In the gospel today, Jesus told his listeners a story about what the kingdom of God is like. A king gave a feast for his son’s wedding, but no one would come. The king went to a lot of effort to prepare a big feast to celebrate his son’s wedding – but no one cared. None of the people that were invited, wanted to stop their activities long enough to attend the wedding celebration.
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 be there? They had to work, or had a family commitment, or another “good reason” not to be there.
The same thing happens sometimes when we plan special events at church too. It’s difficult to find parishioners that are willing to volunteer their time to help. 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 comes second.
But, shouldn’t Jesus come first in our lives 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 to put Jesus first?
No one wants to feel like they occupy the last place of importance in another person’s life. No one wants to feel like everyone else is more important than you are. But many mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, or “best friends” have felt this way at one time or another.
In today’s gospel, Jesus explained that God 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 am a volunteer. 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 rushing to get to work, or did so earlier today. Or – we have doctors appointments, have to go to school, or have other commitments 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 are rthe 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 gentleman from my parish commented to me once, that you can tell a lot about a person by what they spend their free time on. We may talk about the things that are important to us, but where we actually spend our free time is a better reflection of what we value the most.
Is the next thing on our phone, or the TV, or computer, or social media eating too much of our free time?
Have you ever stopped to consider what you spend your free time on, and if it’s in line with what you value the most in life?
If you are reading these words right now, then you are already headed in the right direction! You’ve made your faith a top priority in your life.
