Reflection (Read Newsletter)
There are two parables in today’s Gospel.
The first is about the invited guests who are too
preoccupied with their own business
and affairs to come to the prepared feast.
When we consider the length of time
that guests may be involved in a celebration,
especially one given by a wealthy king,
this is more understandable.
The response of the invited guests,
the chosen people, was to kill the messengers,
an echo of last week’s Gospel where the people
of Israel rejected the prophets.
The second parable, in the longer version
of the Gospel, is about the one who came
but did not bother to change into his wedding
garments. In both, the reaction of the king
seems somewhat extreme!
But the parables make an important point about
the invitation being offered by God;
those who do not bother to respond
will lose their invitation; those who accept
but fail to change their way of life
(their clothes) will also lose out.
This text warns that Christian life is a web
made up of God’s gracious invitation
and our free response.

Reflection (Read Newsletter)
This parable is a thinly disguised story of the
blindness of those throughout Israel’s history
who have been appointed leaders
of God’s people.
It is aimed at the priests and scribes
who do not carry out the will of God.
There have been those who persecuted
and even killed those whom God sent.
In the Son ‘finally sent’, Christians
see Jesus also put to death because
his message was troublesome
and he always urged his hearers to
produce the fruit of penance.
God not only sent his servants,
the prophets, but also his own Son.
But the leaders of the people did not accept him.
The kingdom will be taken from them
and given to those who have faith in Jesus.
This would have spoken very powerfully
to Matthew’s community who were
Jewish Christians, struggling to move
away from their Jewish roots and accept Christ
as the Messiah rejected by his own.

REFLECTION (Read Sunday Newsletter)
A great deal has happened since last week’s
Gospel reading in the lectionary.
Jesus is now in Jerusalem. He has entered the
city (Mt.21:1-11) and has taken possession of the
Temple, driving out those who would corrupt
his Father’s house (Mt.21:12-17).
The crisis point of Jesus’ ministry has arrived
and he will enter into conflict with the
established religious authorities.
The point of this text is that it is not
‘conventionally religious’, who will mouth
all the right words and go through the rituals,
who will enter the kingdom. Instead it is the
ones who, by their actions, carry
out God’s will and so will become the
sons and daughters of God.
John the Baptist not only preached
righteousness, he lived it. Jesus describes
him as ‘a pattern of true righteousness’ (v.32)
and it was the broken people, the
Tax collectors and prostitutes, who accepted
what he had to bring. They believed in him,
repented and experienced a change of heart and
life. Are there leaders in our society who should
recognize what is right but do not?

Jesus’ teaching about the need to settle conflict,
the basis of last week’s gospel, was a surprising
summons to Christians to fly in the face of
accepted standards of judgement and
condemnation. Here the teaching becomes even
more outrageous! There is no end to the
forgiveness offered. For the average person,
represented by Peter, forgiving another person
seven times would show a very substantial
commitment to mercy. Seven is used in the
Bible to signify perfection, so Peter is not being
mean in his suggestion. This is a very
reasonable degree of tolerance. Yet Jesus, in his
parable of the servant who is forgiven a debt
equivalent to millions but cannot forgive his
fellow a lesser sum, turns our human
understanding of what constitutes a fair thing on
to its head. God’s forgiveness is enormous, but
it is dependent on our willingness to forgive each
other in the same way. The inability or
unwillingness of the servant to match the
master’s forgiveness is a powerful contrast. The
master forgives in compassion