Richard Bollman, S.J.

HOMILY "On Being Invited"

Isaiah 25:6-10, Matthew 22:1-10

You probably have heard of the heavenly banquet.

Think of it as an image of God’s generous blessing upon us.

It is to come, it is not yet realized, so you can think of it

as a sign of the Kingdom, or an image of heaven too.

We hear this morning

from a passage in Isaiah that captures all the elements.

This reading occurs often enough in funeral masses.

Jesus takes this tradition to make a parable

about a banquet that is open and available right now,

a part of his own culture.

He describes a wedding feast, abundant and ready,

but his parable includes a startling turn-about--

many people who were invited do not want to come in.

The parable from Matthew explores that resistance,

how we get in our own way, because we are either indifferent,

or perhaps when we finally arrive, we don’t know how to

really take part in the celebration.

Clearly, for Jesus, response to invitation is the essential act of faith!

So, as I understand this parable, the great wedding feast

invites us to remember our faith, what we live from.

Even in this broken world, even now,

God’s power toward us is an invitation. Come in.

We’re invited in. And that’s the point.

It takes some getting used to.

So the work of God is going to put us next to other people.

We don’t manage that entirely, we’re not in charge.

And we’re certainly not invited alone!

Just this weekend, Barbara Smitherman, whom you probably know here,

invited me to attend the NAACP banquet and give the invocation,

and that was a huge scene, over 1000,

and very diverse, largely African American, but with many other guests,

and I struggled to recognize them.

And so you think: do I belong here.

Isn’t that a common response for moment?

Spiritual insight, I find is the discovery that yes, I belong here.

And all through the crowd I’d spot people I knew or had a connection with,

a sign of support in my searching.

Of course, even moreso, I was not in charge of the flow and the procedure.

There was the program in the book, and then there was what was happening.

And I thought of a teenager at Mass, feeling you belong,

after all you were invited,

but the big mix takes getting used to. You’re not in charge.

And you don’t know exactly the next turn in the ceremony.

Who is that up there talking now? Where did the dancers come from?

I just had to keep still and get a feel for it.

This is a lot like life itself,

and a lot like sorting out the meaning of our shared faith.

I found this story once in a New York magazine.

A father asked his son, a teenager,

what it was really like for him coming to church,

what pulled him out each Sunday.

"Besides coercion?" the kid said.

But then he said, this kid barely more than a boy,

that after the coercion, after showing up, he said

"it’s the coffee and doughnuts, the socializing, the weirdness of it."

Okay so you have to picture maybe a New York urban congregation,

to get a feel for what this young man was seeing.

But you know this scene too, the socializing, the weirdness of it,

the community of these pews, this church you’ve found,

it has this risky and random feel to it.

Who started this banquet, how did I get here?

A very good book about parish life is called A Community of Strangers.

And this New York teen had the right idea about it.

He said, "you know, they’re people I avoid on the bus or on the street,

and it’s very cool to find myself in the communion line with them."

I think that’s perfect. This is Catholicism.

This is the true nature of the sacred.

That’s the sense of this parable. God the great feast maker,

and the one who has a deep capacity to enjoy whoever comes,

God, liking to be with the whole human mess of us,

and secretly liking for us to be together too.

God summoning together the big banquets and the small.

We’re all in the communion line.

And our whole human person, our human being-ness is invited,

and that’s what we are, only human.

I think of that as the perfect word at the threshold of death:

"God, I’m ready to die, I’m ready to come, but remember

I’m only human." That’s what I’d want to say.

Or the threshold of Bellarmine Chapel:

I’m here, but remember, I’m only human.

Think of that with your children, with a baby who cries:

I’m here, but I’m only human.

So it is every day. All knowing of ourselves begins with this,

"I am a human being, I am a mix of possibilities and gifts

and fallen ways and of grace."

I am brought here, through an early

and sometimes hidden involvement with Jesus,

a falling in with Jesus known as baptism,

where the Spirit of God began to light my way and preserve me from chaos.

God has a chance to work with us through weakness and foolishness.

And God intends to work. Maybe that’s what makes all this

just a little bit threatening. The invitation changes us.

People ask about spirituality, people ask about prayer.

As if there’s a new skill to be learned, a project to grab.

But the deeper question is this:

are we willing to come when invited, are we ready to be found.

And out of that–which so often comes with connecting to human beings–

out of that willingness to be in the mix,

there comes a new mind and heart and sense of yourself.

All spirituality starts from this point:

a cry of wonder, and a cry of amazement at the changes possible.

and a call to honesty and change of heart, don’t you see?

God extending God’s own self: this continual and relentless invitation.

I’m invited to be here. And I’m only human. That’s the start of prayer.

Like at the banquet this weekend:

for awhile all you can see is the soft lighting, the flowers,

this heavenly place: and at one end there’s a choir singing,

and at the other end, people are working the cash bar,

and all in between, signs of recognition, people in their best clothes,

(oh wasn’t that Barbara and Wayne Beimesche from Bellarmine?)

but you haven’t arrived yet yourself, you are looking around.

And you know you’re not looking for God exactly,

but there is something to find, above a plate, among salads and desserts,

there it is is, your own name!

Oh my, I’ve been expected, I’ve been found.

Finding your name at the table.

That’s what you want, each day, each morning when you get up from bed.

Your name is called, written, sung by angels, directing you.

Risky, and desired as it is!

That’s where your faith is renewed, and your prayer begins.