Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot and doctor of the Church.

Bernard (1090-1153) from Burgundy, France, was a monk and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order. He founded an abbey at Clairvaux which became inspirational for monastic reform in the 12th century. A great preacher and devoted to the Virgin Mary, he was advisor to popes and crusaders and sought the unity of Christendom. At the Council of Troyes (1129) he helped to formulate the rule of the Knights Templar, who became the ideal of Christian nobility.

1st Reading: Judges 11:29-39

After Jephthah’s rash vow, he goes on to sacrifice his only daughter.

Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighbourhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” “Go,” he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned to her father,who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that

Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14

Parable of the royal wedding. People from the byroads take the place of the original guests.

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Forming a right conscience

It is futile to defend Jephthah’s action, even if we might understand his initial rash impulsiveness. Caught in a military crisis, he vows, if successful, to offer in sacrifice whatever living thing first comes out of the doors of the house to meet him. “When I return in triumph… I shall offer it up as a holocaust.” A holocaust must always be totally consumed on the altar. We are shocked by his carrying out this vow; for the first to meet him was his daughter, who came out, celebrating and dancing. Pathetically the text adds that she was his only child. Jephthah granted her request for two months to mourn her virginity, her inability now to marry and have children. Then she returned to her father, who carried out his terrible vow. But Gen 22, where at the last second Abraham is prevented from sacrificing his firstborn son, Isaac, shows that Yahweh never approved, but in fact condemned child sacrifice. It is no explanation to say that God could makes exceptions to this law against child sacrifice. The God of the Bible, a God of compassion and fidelity, cannot act with such blind and ruthless command over life and death.

We are left then with the serious warning — not everything that is done in God’s name, even in the Bible, can be accepted and followed as right. Fortunately we have the passage in Gen 22 to correct the horrible error of Jephthah. The final verse in Judges gives another warning to read cautiously: In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what they thought best. The entire Book of Judges is preparing for the inauguration of the Davidic royalty, a radical change from the earlier Mosaic traditions yet absolutely necessary. This episode compels us to question and evaluate our own motives and promises. Have we acted impulsively to the harm of others? Do we try to justify everything we do, saying that we do all things in God’s name? Do we use — or abuse — our legitimate authority to consider everything that we do as godly and automatically correct? Can we be corrected by common sense and candid observations from others?

While Jephthah acted imprudently — with very painful results — based on a false conscience, the gospel places before us the need to act firmly on a good conscience, properly guided not only by tradition but also by humble obedience to God. Jesus, in the punch-line of the parable, shows that gentiles from the byroads will enter the wedding feast, once reserved to the Jews. Then in a later revision of the parable, the phrase “bad as well as good” was added to describe the people from the byroads, thus preparing for the final judgment. Eventually God straightens out everything and manifests his providential care. Till then we must wait and believe, conscious of his abundant goodness towards each of us, called in from the byroads.

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Fair is fair

Most of us react instinctively against any form of behaviour that we consider to be unfair or unjust. If we think we are being treated unfairly, unjustly, we can feel especially irate. It is probably that instinct in us that leaves us feeling a bit uneasy about the story that Jesus tells in today’s gospel. We can easily sympathize with the complaint of the workers who bemoan the fact that those who only worked an hour got the same wages as those who worked all day. Yet, whereas those who complained were operating out of the category of justice, the employer was operating out of the category of generosity. He wasn’t unjust to those who worked all day; he gave them a denarius, which was the normal wage for a day’s work. However, he was simple extremely generous to those who only worked an hour, giving them a day’s wages too. Jesus was saying to us through this parable that God’s generosity does not fit into the categories of human justice; it doesn’t respond to human calculations. God does not deal with us according to our efforts, on the basis of what we deserve. There is nothing calculating about God’s generosity. God displays his mercy to those who have no claim on it. We can all identify with those who worked only an hour; we are all, in a sense, latecomers. The parable assures us that God’s generosity will surprise us and leave us humbled.