Deliver the Invitations! (27.A)

We’ve all heard today’s Gospel story before and we think we know the message:  It’s not a good idea to turn down an invitation.  It’s even a worse idea to kill the guy who delivers it.  But if you do show up, follow the dress code.

Okay.  We probably know more than that.  Indifference to God’s call is a bad thing.  Rejecting God’s call is a worse thing.  And if we don’t want to come to his wedding banquet, God will find others who do.

Those are important lessons, and it would be good to ask ourselves whether we’re the ones who laughed at the invitation, the ones who killed the messengers, or whether we are wearing the wedding robe of obedience to God’s commands or not.  But just for today let’s take a very different look at the parable.

Let’s not focus on the king—we know that’s God our Father—or on his son—we know that’s the Lord Jesus.  Instead let’s take a look at the slaves, the servants who obeyed the king’s command to deliver invitations to this important wedding banquet.

Those servants had a simple enough job at the beginning.  They were first-century couriers.  And yet the task turned dangerous and they ended up dead.

The next batch of slaves faced a far greater challenge.  In the first place, the routine assignment was now perilous.  There was no guarantee they wouldn’t end up like the first group, dead.  But more than that, they now had to recruit guests for the banquet; that’s a much more demanding undertaking.

Can we put ourselves in the shoes—or sandals—of these servants?  Before you answer that, another question: can we see the banquet of the son as much more than a wedding reception?  Might we see it as the feast of rich food prepared by the Lord of Hosts for all peoples, the banquet that celebrates the destruction of death and the end of tears and sorrow?

Because if we believe that the Lord has prepared a table for us—a feast of fellowship here on earth and a wedding banquet in heaven—then the commission to invite others becomes crucial and urgent.

In earlier times, and today in other places, the brothers and sisters we call martyrs were willing to face a murderous response from those they invited to the wedding banquet of the Son of God.  Are we now ready to be sent out to the main streets of North and West Vancouver to extend an invitation to both good and bad, so that the wedding hall will be filled with guests?

I’m not sure why it is quite so difficult to convince Catholics of the urgency of this duty.  It’d be fair to say that the priests of fifty years ago were more successful convincing people they would go to Hell for eating meat on Friday than I am convincing you that sharing the Faith is not just for some but for all—a requirement for every serious Christian.

What I’m doing wrong, I’m not sure.  But I can’t blame the choice of Sunday readings.  Last week Jesus told us “the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the Kingdom.”  He gave this dire warning directly to the chief priests and elders to whom he was speaking, but I think he is giving it to us, to us Catholics, today.

Where do you find a people that produces the fruits of the Kingdom?  You can start by visiting an Evangelical Protestant church.  Well, I’d rather you didn’t do that, to tell you the truth!  But check out their websites and see their focus on evangelizing, on sharing the Gospel with the people they meet in every circumstance.

The website of one of these congregations has the bold statement “We exist to make Jesus known.”  That’s a perfectly good summary of the thousands of words written about the Catholic Church in the documents of Vatican II.  But can we honestly say this is how we feel about our parish?

Yet if we don’t exist to make Jesus known we don’t exist at all.  And if you don’t want to make Jesus known then you don’t know Jesus.  Sorry, but that’s the truth.

We used to have great excuses as Catholics.  We had lots of children, they all came to church, and then they had lots of children, and they all came to church.  What’s more, people thought Catholics were strange so nobody wanted to become a Catholic unless they married one.

Those excuses are all gone and the situation is clear.  Once the current wave of immigrants from Catholic cultures has fully assimilated we will be forced to confront the truth: either we share the Gospel with the countless un-churched people we know, or we prepare for empty pews and—worse yet—live as half-hearted disciples barely worthy of the name.

But the best excuse of all was simply that Catholics didn’t know how to share our faith.  Jehovah’s Witnesses stood on street corners, the Mormons knocked on doors, and the Evangelicals cornered you on a plane.  We sure didn’t want to do that, so what could we do?

Really, that excuse was a good one.  We didn’t know what evangelization meant or how it worked, so how could we do it?

Well, now you know.  Those excuses just don’t fly now that at least three Popes and three Archbishops of Vancouver have called each of us to a missionary identity.

Those excuses don’t fly in a parish where there are three distinct opportunities to share your faith without standing on a single street corner or knocking on a single door.  Three distinct opportunities that are non-threatening, enjoyable, and easy.  Three opportunities in three weeks.

You heard about them last week and the silence was deafening.  Just a handful of enquiries and signups.

I’m not scolding, just reporting because it’s not too late.  There’s two days before the Alpha film series starts on Tuesday night, and the Discovery Faith Study has flexible startup dates beginning this week. 

The Path to Life discipleship retreat will be held on Saturday November 4, so that’s a bit further down the road—however the speaker is so well known that people from outside the parish will snap up every ticket if you don’t purchase your tickets after Mass today.  I say ‘tickets’—meaning one for yourself and one for the friend, family member, or neighbour you’ll invite to join you.

I realize some of us still struggle with the word evangelization.  We really don’t know what it means or demands of us.  Forget about your old ideas.  Forget about knocking on doors.  Forget about asking your golf partner “Are you saved?”  And forget about people on television asking for money.  Evangelization just means sharing the Gospel.  And at Christ the Redeemer Parish on Sunday October 15, 2017 it concretely means inviting someone to one of these programs—or just coming yourself if you think you’re the one who needs evangelizing.  Many Catholics do.

I certainly can’t force anyone to deliver these invitations—I’m not a king and you aren’t slaves!  Although I do have to tell you that one of our young parishioners delivered several hundred invitations to homes in the neighbourhood.  (I was very pleased when he texted me to say that no one had seized, stoned, or beaten him.)

