.
I'm gesturing toward the famous old problem of grace versus works in the Church. And I keep insisting — if you've listened to me over the years — yes, grace is always first. We don't earn our way into the party. We're invited. But once in the party, once in the Church, Christ expects us to live in accord with the rules of the house. That's what the symbolism of not having the wedding garment on means. If through God's grace you receive the invitation and you accept it, then behave as someone worthy of being in that house.
If we unpack this simply told but beautifully complex story, we see the essential dynamics of the spiritual life. And God bless you.