Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah pictures God setting a table on a mountain, rich food, choice wine, and God himself wiping every tear from every face. Jesus tells nearly the same story with a harder edge: a king throws a wedding feast, the invited guests refuse to come, and he sends his servants into the streets to bring in anyone they can find, good and bad, until the hall is full.

You have been to a great many tables by now, wedding feasts, funeral luncheons, holiday dinners that have shrunk or grown as the family changed shape over the decades. Isaiah's image of tears wiped away belongs at all of them, not just the happy ones. God does not save the comfort only for the celebrations. He promises it at the table where the grief is still fresh too.

Paul's second reading gives a hard-won kind of wisdom: I have learned the secret of being well fed and going hungry, of having plenty and being in need. That is not a young man's line. It is the summary of a whole life, arrived at only after enough years of both plenty and want to actually learn the secret rather than just repeat it as a slogan.

The one guest who runs into trouble at the wedding feast is not underqualified. He gets in for free, same as everyone else. What trips him up is treating the invitation casually once he is already inside, present but not really dressed for what was offered. After this many years at this many tables, ask honestly whether you are still showing up dressed for the feast, or simply present out of habit.