But if you’d like to take the Gospel literally, there’s a box of these leaflets sitting on the information table in the foyer.  You could put some in your apartment foyer or ask your kids to put them through mailboxes on your street, as long as you don’t live in the immediate area of the church, which we’ve covered.

It’s up to you.  But, looking back to last Sunday’s Gospel, if we do nothing the Kingdom of God will be taken away and given to a people that produces the fruits God expects from true disciples.

At Thanksgiving, Share the Blessing of Faith!

My mother hated custard pudding when she was a girl. But that was the dessert my grandmother served at lunch one school day, and Mom wouldn’t touch it.

“You’re not going back to school unless you eat,” my grandmother threatened.

Mom held out until she knew she’d be late, and finally downed the pudding, hating every mouthful. Pleased with this, grandma told her to say grace after meals and get back to school.

After a brief pause, Mom prayed “Almighty God, we give you thanks that the custard didn’t make me sick. Amen.”

That’s a reminder on Thanksgiving weekend that gratitude comes in many forms.

I heard about another grandmother who was so thankful her four grandchildren were coming to stay with her for a week that she put a hundred dollars in the collection on the Sunday before they arrived.

At Mass the next Sunday, after they’d gone home, she put in two hundred.

As I said, there are many different kinds of gratitude.

For some things, our gratitude is immense, for others it may even be lukewarm. We have big blessings and small ones, blessings that are pleasant and even some that are painful. And we have blessings that we realize, and others we don’t even know.

It’s too bad that “count your blessings” has become something of a throwaway line. When the famous composer Irving Berlin was having trouble sleeping, his doctor told him to try counting his blessings. Berlin turned that into the song “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)” for the movie White Christmas. But counting your blessings is a serious business, not a cure for insomnia.

In fact, counting our blessings is a Christian duty. If we don’t know what we’re thankful for, we’re not really thankful. St. Paul tells us clearly in today’s second reading that prayer and thanksgiving go hand-in-hand. In one phrase, “Do not worry about anything, but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

And in case we miss the importance of his advice, the Apostle tells us what will follow this kind of prayer: the peace of God. The peace that every heart seeks and needs.

One of the simplest of all formulas for daily prayer is called the ACTS methods. It’s so simple that I even found it in a book called Christian Prayer for Dummies! ACTS stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. The four letters capture all three of Paul’s directives, and of course adoration—giving God praise and honor for who He is—must be the start of all prayer.

But today let’s focus on thanksgiving, and not only because of the calendar.

Could we spend some time this morning thanking God for something that we might not come to mind when someone asks “what are you thankful for?”

If that question comes up at dinner tonight or tomorrow—as it should—our first answers are usually our family, our friends or even the food, because we can see these blessings as we look around the tale.

How many of us would answer “my faith”? Yet surely faith is a greater blessing even than family, friends and food.

Today’s readings really help us think seriously about this. The prophet Isaiah sings us a love song from God, whose love for us is compared to the owner of a vineyard planted and tended with exquisite care.

Jesus is obviously using the very same image in his parable. A landowner who builds a fenced-in vineyard with its own wine press and watchtower has done all he could possibly do to ensure a great harvest.

How could such loving care lead to ruin and bloodshed? Obviously human sinfulness is at the heart of it, but I suggest a lack of gratitude is the first cause of the failed harvest in the first reading and the murderous actions in the Gospel parable.

How can someone neglect or reject something for which they’re grateful?

Happily, there’s no-one in Church this morning who rejects the landowner’s Son, the Lord. But the scriptures warn us not only against rejecting God’s gift of salvation but also of neglecting it. Neglecting the Kingdom of God can be almost as bad as rejecting it.

Today, we need to put God’s gift of salvation—and the peace it promises—at the top of the list of things for which we’re thankful. But not in the half-hearted way my Mom prayed after her unhappy lunch. If we’re not sure how thankful we are for faith, today’s a day to ask what we can do about that.

If you want to know what you really think and feel about your faith, here’s a simple test: have you shared it lately? Are you willing to share it? Because there’s a natural human instinct to share what we love with those we love.

Notice I’m not asking you—yet!—to share your faith with strangers. We have enough family and friends around us, especially this weekend. Do we have enough gratitude for God’s gifts to share them?

This isn’t one of those rhetorical questions you can hear in a homily and forget about by the time we say the Creed. No, today we’re all of us challenged to answer that question—to test how seriously we thank God for faith—through action.

In the next four weeks, our parish offers three ways to share what you love with those you love.

First, the Alpha Film Series. This immensely-popular program starts on Tuesday, October 17. It offers eleven weeks of great videos and non-judgmental conversation, served up with dessert. Alpha is a basic introduction to Christian faith, suitable for just about everyone from atheists to agnostics to fallen-away Catholics. (Although unless you are one of those, you can’t come alone—bring someone along.)

Second, around the same time, we are launching the Discover Discipleship faith study. It’s suitable for everyone, especially those who have already done Alpha. Many small groups will meet at convenient times. The Discovery faith study comes to us from CCO, which has used it to lead university students—a tough crowd—to know Jesus. Now we’re using it for all ages. And since Discover Discipleship is only a six week-program, it may suit those who can’t find the time for Alpha.

Finally, we are again hosting the Path of Life Retreat. On Saturday November 4, the dynamic Jake Khym will be with us to repeat his wonderful all-day presentation. It was a sell-out last year, so I am hoping that many of you who attended will have the enthusiasm to invite others. Tickets go on sale next week.

I am praying that by the end of Thanksgiving Day, every parishioner will have invited one person to one of these three events.

1-2-3. Check the bulletin or website for all the details. And check your heart for the willingness to replant the vineyard today in gratitude for all that God has done for you.