# Bishop Barron – The Invitation Has Been Given: Will You Answer God’s Call?

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 23 Oct 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75853499/utf_8_q_the_invitation_has_been_offered_e2_80_93_utf_8_q_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon_mp3.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, we have another parable today
[0:03] Speaker 1: of our gospel. And, you know, like all the parables,
[0:06] Speaker 1: it's kind of unsettling. It's a little strange. It's meant
[0:10] Speaker 1: to disconcert us. See, once you understand that, I think
[0:13] Speaker 1: you can approach the parables better. If we think of
[0:16] Speaker 1: them as just straightforward, you know, moralizing allegories, we're going
[0:19] Speaker 1: to miss it. They're meant to shake things up. They're
[0:27] Speaker 1: We're told here that Jesus is speaking to the chief
[0:29] Speaker 1: priests and elders, so he's kind of going after the
[0:32] Speaker 1: leadership of his people. And he tells this kind of
[0:35] Speaker 1: crazy story, honestly, about the king inviting people to the
[0:39] Speaker 1: banquet for his son. People make excuses. They don't show up.
[0:44] Speaker 1: He sends more messengers out. People still ignore them. And
[0:46] Speaker 1: then they kill the messengers. And then he finally sends,
[0:50] Speaker 1: you know, go out to the hills and the dales
[0:52] Speaker 1: and bring in everyone you can find. And then To
[0:55] Speaker 1: make it even weirder, so these kind of the rabble
[0:58] Speaker 1: all come into the party, but he knows someone, well,
[1:01] Speaker 1: you're not wearing a wedding garment, and he throws him out.
[1:05] Speaker 1: In the meantime, at one point in the story, he
[1:07] Speaker 1: destroyed their entire city. So you think, what are we
[1:10] Speaker 1: dealing with here? God, if the king in the story
[1:15] Speaker 1: is supposed to be God, he seems to be a
[1:17] Speaker 1: kind of psychotic maniac. What do we make of this? Well,
[1:22] Speaker 1: first of all, think about this, everybody. Go back to
[1:24] Speaker 1: my friend Flannery O'Connor, I think the greatest Catholic fiction
[1:28] Speaker 1: writer of the last century. She said famously— because her stories
[1:31] Speaker 1: were a bit like this. They were macabre, and they
[1:34] Speaker 1: were violent, and they were over-the-top and shocking. And when
[1:37] Speaker 1: people asked her, this kind of demure Southern lady, you know,
[1:40] Speaker 1: why do you write such stories? Her answer was, in
[1:44] Speaker 1: the land of the deaf, you have to shout. It's
[1:47] Speaker 1: very good insight. What are people deaf to? Boy, she
[1:50] Speaker 1: thought it was true, you know, that's back in the 1950s.
[1:53] Speaker 1: How much more today? People are deaf to spiritual realities.
[1:58] Speaker 1: If you're whispering a little spiritual story, they're not going
[2:01] Speaker 1: to hear it. You got to shout in the land
[2:04] Speaker 1: of the deaf to be heard. And so her stories
[2:07] Speaker 1: and all their kind of macabre quality did that. Well,
[2:10] Speaker 1: that's what these parables are doing. This is a good example.
[2:12] Speaker 1: It is, of course, over the top and exaggerated to
[2:16] Speaker 1: make the point. Okay. So how can we parse this now?
[2:21] Speaker 1: How can we bring out its spiritual power? Well, let's
[2:23] Speaker 1: take it from the beginning. Kingdom of heaven may be
[2:27] Speaker 1: likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for
[2:29] Speaker 1: his son. Now, this is not just any old party, right?
[2:34] Speaker 1: Not just any old person inviting people to a gathering. No,
[2:39] Speaker 1: the king. So it's the highest figure in the society.
[2:46] Speaker 1: inviting people to a banquet for his son, a wedding banquet.
