It seems at first that there is quite a contrast of mood in how God is presented in the readings today. The first reading is a beautiful passage from the prophet Ezekiel, a passage so valued in the Church that it is one of the readings chosen for the Easter Vigil. "I will take out of your bodies your hearts of stone and give you hearts of flesh instead". That stone, the hardened heart, can be as difficult to move as the stone that sealed the tomb of Jesus.
It is a moment of repentance on the part of the Lord, undertaken in order to show his holiness to the nations through what happens to Israel. Concern for his name among those nations moves God to restore his people, to give them new hearts and spirits, and to make them walk in his ways. Only then can it be said once again that he is their God and they are truly his people.
The parable of the wedding feast represents God in a very different mood. It speaks of another moment in his fraught relationship with humanity. We have heard enough about it from Ezekiel also in recent weeks. The king's generosity meets indifference and disdain as people refuse his invitation and even mistreat the messengers he sends to them. Finally he takes revenge on them, destroys them and their cities, and sends his messengers to call anybody and everybody to the feast.
It is easy to contextualise this within Jesus' conflict with the religious authorities. They are the ones who have shown disdain and indifference towards God's generosity. So far so Ezekiel-like. But there is a twist in the tail. The man who shows up without a wedding garment at a wedding to which he was not expecting to be invited, is thrown out, which seems very unfair. We are accustomed to that response in ourselves to things Jesus says and does: it seems unfair. What kind of justice is at play?
The teaching of Jesus is not candy-floss. It makes real and serious demands. To accept the invitation, to respond to the call, requires a certain way of living on the part of those who are invited and called. It is a warning against presumption. If the Pharisees and other religious leaders presumed on their own righteousness, and are criticised for it, those who hear the call of Jesus cannot in their turn begin to presume on the gifts they have received.
It is a question once again of having a new heart and a new spirit, of living by the statutes and decrees of the Lord. It confronts us once again with the mystery of grace. We need God's gift if we are to live in the way that is right for us. We need God to make us live by his statutes. But we cannot presume on his generosity and simply go on living as we have done up to now. We must put on the wedding garment and we need God's Spirit to enable us to do that. Only then will we truly be among God's people, and He be our God.
No comments:
Post a Comment