In the gospel today, Jesus told his listeners a story about what the kingdom of God is like. The king gave a feast for his son’s wedding and no one would come. He went to a lot of work to prepare a celebration to share with them – but no one cared. They weren’t interested in stopping whatever they were already doing long enough to come to the feast.
You can’t help but sympathize with the king though. How often have we planned a special occasion in our families – like a birthday, anniversary party or a holiday dinner and everyone had excuses for why they couldn’t come? They had to work, or had a family commitment, or another “good reason” not to be there.
The same thing happens pretty often when we plan special events at church too. It is difficult to find people that are willing to volunteer their time to help with special events at church, or in the ministries that we volunteer with in our communities. Everyone has a reason why they can’t be there. They have other commitments, other obligations. The main reasons people give for why they can’t be there is usually because of family or work obligations. Family comes first. Work is second.
But, shouldn’t God come first sometimes too? When do we put Jesus first? We often rearrange our work schedule to put our family first, and sometimes people have to rearrange their family’s schedule to accommodate work, but when do we rearrange our schedules in order to put Jesus first?
No one wants to feel like they are in the last place of importance in a loved one’s life. Everybody else is more important than they are. Surely we can relate to feeling this way sometimes too? Mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, best friends, have all felt this way at one time or another. In today’s gospel, Jesus shared with us that God Himself felt like this too.
When the people were invited to the feast in today’s gospel, Jesus said that, “they were not interested; one went off to his farm, another to his business”.
This reminds me of a homily I recently heard from a priest at the prison where I volunteer at. He told us about a study that was done at a local university, where students were asked to interview for a high paying job, with good hours and better than average benefits. At the last minute the university put up a sign that said that there was construction ahead and they needed to take a different route to the interview. On the new route to the interview, a man was laying in the alley hurt and asking for help. The university wanted to see which one of the persons going to the interview would risk losing out on a job interview in order to help their fellow man. Most of the job applicants did not stop. A few told him they were on their way to an interview but would come back afterward and try to help him. There was only 1 or 2 who actually sacrificed their job interview to stay and help the man.
What the university found out in this study was that the willingness of the job candidates to stop and help their fellow man had nothing to do with religion. It had to do with how much time they had allowed themselves to get to their interview. The job applicants who allowed the most time to get to the interview, were the ones who were able to stop and help the man.
For many of us, this is a work day. We are all rushing to get to work, or did so earlier in the day. Or – we have doctors appointments, have to go to school, or have other appointments that we need to be on time for. But, where does the kingdom of God actually fit in our lives? Do we have time to stop and help our fellow man? Or are we so busy rushing from one thing to the next that we don’t have time to stop for the things that really matter?
Perhaps today, we could think about how we could manage our time a little differently. What is really the most important things in our life? Are we spending our time on things that are not nearly as important as our relationship with Jesus Christ?
A man from my parish told me one time, that you can tell a lot about a person by what they spend their free time on. We may say one thing, but the things that we value the most, are what we actually spend our free time on.
Have you ever really stopped to think about what you are spending your free time on? Does it line up with what is truly important in life?