[2:52] Speaker 1: It's like the highest invitation you could possibly receive. That's
[2:55] Speaker 1: the point. To make our comparison, I know whenever you
[2:58] Speaker 1: mention presidents, you get people's political, you know, hangups. But
[3:03] Speaker 1: if you receive an invitation, a formally engraved invitation from
[3:08] Speaker 1: the president of the United States to come to the
[3:12] Speaker 1: White House for a special banquet, You'd say, yes. You'd say, yes,
[3:19] Speaker 1: I'll clear my calendar. How about for Catholics? The Pope,
[3:25] Speaker 1: the Pope has invited you personally to come to the
[3:29] Speaker 1: Vatican for a special banquet. Or let's say the Pope
[3:33] Speaker 1: is visiting America. We'll make it easier. And he says,
[3:36] Speaker 1: I want you to come to this banquet that's being
[3:39] Speaker 1: held in your hometown, but I, the Pope, am inviting you.
[3:43] Speaker 1: What would you say? you know what? I'm busy that night.
[3:48] Speaker 1: You know, I've already got plans, Holy Father. I'm sorry.
[3:51] Speaker 1: I'm going out with my buddies bowling. I'm sorry, Mr. President.
[3:55] Speaker 1: It's a very fine invitation, but I'm rearranging my sock
[3:59] Speaker 1: drawer that night. See, what you're meant to see right
[4:03] Speaker 1: away is this greatest of invitations possible. Now, not just
[4:09] Speaker 1: the President, not just the Pope, the Lord God Almighty
[4:15] Speaker 1: is inviting you personally to come to a banquet, a
[4:22] Speaker 1: wedding banquet for his son. Now, see, Christians, what are
[4:26] Speaker 1: we hearing? God the Father sent his son as groom
[4:31] Speaker 1: to his bride, the church. This invitation, everybody, is the
[4:36] Speaker 1: most important thing ever that you could ever imagine coming
[4:42] Speaker 1: your way. Come to a banquet, wedding banquet, for my son,
[4:46] Speaker 1: and I'm going to provide for you the best of everything.
[4:52] Speaker 1: And what's our response? That's great, but I can't make it.
[5:01] Speaker 1: I'm already busy. Or, yeah, I got this thing in
[5:04] Speaker 1: the mail, but I just threw it away. You see,
[5:07] Speaker 1: what you're meant to see right away is the tragedy...
[5:12] Speaker 1: of our sinful lives. All of us biblical people, we've
[5:19] Speaker 1: received this invitation from God the Father to share his
[5:25] Speaker 1: life by coming to the wedding banquet of his Son.
[5:29] Speaker 1: I'm saying in the Catholic context, coming to the Mass.
[5:33] Speaker 1: This is the highest thing you could possibly want or imagine.
[5:38] Speaker 1: And what do most of us say Can't make it.
[5:44] Speaker 1: It's meant to make you smile, to make you laugh
[5:46] Speaker 1: at the sheer irony of it, the strange irony of it.
[5:50] Speaker 1: We say no to this. Okay, so what does the
[5:55] Speaker 1: king do? A second time, he sends his servants saying, look,
[6:01] Speaker 1: I've prepared a banquet, wedding banquet for my son. My
[6:04] Speaker 1: calves and fattened cattle are killed. Everything's ready. Come to
[6:08] Speaker 1: the feast. This is... He's already been insulted. Suppose you're
[6:12] Speaker 1: the president, and you've sent these engraved invitations, and everyone
[6:15] Speaker 1: ignores them. I mean, you'd be mortified. You're the pope.
[6:19] Speaker 1: You've sent a special Vatican invitation, and everyone's ignored it. Well, nevertheless,
[6:25] Speaker 1: he a second time sends them out. What do we hear?
[6:30] Speaker 1: Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm,
[6:35] Speaker 1: another to his business. Now, look how weird this gets.
[6:38] Speaker 1: The rest— laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and
[6:44] Speaker 1: killed them. Now, what are we talking about? Well, we
[6:48] Speaker 1: know God the Father, inviting, inviting, inviting. We keep saying no.
