THE ‘WHY AND WHAT’ IN THE GOSPEL OF THE 28^TH SUNDAY

Reading today’s Gospel text, re St.Matthew, 22: 1-14, some curious questions might crop up… and rightly so. The reason is simple; we can’t understand the Gospel Text to the fullest and correctly, if we do not have a background study of the Culture and Customs of the Jews in the life and times of Jesus Christ.

To begin with Jesus had a double message, a local message, for the Jews, so He had to apply the usage, the customs, the common trends to which His hearers were used to.  But He had a universal message for all, including us in the year 2014.

When somebody was going to host a feast, yes, they sent word to all the invited guests informing them that they were invited guests to participate. Unlike our Western Culture, no written invitation was sent, normally three weeks before, stating the day the time or the place. They simply knew that they were invited to the particular feast.

Besides the king, in our case, used to provide the proper dress for each guest to wear for the occasion. On the understanding that the dress had to be returned, to the palace, clean and shipshape. When the day arrived a second message was sent informing all guests that ‘the time has arrived’, the calf was fattened and everything was in order. You simply had to put on your very best and go to the feast.

Those were the days when we find great misery and poverty; a man’s daily pay was on an average three shekels a day, just enough to feed his wife and children. So when invited to a ‘feast’ which lasted a whole week, we can imagine what a relief for at least the coming week.

All the Jews listening to Christ’s parable understood the meaning of His message. But verse 7 in the text was not mentioned by Jesus Himself. I’m referring to the incident when ‘the king sent his soldiers to destroy and burn the house of all those who refused his invitation’. This line was included by St.Matthew himself, but with an aim in mind. He was addressing mainly the Jewish converts to Christianity and his intention was to remind them what had happened in the year 70 AD. He was writing the version of the Gospel between the years 80 and 90 AD.

He wanted to remind his hearers what had happened to those who had not heeded Christ’s words and admonitions. Christ wanted to instill the sense of love, gratitude, mercy and forgiveness. Instead the Jews kept behaving the other way round. They even considered Christ as their enemy. The result was the Passion and Death of Jesus.

The Romans could not put up any longer with the behavior of the Jews and as a result there was the destruction, annihilation of most of the Jews and Jerusalem itself … including the Temple. That is why Matthew included that verse, 7, as reminder of what had happened to their ancestors, years before.

To be Continued