28th Sunday Year A - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2023

We often hear of tax-collectors and prostitutes being mentioned in the Gospels, or even in some of Jesus’ own stories. In today’s story told by Jesus, it was other generally overlooked and marginalised ones, the ones hanging around the town’s corners and crossroads, who were in the spotlight.

Kings also figure in some of the Gospel stories. At times, the king may exhibit some benign aspect of God. At other times, kings can behave erratically, either riotously violently or surprisingly generously.

At times, the story can serve a cautionary purpose or an edifying one.

We need to be alert when we listen — and generally expect a surprise one way or the other at the end of the story.

What can we make of today’s story? When I reflected on it last week, what came to my mind was the “fresh off the press” document recently written by Pope Francis on the urgent issue of the environment, called “Laudete Deum”. He issued it with a view to emphasising the coming Conference of world leaders planned for late November: COP 28, as it will be called.

With today’s Gospel also hovering there at the back of my mind, I started to think of the first group of invitees who failed to appreciate what was on offer, and were eventually not invited to the king’s wedding feast due to their lack of interest.

Francis has the clarity and the courage to recognise the precarious situation of the world’s climate. He believes that the leaders who set targets back in Paris in 2015 have generally fallen far short of their respective targets. They have not “come to the party”. They have behaved more like the ones in the story who prioritised their “going off to their farm, or to their business”.

Francis wants those who are honest about addressing the problem this time round to be prepared to set firm dates for effective action. This time they must be efficient, their goals obligatory and readily monitored. Climate concerns must take precedence over the pursuit of maximum gain at minimal cost [what he calls the world’s “technocratic paradigm”].

There is little doubt that the current crop of world leaders lack the courage, or the wisdom, to challenge the rich and powerful of the world.

Though he does not say so, to overcome this blockage may be the reason that Francis has written his document right now. He insists the need is urgent. He accepts that there is a truly high risk of a catastrophic and irreversible levels of global warming with imminent and unpredictable, but incalculable, effects on life — vegetable, animal and human.

He insists on the vanity of believing that technology by itself can painlessly solve the problems caused precisely by itself. In these times of uncertainty, technology needs a clearly informed and formed mind to direct it, along with a balanced hand to guide it.

This fruitful involvement calls for reflection and mutual listening at all levels of society, because all levels of society will be affected and also necessarily involved.

For these reasons, Pope Francis wrote: "May those taking part in the Conference be strategists capable of considering the common good and the future of their children, more than the short-term interests of certain countries or businesses. In this way, may they demonstrate the nobility of politics and not its shame”.

May it have been something like this that moved Jesus in his story today to have replaced those originally invited to the feast, and to have filled their places instead by “ordinary persons in the street”. And could they in that case mean us? And could that in turn mean that even we have a duty to keep pressure on our politicians and business barons to respond immediately and realistically to the calls of global warming and climate change in good faith?

And finally, may the story’s “one man without a wedding garment” simply refer to the one who could not be bothered by it all?