The Wedding Garment: Making the Most of What Christ Offers
Preaching on Father's Day, Sub Dn. Timothy Grace takes up the parable of the wedding feast and the guest without a garment. In the ancient world the host supplied the garments, so to arrive without one was not poverty but insult — and Christ, the great host, has supplied us with everything we need. Drawing on St. Symeon the New Theologian's call to run to the light while it still shines, he asks what excuse any of us will offer for not becoming holy. He closes with a word to fathers on steering between indifference and control, and on St. Paul as a model of invested, un-domineering fatherhood.
Transcript
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. And happy Father's Day to all the dads here present among us.
Today we have a message for us all about making the most of what Christ and the Church have to offer. We have the gospel story which provides the foundation for the communion hymn we pray every Sunday: "How can I, the unworthy one, enter into the glory of your saints? For should I dare to enter the bridal chamber with them, my clothes betray me, for it is not a wedding garment, and bound I shall be cast out by the angels. So cleanse my soul, O Lord, from the stain of sin, and save me by your love for mankind." So today let's investigate this imagery, this symbol of the garment at the wedding feast, and what it means to us all, and especially to the fathers present today.
In our gospel we have a complex story told by Jesus: a king gives a marriage feast, and when all the guests give excuses not to come, or act abominably, the offer is given to others. Then finally, when a man takes up the offer, he is questioned about not wearing the right clothes and he is cast out. On one level it is an allegory of the Jews rejecting Christ and rejecting the prophets who came before him, and then finally of the Gentiles being welcomed into the kingdom.
On the surface the story looks rather harsh, with this man getting invited in only to be cast out for not being dressed correctly. But we need to understand what is happening here. Wedding garments in the ancient world were given out by the hosts to the guests, so that everyone would be dressed appropriately. To arrive without one, then, was not only a baffling move but a great insult. And so it was only fitting that this guest was thrown out. The host had prepared everything — the feast, the setting of the home, the garments — everything for the people to enjoy the feast.
And so this story emphasises, as all parables do, particular truths about God and the kingdom. Firstly, we see God's great desire for people to be saved. This king was really almost desperate to see his wedding feast enjoyed by guests, and he wanted his servants to spare no effort in filling his hall, in filling his home. We also see that the only people who do not enter are those who do not actually want to be there. This story goes some way towards answering the question: does God send people to hell? Does God force people away from his presence? This story gives us evidence that in fact people do not want to be in the presence of the Lord, and he is not going to force them.
Applying this symbolically, we also see that Christ is the great host who has invited us into his kingdom, and he has done everything for us to live his own life. He has given us the wedding garment — that is, he has offered us a renewed nature. He offers us immortality, so that death does not have the final say over us. He willingly offers us the forgiveness of our sins. He promises to guide us and help us and to send us his Spirit. He gives us a palpable sense of his presence. He offers us his own body and blood. He gives us a place in the Church where we can find identity, healing and belonging. In the Church he offers us the sacraments to heal us and to continue to guide us further. All of this is like a host putting on a banquet and offering the wedding garment.
The man had no excuse. And we have to ask ourselves: what excuse will we have? What excuse will we offer when the time comes? What excuse will we offer for not becoming holy? What excuse for not becoming adept at prayer?
An important saint in our Church in this regard is a saint who lived about a thousand years ago: St. Symeon the New Theologian. He had experiences of the uncreated light of Christ — the light that the disciples saw on Mount Tabor, the light of Christ's Transfiguration. And he was so convinced that all people could have a similar experience of the Holy Spirit that he demanded they devote themselves to it with great intensity. This brought him a good deal of criticism from his fellow monastics. But in his fifteenth discourse, this is what he writes on this same theme:
"But to you who are Christ's servants, who are anxious to learn and have prepared your ears to hear, the Master of all things shouts through his holy gospels, saying: while you have the light, run to the light, lest the darkness overtake you. Run while it is still the time when he shines on you, before the night of death overtakes you and you are sent away into eternal darkness. Run, seek, knock, that the door of the kingdom may be opened to you, and you may enter within it and have it within you. As for those who depart from this present life without attaining to it, how will they ever find it once they have gone there? Accordingly, it is here that we have been commanded to ask, to seek, and to knock by means of penitence and tears, and the Master has promised to give it to us if we do so. If we refuse to do this and to obey Christ our Master, so that we may endeavour to receive the kingdom within us while we are still in this life, will we not deserve to hear him speak to us when we have departed there and say: why are you now seeking the kingdom which you refused when I was giving it to you? Were you not unwilling when I earnestly entreated you to exert yourself to receive it from me? Have you not despised it and preferred to enjoy corruptible and earthly things? By what deeds or words will you be able to find it from now on?"
