Nobody Missed Them: Come to the Feast
Everything is ready, come to the feast.
I recently reread some statistics
that I found rather shocking,
but probably not terribly surprising.
They were from the Pew Research and CARA studies
on church attendance and church affiliation.
They said that 25% of people who claim to be Catholic,
come to church.
That means that 75% do not come to church.
Now, they are the ones who claim to be Catholic.
Then we remember
we have only 20% of our population
who say they are Catholic.
The largest growing population are the “nones,”
not the religious nuns, the N-O-N-E, nones.
When it asks what they are affiliated with,
they put “none.”
That is 29% of the population,
and 50% of them are former Catholic.
So, you immediately want to say to yourself,
well, why are they not coming, number one,
and why are they disaffiliating?
There is lots of speculation
but when you ask the people,
the number one reason is “No particular reason.”
They just sort of drifted away.
Then you ask them again what else it is:
“Well, we just stopped coming,
and well, nobody noticed.
Nobody asked.”
So in other words,
they were never missed.
When they left, no one ever missed them.
And they never went back.
Now just let that set in for a second.
We all know what it is like to be invited to a table.
But if we do not come
and nobody ever notices we do not come,
we kind of say,
“Well, I guess they never really wanted me.
They never asked me to come.”
We might have missed it for a real occasion,
but then we sort of drift away,
and well, we are not coming anymore.
I know the church and all institutions
have failed the young people,
and religious, unfortunately,
are right there amongst them.
But it is actually a small percentage
who say they left because of the scandal,
which I was surprised by.
Most have just left because, well,
they just sort of got busy with life,
got stuff to do,
and nobody ever misses them.
The really interesting part of this statistic
is the age of disaffiliation has radically dropped.
You know what the average age of disaffiliation is today?
Thirteen years old!
They no longer go to church at age 13,
and they do not affiliate.
That means our children are making an early decision.
Why am I bringing that up?
Because the table, the feast is ready.
Everything is ready.
All are invited,
and we are all called to come to the feast.
But here is what is interesting:
in this gospel today, we hear how the king
throws this incredible party for his son,
and there are all these people who do not come.
Some of them passively.
They just were busy.
They went to the farm.
They did what they did.
They just did not come.
Some actively,
but it seems to me the majority seem to have not come
because they were just distracted by other things.
But here is what is interesting.
He sends his servants to go out
and invite everyone, bad and good alike, to come in.
You and I are those servants.
Yes, we are invited guests to the table,
but we are called to go out
and to invite in the bad and good alike.
We are the ones who are meant to invite.
What I mean by that,
I do not mean cajole or manipulate
or scold about not coming to church,
but to invite and ask them,
“Would you come to church with me?”
Especially your children,
because they need the invitation.
Because we know if we do not feel welcome,
you are just not going to come.
We all know what that feels like.
So, we have to make this place feel welcome
for all those who come.
Now, the part that is disturbing about this gospel,
and we have to spend some time on it,
is that the king comes in
and he picks out the one person
who is not wearing a wedding garment.
You go, “Give me a break.
You just came in from the sides of the street.
What do you expect?”
But he is not wearing a wedding garment.
But you have to understand,
we believe that at that time,
if you were invited to a wedding
and you did not have a wedding garment,
at the door you would have been given one.
All right?
So, to not be wearing a wedding garment
was to have refused to celebrate.
Come to the party, get the food,
but not celebrate.
Jesus says, that is not okay.
What does that look like for us?
Sometimes we come to church,
and we think we have earned it.
We think the other people who should be coming to church,
sometimes we think that other people of goodwill
should be here, and only those.
But you see, the truth is,
all are welcome to the table.
The bad and the good alike.
Sinners and saints.
While we might hope that we are all saints,
the truth is, we are all sinners first.
Maybe we have saintly moments and I hope we do.
We try to.
But we have got to be welcoming to all.
The garment we need to put on
is a garment of joy and love.
It is to celebrate here,
and to be full of joy that everyone is at the table.
We need to open the doors to all,
and make sure all feel welcome.
Here is my challenge for all of us,
myself included.
This week is to look around you
and your group of friends who say they are Catholic
and do not come to church.
I am not asking you to judge them.
It is not about judging.
I am asking you to invite, a genuine invite.
A genuine invitation is,
“Come to church, and bring your kids.
We would love to see you.
We miss you.
It is not good that you are away.
We want you back at the table.”
I think people need to hear that,
because we want them to know that they are welcome.
Most especially those who feel maybe on the periphery,
the divorced and remarried,
the LGBTQ community,
the undocumented immigrants,
the people who feel that they have been pushed aside,
the broken and the wounded,
they most especially need that invitation
from you and I.
You see, the truth is
we do not earn what we come here to receive.
It is all a free gift.
You see, that is what the King says.
Everything has been prepared.
Everything is ready.
Come to the feast.
That is not just to a select few.
It is now open to all.
So, let us do our part.
Let us not only don the garment of joy and love here,
so that all feel welcome,
but also let us make a really strong effort
to share the invitation with those who are around us.
Family, friends,
let us invite all, because all are welcome.
Come to the table.
Everything is ready, come to the feast.