Homily for Sunday 11th October 2026

So often when the Bible stories of banquets and weddings come up, I remember a true story that went viral on the internet some years ago. In 2017 an American woman, Sarah Cummins, cancelled her thirty-thousand-dollar wedding one week before it was due to happen, and turned the reception into a party for homeless people.

Shelters for the homeless were contacted and those on the streets were invited. Shops donated clothes and beautiful dresses. These unlikely guests were treated to a lavish evening meal. Sarah Cummins said that she didn't want the food to go to waste, and that for her it was an opportunity to let these people know they deserved to be at a place like this just as much as everyone else. I'm sure that you will understand why this story came to mind again when reading this Sunday's Gospel.

Over and over again in the Scriptures the fullness of God's kingdom, the experience of heaven, is portrayed as a great banquet. Think of our own feasts and big celebrations, like Christmas or a wedding reception: the preparations beforehand; the buzz around the table; the connections with people whom we love. In biblical times a wedding celebration was an opportunity for family, friends, and even whole villages to celebrate for several days.

In the first reading Isaiah describes a great extravagant banquet, a feast of choice wines and rich food, celebrating the Lord's victory over sin and death. And the feast is not just for the chosen people of Israel, but for all peoples. The only requirement is the desire to receive God's grace and to participate with joy. In the psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd," we hear that the Lord prepares a table for us, a banquet, in the sight of our foes.

Thrown open to everyone on the streets

Then in the Gospel Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a wedding feast that a king arranges for his son. Those who were invited would not come. Some made excuses; some even maltreated and killed the servants sent to invite them. So the invitation was thrown open to everyone on the streets, good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled.

The wedding feast that is prepared for the people refers to the coming of the Messiah to Israel. The servants who are sent out to invite people to the banquet are the prophets of the Old Testament. The people who reject the invitation are those who do not accept Jesus when he came. The invitation is then extended to all humanity.

We need to take God's invitation seriously

Applying this parable to ourselves, we realise that we need to take God's invitation seriously. Some of those who were invited were violent in their resistance. But most were just plain indifferent; they made light of it and would not come. If we are honest, most of us, and most people we know who neglect this invitation, are more like those who just don't care, who don't see the point, or who don't think it is a priority.

Some time ago, at first without realising it, I mirrored this Gospel parable. I messaged parishioners whom I had not heard from for a long time, to greet them and see how they were, and at the same time I invited them to come back to Mass. I got some great responses, and a good number of them came back.

A foretaste of that heavenly banquet

The Eucharist, the Mass, is a foretaste of that heavenly banquet. At every Mass we hear the words, "Blessed are those who are invited to the supper of the Lamb." Some of the responses we use at Mass are taken straight from the heavenly liturgy in the book of Revelation. How we respond to the invitation to Mass may say a lot about how we are responding to the invitation to the heavenly banquet.

The history of humanity is a history of spurned invitations from God. In a real sense this may be an accurate description of our own personal history too. Like all the parables, this one is meant to shake us up and spur us on, to take the invitation to the heavenly banquet seriously, and to respond with our lives.

No wedding garment?

There is a strange detail in this parable. The king finds a guest who is there without a wedding garment, and he is thrown outside. Many people find this troubling. Why should a man pulled in off the street be punished for what he is wearing?

Perhaps the simplest way of understanding it is this. In the time of Jesus, the guests at a wedding feast were all provided with wedding garments to cover their own clothes. In this way there would be no distinction between the wealthy and the poor. No one could show off their expensive clothes and put others down. So it may be that the man without the wedding garment had refused the garment he was offered, and was there in all his own finery, showing off.

The grace of God, freely given
The wedding garment, then, is the grace of God, freely given, and the new life that grace produces in us: love, mercy, and good deeds. Salvation is not something we achieve by our own merits and works. Each of us needs to recognise that we are at the mercy and under the mercy of God. The only way to approach the heavenly banquet is on our knees, asking for God's mercy and accepting the wedding garment of grace.

But we also have to wear it. Our wedding garment will be marked by repentance and conversion a real change in our lives. It is not enough just to accept the invitation, just to turn up at Mass; we need to live the invitation in our daily lives. We would do well to ask ourselves what kind of clothing the king sees us dressed in at Mass today. Even small things show how we are dressed for the feast: arriving early, coming well prepared, staying until the Mass has ended, and then carrying what we have received out into the week.

Sit at the table dressed for a wedding

Think back to Sarah Cummins and her unlikely guests. Shops donated clothes and beautiful dresses so that those who came in off the streets could sit at the table dressed for a wedding. No one had to earn their place, and no one had to provide their own clothes. All they had to do was come, and let themselves be dressed.

That is exactly what God does for us. The Gospel says that many are called, but few are chosen. All of us are called, and some will exclude themselves by refusing the invitation, or by accepting it and never letting it change them. But the King is not looking for reasons to keep us out. He has prepared the feast, he has sent out the invitation, and he holds out the garment to each one of us. Our part is to say yes, to put the wedding garment on, and to live as people who have been invited to the wedding.