In this weeks Gospel Matthew 22:1-14 Jesus tells the parable of a king that’s wants to have a wedding feast for his son. The king sends out his servants so they can bring the invites guests to the party. The guest refuse to show up. The King sends out the servants a second time and once again the guests refuse to come to the feast. Not only did they refuse to come the the feast, some killed the king’s servants. The king was very angry so he responded by sending his troops out to have the murderers killed. Then he said to servants go out invite whomever you find. The king finally has his feast . At one point the king was meeting his guests. One guest was not dressed appropriately for the feast. The king requested they this guest be removed. He said “Many are invited but few are chosen.”
I love the use of this parable because it touches upon a few different aspects of being a follower of Christ. One of them is that we have all been invited to the feast. GOD has room for all us. There are no limits to who can be a follower. We can all be there. Now, just like in the parable we have a choice. We can choose to accept the invitation. We can choose to go the the feast and be with the King. So, consider that we get a daily invitation when we wake up and go out into the world. We have a choice to reflect our love of God on to others. We have a choice in how we show up. We can choose to bring the energy and spirit of the lord with us or not. The invitation is always there. The choice to be a follower is means we put God into all of our actions. It means we put God first. To accept the invitation is to be Christ like. We talk the talk and walk the walk. Do you accept your daily invitation?
Another aspect of Christianity that is parable touches upon is how we prepare for the feast. Are we spiritually prepared to dine with the King? Have we taken the steps to ensure we are going to fit in at the feast? I like to think that God wants us to prepare daily. He wants us to get prepared and stays that way. Spiritual preparation can be as straightforward as prayer every morning. It can be attending mass as often as possible. It can be as subtle as the little quiet prayers you say for someone else or yourself during the day. To be spiritually prepared means you have opened up your life to being with the God at all times. You are dressed and ready for the feast at all times. Spiritual preparation means you live a life that God isn’t just involved in. God is your life. That’s type of preparation that it takes if you want to be with the King.
As a follower of Christ sometimes I think we can take the invitation to the feast for Granted. We assume that we are automatically in and we don’t have anything else to do. That’s where we can get into trouble. That’s where we can get to comfortable and slack off in our preparation. This week a is great one to renew our commitment and get ready for the Feast. The last thing you want to do is show up unprepared for dinner with the King.
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