Readings (Year A):
Isaiah 25:6–10a
Psalm 23:1–3a, 3b–4, 5, 6
Philippians 4:12–14, 19–20
Matthew 22:1–14
Reflection: To be clothed in grace is to extend it to others
I work in a parish and urban ministry center in a mid-size New England city. One recent Sunday, a man walked into Mass near the end of the eucharistic prayer. He has come to our door frequently for years. He lives on the street and struggles with mental illness and substance use. On his occasional good days, we talk about God, and he asks about my child.
On this wet, windy Sunday, he entered the church wrapped from head to legs in a large white blanket, worn almost like a garment. I found myself thinking about the wedding garment in today’s gospel. In this parable, one guest arrives at a wedding banquet without the appropriate garment.
In the culture of Jesus’ time, the garment would likely have been provided by the host. The king who has invited everyone then provides what they need to enter the feast. Isaiah provides a breathtaking vision of God’s feast: rich food and excellent wine prepared for everyone. God destroys the barriers that divide us, swallows up death, and wipes away every tear.
But Jesus tells us that accepting the invitation means allowing God’s grace to change us. The wedding garment represents transformation. But we do have to put it on. We may be thrilled to accept God’s invitation—as long as we get to decide how we show up. But can we sit at a table with everyone? With people whose lives look very different from ours?
It is easy for me, a middle-income American, to hear “God provides all we need” as reassurance. I have never wondered where my next meal will come from, whether I will have clean water, or when instability or disaster might expel me from my home. But for people less accustomed to abundance, those words are not merely reassurance. For the disciples in the early church, at risk of being killed like the messengers in the parable, these words were survival. God’s feast was about food. Shelter and safety. Belonging. A world in which no one is cast outside the gates.
Which brings me back to the man in the white blanket. He sometimes behaves in challenging ways. It is easy to see him as “other,” and to avoid him. When I do, I have to ask myself: Am I seeing him through the lens of God’s extravagant welcome? Or am I trying to get into the feast without putting on the garment? Am I binding myself in darkness, refusing to see as God sees? Maybe this man comes to our doors because our parishioners give him food, and probably gave him that white blanket. Maybe because we call him by name. Maybe because this community offers a table where he is welcome. Maybe he comes because God is doing the same.
Perhaps that is what it means to put on the garment: to be clothed in grace so completely that we extend it to others. Someone gave him a white garment. He wore it to the feast.
