By Ed Foley, OFM Cap., October 8, 2026
While I am very honored by the invitation
to ascend this celebrated pulpit this morning
as part of your distinguished preachers series
I must confess that being here
is a complete mistake.
It is true, that when your Pastor extended the invitation last year
he graciously asked which dates I was available
and together we agreed on this weekend.
However, after we settled upon this date,
I then consulted the day’s readings:
there is, of course, that uplifting selection from Isaiah
describing a sumptuous banquet
where tears are wiped away
the reproach of God’s people is removed
and death is destroyed. Looking Good!
This is followed by the world’s most beloved psalm
strewn with images of verdant pastures, a rich table
and gentle shepherd who protects and nourishes.
Looking great!
But then along comes Matthew.
Assessed by one commentator in these words:
This parable makes no sense. At the very least, it is offensive. The king has time to launch an attack on the city of his unworthy guests, kill them all and burn their city, all between killing the fatted calves and serving the appetizers. Really? And before that, the unworthy guests kill the messengers that invite them to a feast? Seriously? And the substitute guests, gathered off the street randomly, are expected to be wearing tuxedos? And the one guy who is not so attired is bound hand and foot and thrown into the outer darkness? So now we have the death penalty for the dress code? There is nothing proportionate or balanced here. If this is meant to be a picture of how God deals with Creation, this is not a God worthy of the name.
The wild swing between that gracious 1st reading and grim gospel
prompts some commentators to deem this “Whiplash Sunday”
though others have christened it
“Hold onto your hats” Sunday,
“This gospel is a Mess” Sunday, and even
“To hell with the bullying God” Sunday.
When I searched on the internet for advice as how to preach
what experts consider the most problematic parable in the gospel,
the general consensus was “hire a guest preacher.”
Very Smart! Thanks, Father Michael!
On the other hand, I think it would be spiritually chicken-hearted
to sidestep the gospel and preach on an easier text.
So I choose to be the fool rushing in where – if not angels –
at least smart theologians fear to tread.
A favorite Guru is the luminous Methodist preacher Eugene Lowry.
In the 1980’s he devised a subversive theory about preaching.
Key to this theory was his insistence
that, within the first few minutes of a homily,
it was necessary to stir the pot,upset the equilibrium, and
sow ambiguity into the minds of the assembly.
He called it the “oops” move.
Lowry believed that scriptural familiarity breeds polite inattention.
So people nod along as the preacher drones on,
convinced that they’ve heard it all before,
while quietly checking scores, reading texts,
or scrolling away on their phones.
However, taking a disruptive approach is no mere pulpit ploy.
Rather, it is a risky journey into the heart of Revelation,
where a subversive Christ
eternally defines the very nature of God’s ultimate “oops.”
So, in the spirit of Eugene Lowry,
the theological wedge I propose to drive
into the heart of today’s Gospel
is the disruptive claim that
the king throwing this banquet
is neither good nor God.
But the disruption doesn’t stop there.
The more shocking “oops” is that the guy without a tuxedo
dragged out of the hall and tossed out with the garbage
is actually the Christ,
the roughed-up Good Shepherd,
who refuses to validate the violence of power,
no matter what office, podium or title they claim.[i]
So let’s start with the king:
Often when we hear a gospel that begins
“the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king,”
it is easy to presume that the King is God. Wrong!
Parables are a form of disruptive speech
through which Jesus consistently pulls the rug
out from under his hearers
who seldom have a clue about the true nature
of God’s reign.
So, Jesus puts a King front and center in the story.
But, in 1st-century Judea, a king meant one thing: Herod.
Or rather, the 4 Herods —
a dynasty of brutal, ungodly monarchs
who slaughtered infants,
executed John the Baptist,
murdered their own spouses and children,
and lived lives steeped in scandal and incest.
Consonant with that historical context,
the king in the gospels is a tyrant
who is throwing a banquet for his son – maybe also a tyrant
and some refused to come.
