Readings of the day: Isaiah 25:6-10a; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14
What is so important about clothing:
What we wear and how we wear it? Can our clothing not show something about who
we are or what we do for a living?
I have been asked a few times by
children, including once this week at St. Kateri School, about when priests
wear clericals, black pants and shirt with a white Roman collar. A few days
after I was ordained a priest, I spoke to students at the high school from
which I graduated near Edmonton. The students there were asked to prepare two
questions each for me to answer when I spoke in their classrooms. Again, some
of the most frequently-asked questions were about when, where, and why I wore
blacks and a Roman collar. One student asked, “Father, do you always have to wear priest clothes”?
No, I answered. I do not always have to
wear “priest clothes.” I wear clericals when I serve in public as a priest: At
Mass or other worship celebration, visiting our school, presenting or speaking
as a priest, meeting other priests or the bishop, hearing confessions, making
hospital or home visits to the sick, and so on… But I usually do not wear
clericals if I am relaxing at home, on vacation, or on a day off. Are there any
students here who wear a uniform at school? Is there anybody here who wears a
uniform at work? A black shirt with a Roman collar is like my uniform. It shows
who I am when I am serving in public as a priest.
And yet when and when not to wear our
priestly “uniform” can be unclear, as one of my brother Basilians who teaches
in one of our high schools found out the hard way this week. He was on his day
off, and so not in his black shirt and Roman collar. He went to run a quick
errand at the school where he teaches. As he was leaving the school, he greeted
one of his students, who was slow in returning his greeting. When the student
finally realized who was greeting her, she exclaimed, “Oh, sorry Father, I
didn’t recognize you without your clothes!”
Lightheartedness aside, this is a
similar plight to that of the man in today’s Gospel reading. We hear that this
man is ordered out of the king’s wedding feast for not wearing the wedding
garment given him by the king. “Many are invited but few are chosen,” Jesus’
parable ends. This man is unrecognizable without his clothes, and so cannot
remain at the king’s feast.
Might we feel that Jesus’ parable of the
wedding feast is a bit harsh? And yet clothing, how and what we wear and when
we wear particular kinds of clothing, matters. In the case of the man who is
expelled from the king’s wedding feast, we are asked to understand today’s
Gospel parable in the social context of Jesus’ first hearers. In Jesus’ time,
if somebody were to be invited to a wedding banquet of a rich person, like a
king, this person would be given a wedding garment to wear at the feast. Not to
wear it would be a great insult to the host! Add to this that, in today’s
parable, many had been invited but had “ignored” the invitation to the king’s
wedding banquet. One had gone back “to his farm, another to his business.”
Others had mistreated and even killed the king’s servants who had been sent to
deliver the invitation to the feast. And so more servants are sent, “into the
main roads” with more invitations to the feast. A man attends the feast, but
without his wedding garment provided to him by the king. He is unrecognizable
without his clothes.
This harsh-sounding parable, then, is actually
a parable about God’s generosity. God, represented by the king in the parable,
has sent servants out “into the main roads”; out to the highways and byways;
out to the poor; out to sinners like you and me, with invitations to the feast.
Do we accept God’s exceedingly generous invitation to the wedding feast?
For us, the king’s wedding feast has
been prepared. This feast is eternal life; the salvation to which we are all
invited by God. If we do accept God’s invitation, will we show up for the
wedding feast wearing the appropriate clothing for the occasion? Will we clothe
ourselves in a way that shows others who we are while also reflecting God’s
generosity to our world by the way we live? Will we wear the garment given us
by God, our king, out of generosity; a garment we do not deserve but
nevertheless a garment of salvation? At the king’s wedding feast, will we be
recognizable in our clothes?
When I speak of clothing, I am aware
that I am discussing a controversial topic for some of us. Have we not heard
the term “Sunday best?” Most if not all of us, I am sure, share a desire that
everyone dress reverently for a celebration such as the Mass. After all, our Eucharist
is an image; a sacrament of the eternal wedding feast of heaven. But, within
reason, one person’s definition of reverence may differ from that of another.
We balance reverence for Mass with dressing for the weather. Some of us are
wealthier than others, and so can afford fancier clothing than others…
All this is a caution against judging
what is in others’ hearts, even reverence or lack thereof for God and God’s
house, merely by the way they dress. Appropriate attire is important, but is it not even more
important for us to wear the festive clothing that is not visible to our eyes
but is recognizable nonetheless: The clothing of kindness; of compassion; of
generosity that reflects God’s kindness; compassion; generosity to the world?
Do we wear the clothing that invites others to join the king’s wedding feast;
that invites our brothers and sisters to think and say: “Here is a Christian; a
person of God: kind, compassionate, generous”? Some may even say, “I want to be
one of them”; one of us! Visibly but also invisibly, are we recognizable in our
clothes; the clothing of God’s wedding feast?
Outside of our Eucharistic celebration
and also within it, we are given signs; sacraments of the wedding garment to put
on; to be seen for who we are: Christians; a people of a generous God. [Today
we will celebrate a baptism after Mass.] At baptism, we wear a baptismal
garment that we pray will one day be brought “unstained into the kingdom of
heaven.” Our servers and I wear an alb, which reminds us of our baptismal
garment. Brides at weddings usually wear a white dress, not so much a sign of
purity or virginity as, again, a reminder of baptism and the wedding feast of
heaven. The pall over a casket at funerals also hearkens back to baptism and
forward to eternal life. Over a priest’s alb and stole at Mass is the colorful
chasuble, once again a reminder of the wedding garment to be given us by the
king, God, when we enter the eternal feast of heaven.
We have all been called, in the prophet
Isaiah’s words, to a feast of rich food and choice wines”; the feast of “the
LORD of hosts”; the eternal wedding feast of heaven; a feast, in St. Paul’s
words to the Philippians, of God’s “glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” We have
been called; invited. Will we be chosen? The king, God, has provided us all
with the garment for the wedding feast; a garment with visible; sacramental
signs, but also a garment of kindness; compassion; generosity; a garment that
shows to our world who we are and who God is. When we enter this wedding feast,
God only asks that we be recognizable in our clothes.
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