[6:54] Speaker 1: He sends more. Who are these now but his patriarchs
[6:57] Speaker 1: and prophets, his great representatives, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hezekiah,
[7:02] Speaker 1: the rest of them. It's It's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[7:05] Speaker 1: It's all of them. He sends his messengers again and
[7:09] Speaker 1: again and again. What do we do? Well, most of
[7:12] Speaker 1: us look the other way, ignore them. Who cares? At
[7:15] Speaker 1: the limit, the guy's inviting you to a banquet, and
[7:20] Speaker 1: you kill the messengers? But that's the prophets, right, who
[7:26] Speaker 1: were at best ignored, at worst brutalized by the people
[7:31] Speaker 1: to whom they were sent. What a world. That's what
[7:34] Speaker 1: you're meant to see here. What a world we live in. Now,
[7:37] Speaker 1: are we off the hook? Of course not. Yes, I'm
[7:40] Speaker 1: talking about ancient Israel now, but does this invitation go
[7:43] Speaker 1: out to us? You bet, all the time. That's what
[7:47] Speaker 1: religion's all about. That's the whole purpose of the church
[7:50] Speaker 1: is to evangelize, is to offer this invitation. God the
[7:54] Speaker 1: Father keeps inviting you, inviting you, come, come to the banquet,
[7:58] Speaker 1: come to grace. Come to the wedding feast of my son.
[8:02] Speaker 1: Come to the Mass and eat the bread of the
[8:05] Speaker 1: finest wheat, right? What do we say? Too bored. I'm
[8:10] Speaker 1: too busy. I can't make it. Or at the limit,
[8:13] Speaker 1: I'm going to mock. I'm going to mock the preachers
[8:17] Speaker 1: of religion. Look at the new atheists today. Look at
[8:19] Speaker 1: the aggressive secularists. Just throwing mockery and disdain at the
[8:24] Speaker 1: messengers of God. See, that's what we're meant to see here,
[8:27] Speaker 1: everybody— The central tragedy of the spiritual life is that
[8:32] Speaker 1: we received the invitation and we said no. Go back
[8:37] Speaker 1: to Flannery O'Connor. She was asked, what are your stories about?
[8:40] Speaker 1: She said, the offer of grace usually refuse. That's pretty good.
[8:49] Speaker 1: That's humanity. That's humanity in our sin, right? Grace is offered.
[8:55] Speaker 1: We say no. Okay, so he said now two rounds
[8:58] Speaker 1: of invitation. So then in his frustration, he says, all right,
[9:01] Speaker 1: go out to not just my friends and people that
[9:04] Speaker 1: I know, go out to the highways and byways. Go
[9:07] Speaker 1: out to the whole world and bring in anybody. The rich,
[9:11] Speaker 1: the poor, everyone. Invite everyone to the party. What's this?
[9:16] Speaker 1: But the extravagant quality of God's grace. Refused? Yep. Again
[9:21] Speaker 1: and again and again and again and again and again
[9:24] Speaker 1: and again refused. What does he do? He keeps inviting.
[9:29] Speaker 1: He keeps inviting. Okay, they said no. Well, how about you?
[9:33] Speaker 1: And they said no too. All right, well, then how
[9:35] Speaker 1: about you? Think of the parable of the sower. He
[9:38] Speaker 1: sows on the path, on rocky soil, and some seed
[9:44] Speaker 1: falls on good soil. Okay, that's God's way, is when
[9:46] Speaker 1: we refuse him, he just keeps offering grace, right? So
[9:52] Speaker 1: go out into the main roads, invite to the feast
[9:54] Speaker 1: whomever you find. And so they went out into the
[9:58] Speaker 1: streets and gathered all they found, good and bad alike.
[10:04] Speaker 1: Do you need to be good to get the invitation?
[10:09] Speaker 1: He invites the good and bad alike. What's Jesus say?