His words, and the words of this parable, are a great warning to us. They make clear that we must always be making the most of the opportunities we have now, in this life, to be healed and to continue to press harder.
And on this Father's Day, we see that it is the role of the father in the family to lead them, and himself, more and more into this reality — firstly for himself, and then for others. When we look at the meaning of the word "husband", we see that from an etymological point of view it literally means the tiller of the soil of the house. And so a husband first tills the soil of his own heart, and then he is able to do this for his home. It applies to many areas, but it starts with the spiritual life. So, as fathers: do you keep on top of your own life of prayer and Bible reading? Do you guide the family into the life of the Church — leading the prayers, keeping track of when the fasting seasons take place, prioritising coming to church? All of these things help to clothe our families with the wedding garment.
Speaking of fatherhood, many people are talking about the film The Odyssey, which came out recently. I went to see it a few weeks ago, and I think it has some pertinent lessons for us. Some people like Christopher Nolan's take on this much-loved ancient story, some not so much. But we see in it this foundational text of the return of a father who has been many years away at war. If we apply this spiritually, what we see is that a father must return to himself — must return to who he really is in Christ — for life to be ordered the right way.
One of the obstacles Odysseus faces is the difficulty at sea with the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla is a man-eating monster that lives on a cliffside, and Charybdis is a whirlpool in the ocean. Odysseus had the challenge of sailing his ship between the monstrous Scylla on the cliffside, trying to snatch his sailors, and Charybdis, the whirlpool, trying to suck his ship down. Interestingly, the Church Fathers would use this part of the story as a symbol to show that as the people of God we need to avoid extremes — not sailing close to one side or the other, but always finding the middle road. That is what Odysseus had to do to make it through alive between these two monsters.
And often, as men, we do fall into two extremes as well. For many it is the extreme of indifference and laziness: indifference to himself, indifference to his partner, indifference to his family. It is a laziness that manifests itself in addictions — whether sport, alcohol, computer games, or what have you — and in a lack of discipline. On the other extreme is one of extreme control, extreme intensity. The manosphere of late manifests itself, I believe, in this attempt to control: control his physique, control his image, boss around the woman, micromanage the family. And there is an underlying spiritual insecurity here: the less a man has a grip on himself, the more he wants a grip on everything else around him. You want to control something? Here is something for you: control yourself. Control your thoughts. Control your urges. Control your hands. Control your words. Recent lamentable events in the lives of our male sports athletes and our male students in schools show that we have a long way to go in teaching our young men the right kind of control, and the right balance between extremes.
And St. Paul — and with this I'll finish up today — gives us a model of true masculinity that avoids these extremes. We see, firstly, that he was struggling with the Corinthians' issues to the point of shedding tears. He says, "I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you." This crucifixion of the heart that he shows is the opposite of indifference. He is invested. He is involved in the lives of his spiritual children. And this is a lesson for us as fathers too. The theologian Christopher Veniamin relates a story of a priest who was reflecting on how he became a spiritual father. He said that for much of his life he was just going through the motions with people and there wasn't much connection, but then something changed. He was asked what it was that changed, and he said: I became a spiritual father to them when I began to weep for them. This is a lesson for us earthly fathers too — to be invested, to be involved.
St. Paul also says to the Corinthians, "Not that we lord it over you, but we work with you for your joy." And this is the relinquishing of control. This is a turn away from authoritarianism. As an apostle he had every right to use his full authority, but in his letters we constantly see him giving up that right, so as not to lord it over his spiritual children or try to control them. Awakening the right balance, as fathers and as men, is one way that we activate the wedding garment in the way that Christ intended.
So, to conclude: we are all exhorted to take seriously the wedding garment, and the need to make the most of the time that we have here on this earth. Let us always keep in mind all the benefits and the assistance that Christ and the Church give us, and avail ourselves of these remedies. And as for the fathers here present, may God help us to navigate a complex landscape of masculine models, and to find a balance between extremes, that we may be men in the Church who can be attentive but still cooperative, protective but still gentle, controlling of oneself and lifting up of the other. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
