This Gospel reading is from Matthew. It describes how the lost are “too busy” to concern themselves with saving their souls and how they are lost, weeded out, by earthly concerns.
And, at the end, an early Protestant is mentioned. What happened to that early Protestant?
Mt 22:1-14
Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast (The Last Supper/The Body and Blood without which we do not have life within us.), but they refused to come.
A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”’ Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. (They were too busy with earthly concerns to worry about their souls.) The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. (The murderers were agents of a threatened Babylon in ever age,)
The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
That man would not follow fully the instructions necessary to be worthy of entry. This early Protestant thought he could get into Heaven without following God’s “Dress Code for the Soul”.
The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. (He could not admit that he thought he was too important to have to obey.) Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
That, dear friends, is the risk that so many of our neighbors run. They think they can get into Heaven on their terms. Jesus is saying they cannot! He founded One Church and it, alone, provides the Holy Communion necessary to “have life in us.”
We must never forget that Jesus purposefully drove lesser believers away by saying, fourteen times, “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.”
We must pray that those we love will ask for the humble obedience necessary to avoid an eternity of darkness, wailing, and grinding of teeth. It is so much better to believe in The Church Jesus Founded than in some man-invented variant.
