Garments of Mercy
October 15, 2023: A Reflection for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Matthew 22:1-14
My friend, how is it you came in here without a wedding garment? (Mt 22:11b)
We’ve all been invited to celebrations and parties and one of the first questions we need to resolve when we receive the invitation is, ‘What do I wear?’ Is it formal or casual or costume?
Today’s parable is about a wedding feast – the wedding of God to humankind in the person of Jesus. And the wedding garment to be worn to the celebration of the Kingdom of God is the garment of mercy.
The Father sent forth his Son and clothed him in our human flesh. Jesus transformed our humanity by mercy INTO mercy. The garment of our flesh is mercy: God’s mercy toward us, which wraps us ‘round in all-embracing acceptance and delight in us and a love that will never waver in its constancy.
We are clothed in mercy, a mercy we do not have to earn, a mercy which asks only that we receive it and pass it on to one another. That we let God’s tender mercy transform us and become our wedding garment to wear in the Kingdom of God.
People will know we are Christians by our love, by our sharing with one another the mercy we have experienced from God. It is our garment of mercy that makes us identifiable as followers of Jesus.
The love, kindness, patience and goodness into which we allow God to transform us is the garment in which we walk our earthly journey as children of a Father who sent his Son in human flesh so that we may know the love from which we have come and share it.
As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” May the gentle rain of mercy fall upon each of us and may we in turn be that mercy to one another.
Father of mercy, clothe us in mercy as we live each day in your kingdom and transform our world so much in need.