So what’s that all about and why would someone
refuse a king’s invitation?
Was it arrogance, indifference or maybe an act of integrity?
In October 1918, 30-year-old Colonel T. E. Lawrence – best known as Lawrence of Arabia – was summoned to Buckingham Palace for a private audience with King George V. Lawrence believed the meeting was an opportunity to lobby the Crown on post-war borders for the Arab people, whom he had helped liberate from the Ottoman Empire. Instead, the King intended to invest him with high honors, including a Companion of the Order of the Bath and the Distinguished Service Order. Rather than accepting the medals, Lawrence respectfully explained to the King that he could not accept honors from a government that was breaking its wartime promises of independence to the Arabs. Leaving the medals behind, Lawrence departed the palace in protest against Britain’s betrayal of the Arab nation.[ii]
Sometimes people refuse invitations to the high and mighty
as they have no intention of having their presence exploited
to promote an individual or cause they do not endorse.
The mass withdrawal of musicians from the
Great American State Fair concert this summer in DC
is a fresh example of unwilling exploitation.
So, in today’s parabolic manipulation, the king goes out to city center
desperate to fill his banquet hall
And not look like a pathetic or impotent monarch,
Humiliated in the eyes of friends and foes alike.
Of course, as part of his socialite cover,
he has wardrobes of gowns and tuxes
every size every color
to clothe the hoi poloi who have been recruited
off Woodlawn and University
and even those walking their dogs on the lakefront
in a desperate attempt to make his banquet hall look full.
There is, however, one subversive character-
the kind that ICE agents target:
long hair, olive skin, beard, speaking with an accent,
who decides to go in— not for the steak or the Pinot Noir,
but as a silent protest against the arrogance of power
and the violent vanity of the powerful.
He stands in that glittering, coercive farce,
refusing to wear the mandated uniform of conformity,
refusing to pretend everything is fine,
while the tyrant wreaks violence on his enemies.
And his reward? He is bound hand and foot,
dragged out, and thrown into the outer darkness,
into the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We call that place Golgotha.
The outer darkness outside the city walls
where a stripped, manacled Jesus is nailed to a cross
because he refused to play by the rules of empire
and the intimidation of his religious leaders.
The challenging “oops” of today’s Gospel is that
the true God is not the enthroned king demanding compliance,
but the protester tossed out into the alley.
God’s preferential dwelling place is not in the halls of power
but, as Pope Francis so eloquently reminded us,
among the bruised, the discarded, the refugees,
which is where the field hospital we call the Church must be.
Christ is not the one casting people out into the alley,
he is the one waiting for us in the alley,
affirming the integrity of those who refuse
the oppression, especially of the little ones.
Today’s Gospel challenges us to face the disruptive “oops” of God,
the moment our comfortable assumptions are shattered,
asking us if we will we validate the violent powers
that demand silent conformity,
or will we step into the outer darkness with Christ
to stand alongside those the world discards?
Choosing the latter is both a blessing and requires a blessing.
And so, with the poet, we pray.
May we be blessed with the courage
to leave behind the borrowed garments of expectation,
the polished armor of compliance,
and the empty feasts that never truly feed our hungers.
When the voices of power demand our silence,
may there rise up within us
a wild and holy refusal
a stubborn grace born in the waters of baptism,
reminding us who we were made to be
long before the demagogues told us who to be.
May our eyes be washed clear
to recognize the holy in the bruised face of the outcast,
and the quiet spaces where love costs everything.
And when we find ourselves in the outer darkness,
know that this darkness is not empty,
for it is the threshold of Resurrection,
where the true banquet has already begun
and along the way may we know the mercy of a loving God
the persistent peace bestowed by a restless Spirit
and the companionship of the Christ
whose wise integrity revealed the just nature
of that new kingdom
where he is Lord and God forever and ever.
[i] Robert W. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 173–178.
[ii] Scott Anderson, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East (New York: Doubleday, 2013), 3.
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