Indifference – The Enemy of Faith:

 

Indifference – The Enemy of Faith: 

                                 

The Twenty-Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2026 

October 11, 2026

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Isaiah 25:6-10; Psalm 23; Philippians 4:12-20; Matthew 22:1-14

  

Scripture today begins with this enticing invitation to engage in God’s banquet of rich foods and tasty drinks and to gather with loved ones free from harm of death, fear, and suffering. The message is that God is going to abundantly care for you and make sure all your needs are met. Saint Paul and the Psalmist remind us that God will supply whatever we need. In the Gospel, God invites us, through a parable, to a banquet, and we are told how people respond. We are invited to respond personally now. We hear the responses from people in the parable, and they are responses that we also hear now.

 

The first responses show us that the invited guests do not care enough to accept the offer. They have other things to do. Their farms, businesses, and family life are more compelling to them than an invitation to the wedding feast. They do not think they are rejecting the king with hostility. They say, “I have other things to do,” or “I’m too busy.” We, too, become preoccupied with work, possessions, entertainment, ambitions, and responsibilities, and a consequence is that God can gradually become less important. The danger is that good things can become substitutes for God. We become indifferent, as though God’s presence makes little difference to the way I live. God is no longer important enough to interrupt my life. We cannot see what is being offered: joy, celebration, and communion. 

 

Indifference is a progression that can become resistance, and this resistance can become hostility. Our hearts gradually become accustomed to not listening and to being closed. When we repeatedly say “no,” we stop noticing, then we stop valuing, and then we reject. When we do this in our relationship with God, we become less receptive to God’s presence and less prone to even hear the invitation. Indifference becomes the enemy of the faith.

 

So how do we make certain we do not become indifferent? We develop a habit of attentiveness. We might not hear God’s explicit voice, but it is present when we ask ourselves these questions? What is God doing in my life today? What is God asking of me now? Who did God place before me and why? Where do I need to be open to change? We may not realize we are being invited to a banquet or that God is trying to tend to one of our needs because these invitations may not be explicit and they may not come dramatically. They may come through an encounter, an insight while reading a Scripture passage, a chance conversation, a moment of discomfort, a sudden awakening, a request by someone in need. The question is whether we are woke enough, aware enough, to recognize the invitation. 

 

Notice that God’s invitation is wider than we think. The king tells his servants to “invite to the feast whomever you find.” The good and the bad alike are invited. So, this is not about worthiness to accept the invitation because someone unworthy might see it for what it is worth. This is not about goodness or badness. A good person may miss the invitation while a bad person accepts it. A person can be imperfect and still be deeply open to God, while an outwardly religious person may be inwardly closed. God’s generosity is extraordinary. It is about a proper disposition before God. The disposition is willingness to say “yes.” There are already people at the feast, not because they have achieved perfection, but because they have said “yes.” 

 

          God only asks for a receptive heart. We must be woke. We must be open to listen to receive, to change, and to respond. Missing the invitation to this feast would be a tragedy. Am I willing to recognize the invitation or am I too busy with other things that my heart and mind have become closed? What would it take for me to recognize that I am invited here and now? Remember the king’s words: Everything is ready; come to the feast.