In my reflection on the scripture and in preparation for my homily, I kept asking myself the question 'How do I say yes to my invitation to the feast?'.
The Gospel is making quite clear that God has invited us to something wonderful. God, the King, is inviting us to the Wedding of the Lamb, the marriage between the Christ and the Church, the apex of our very existence!
But, how do we respond to this? What does this mean for us?
In addition to asking myself those questions, my mind kept wandering to Steve Jobs and everything I have read and heard about him this week and over the years. A video that became viral this week was a commencement speech he had delivered, at Stanford, in 2005. This speech, as with almost all speeches of this kind, contained the ubiquitous theme of reach for the stars and follow your dreams - but he also touched upon something so basic that it was profound.
Steve Jobs talked about death.
He spoke of his, then, short bout with cancer and how it brought death into a whole new context for him. Here are a few words from the speech:
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.How do we respond to the invitation of the King?
Though Steve Jobs was not speaking in terms of today's Gospel text, he was speaking to a truth and reality that puts this text into a very real context for us.
We were made to be eternal and to dwell with God, in the Kingdom of Heaven, for all eternity. Our life in this world is finite and minute; we are not meant to dwell here in this realm forever. In order to understand the Kingdom of Heaven and respond to it rightly, we have to - just as Steve Jobs mentioned - remember that we are all going to die. We are all going to die and leave this world and, if we responded to the invitation - will enter the eternal Feast.
In order to respond to the King, we need to admit to ourselves and accept the reality of the situation: In order to live eternally in the Kingdom of Heaven, I have to die.
We need to keep death before us everyday and remember that we were made not for eternity in this world, but to return to the God. Only when we live with this reality everyday can we begin to realize that answering the invitation of the King is to live our lives accordingly. We live our lives doing the good and what matters. We live our lives loving our selves, family, friends, enemies and God as we ought. We live our lives with less anger, jealousy, laziness and cruelty.
We live our lives with less sin!
Sin is what is going to keep us from entering this extraordinary feast that our King has prepared for us. Sin is the way we say no this royal invitation.
It sounds too simple, because it is simple. Just as Steve Jobs spoke of something as simple as death to being to key to living our lives as they were meant to be lived, so too is Christ speaking of something as simple as sin as being the way of rejecting the invitation to the Wedding Feast.
We can't eliminate sin completely from our lives; we are fallen human beings and only Our Mother has been without sin. Despite this, we still need to strive to live good and holy lives. Sin must not define us and enslave us - let it be something we struggle with and not indulge. It is this constant effort in our daily lives, driven by a desire to enter the Kingdom, that will incite the King to open the doors of the palace and seat us at the banquet table.
Let not death be a reminder of sadness and pain, but a reminder that we have a limited time to prepare for the Feast.
This is the entire speech given by Steve Jobs
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