[10:12] Speaker 1: He makes his sun to shine on the good and
[10:15] Speaker 1: bad alike. He makes his rain to fall on the
[10:18] Speaker 1: just and the unjust alike. No, no, God's invitation is extravagant.
[10:23] Speaker 1: It's over the top. It's incessant, whether we're saints or sinners.
[10:28] Speaker 1: You know, look, to the table of Jesus came the
[10:32] Speaker 1: righteous and the unrighteous, came the saints and the sinners,
[10:36] Speaker 1: the prostitutes and the scribes and Pharisees. They all were invited.
[10:40] Speaker 1: That's God's way, right? Now, Here's the last part of it,
[10:45] Speaker 1: which people, maybe over the years I've preached on this,
[10:48] Speaker 1: they find most kind of puzzling. So the king now
[10:53] Speaker 1: comes in to meet his guests, all these people he's invited.
[10:57] Speaker 1: And he saw a man there not dressed in a
[11:00] Speaker 1: wedding garment. The king said to him, my friend, how
[11:03] Speaker 1: is it you came in here without a wedding garment?
[11:06] Speaker 1: But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said
[11:09] Speaker 1: to his attendants, bind his hands and feet, cast him
[11:12] Speaker 1: into the darkness outside where there's wailing and grinding of teeth.
[11:15] Speaker 1: Many are invited, but few are chosen. So you think, okay,
[11:19] Speaker 1: I guess, Bishop, I'm with you, that this really is
[11:21] Speaker 1: a story about grace, you know, the extravagance of grace,
[11:25] Speaker 1: the tragedy of our refusal. I get all that. I
[11:27] Speaker 1: get all that. But then what's going on here at
[11:30] Speaker 1: the end? This poor guy who, you know, wasn't expecting
[11:33] Speaker 1: a wedding invitation. And so he shows up and he
[11:35] Speaker 1: doesn't have the proper garment on. and he gets thrown out,
[11:38] Speaker 1: and there's wailing and gnashing of teeth? Are we back
[11:41] Speaker 1: to this king as a sort of a psychotic tyrant? Now,
[11:46] Speaker 1: here's the thing in the spiritual world, everybody. Grace first, always.
[11:51] Speaker 1: Grace first. Extravagant, yes, yes. Over the top, yes. Despite resistance, yes.
[12:00] Speaker 1: Again and again and again, God offers, God invites, come
[12:05] Speaker 1: to the banquet. But then, in the spiritual order, once
[12:11] Speaker 1: you're in God's house, God expects you to be clothed
[12:18] Speaker 1: with his righteousness. God expects you now to be clothed
[12:23] Speaker 1: with the good works of cooperation with his grace. You're
[12:28] Speaker 1: inside the house through his grace. You're inside the party
[12:31] Speaker 1: through his grace. But now he wants you to behave
[12:36] Speaker 1: as someone who's worthy of being in that space. Now,
[12:40] Speaker 1: I'm gesturing toward this famous old problem of grace versus
[12:43] Speaker 1: works in the Church. And I keep insisting, if you
[12:46] Speaker 1: listen to me over the years, yes, grace is always first.
[12:49] Speaker 1: We don't earn our way into the house, into the party.
[12:53] Speaker 1: We're invited. But once in the party, I say once
[12:58] Speaker 1: in the Church, now Christ expects us to live in
[13:03] Speaker 1: accord with the rules of the house. See, and that's
[13:06] Speaker 1: where I think the symbolism of not having his wedding
[13:09] Speaker 1: garment on, that's what it means. If through God's grace
[13:13] Speaker 1: you receive the invitation, you accept the invitation, okay, but
[13:19] Speaker 1: now behave as someone who's worthy of being in that house.
[13:25] Speaker 1: I think if we unpack this simply told but really
[13:29] Speaker 1: beautifully complex story, we see the essential dynamics of the
[13:34] Speaker 1: spiritual life. And God bless you.

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