Ordinary 28
October 11, 2020
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables,
saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a
wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been
invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent
other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared
my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is
ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went
away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his
slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent
his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said
to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not
worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find
to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and
gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled
with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a
man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend,
how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then
the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into
the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
After hearing the parable today, it sounds like the Gospel of Matthew is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It begins with such promise. The king is throwing a party. There will be music and dancing and a lot of free food. All you need to do is show up!
That’s when everything goes wrong. The invited guests ignore the invitation. The king invites them again, but the guests joke about it. Some of them would rather work than celebrate. Others get downright nasty. They mistreat and then murder the messengers. Pretty soon, the king retaliated on the murderers in the same way that they mistreated his messengers. There’s a lot of blood, violence, and fire.
Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven can be compared to this king.” That’s a head-scratcher. How is the kingdom like this king? No idea . . . except that the story goes on. The king tries Plan B. Rather than restrict the party to his invited guests (which he got rid of, anyhow), now the king invites everybody. He sends those poor servants back out to the streets, and says, “Fill my banquet hall!” And that’s what they do.
Matthew may be having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but I think we can make some connection. The kingdom is a free gift, like that party. The kingdom is an insistent invitation, like that king. The kingdom is now waiting for everybody to come.
But let it be said the kingdom can also be resisted and rejected. The inference, then, is the kingdom of heaven can be a dangerous place if you don’t live up to the invitation. For the story goes on, as we heard – there’s a Part 3, and the tossing-out of one of the guests. This is most troubling: to think that if you do show up, and you do respond, there’s a chance you might get thrown out on your ear. Many are called, at least one guest isn’t allowed to stay.
In a terrible parable, this is the worst part. Can’t Matthew make his point without getting so nasty about it?
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a story about a great big meal. Many are invited to the feast, but they give lots of excuses. That’s what Luke wants to emphasize: the everyday excuses. So the party planner buses in a crowd of the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. They weren’t the king’s first choice, apparently, but the king wants to fill the banquet hall. Luke says you will miss God’s party if you keep giving excuses. Unlikely people will replace you.
Or there’s the Gospel of Thomas, a book that didn’t make the cut to get into the New Testament. Jesus tells another story like this. The king throws a party and people are invited, but the excuse-givers are specifically named as merchants and business people and merchants. They are too busy breaking the Sabbath to come to the party. So be forewarned by this good Jewish teaching about Sabbath-keeping: if you are consumed by a full schedule of commerce, the banquet is given to somebody else. Surprise, surprise.
By contrast, Matthew’s version of the story sounds like the evil twin of these others. The king is vengeful when his messengers are murdered. He destroys everybody who ignores him. Then he throws the party anyway, filling every chair, only to furiously throw out an invited guest who was wearing the wrong clothes.
We can take the story literally, I suppose, and start assigning the part of the king to God, etcetera. But the story works better as is for its shock value. It’s supposed to be outrageous. It’s supposed to shake us up. Just when you think it ought to be excised from scripture, you realize that eight times Old Matthew insists the party is a “wedding,” not just any generic banquet. And then four times you hear him say the banquet is only for those are “invited.” At first, it’s not for everybody … but then it is.
And just when we think this is a story about including everybody in God’s party, a trap door opens at the last minute, and the poorly dressed sap gets thrown into “outer darkness.”
We must remember that this is Matthew who does the reporting. Since he’s talking about Jesus, you know he’s going to say a good bit about grace. But because he’s writing his book after fifty years of experience of what the church can be like, he is also going to remind us that God is a Judge. Grace leads to judgment. In the kingdom, there’s plenty of holy generosity, but there’s also a day of selective sorting.
It’s always been like this. Matthew remembers how Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a field planted with wheat and weeds.” (13:24-30). Good crops and bad grow side-by-side, until they are sorted at the final harvest and the weeds are burned.
"Again,” remembers Matthew, "the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind" (13:47-50). The generous catch is hauled ashore where it is sorted between the "good" and the "bad". In case we don’t miss the comparison, Jesus says, "So it will be at the end of time."
I think we can see the sermon that Matthew is trying to preach. He sets this one in Holy Week, when Jesus is surrounded by the Holy Rollers of the Temple. Matthew knows religious people are not all that they say they are. Some of them put plastic grins over their meanness. Others don’t follow up on the promises and covenants they make.
In fact, I wonder if, in Matthew’s day, some of God’s chosen people weren’t very interested in acting particularly chosen. Maybe they were more consumed with consuming – making money and spending it - or consuming one another than about responding to a big party that was offered to them as a gift.
Whatever the case, the parable announces there are some ornery people on the king’s guest list. That might cause us to squirm. I can think of a hundred different anecdotes to support this. Maybe you can, too. Even in the church, among God’s precious sons and daughters, there’s always some tiff that’s still unsettled. Maybe they bicker by the coffee pot. Or bicker because, these days, in the name of safety, there isn’t a coffee pot.
These days, some of my ministerial friends are getting push-back about the decision to hold off on large gatherings during a pandemic. Hate mail, veiled threats, blame, and abuse. A friend in North Carolina got a letter from an elder on his session after the session out-voted him on the matter. It said, “If you people don’t trust God enough to protect you from a virus, I’m going to find a church full of Real Christians.” I wonder if he might be directed to a friendly congregation of snake handlers.
It’s amazing that God puts up with any of us, you know. Some of the squabbles in God’s banquet hall will almost drown out the snoring of those who were invited but decided to skip out and get some sleep. And then, there’s that offensive notion that God might want to sort through the crowd. Really, now; do we want that?
Make no mistake: this is a Gospel story, so beneath it all, there’s a lot of grace. The king keeps inviting the whole town to a free, lavish feast. But this is a king with some expectations. He expects those gathered by grace to be transformed in graciousness. Accept the invitation, get along with the other party guests, maybe even say “thank you” if you’re able. It’s not your party, but the Host wants you to be here.
And he expects to see you properly dressed. Otherwise, you’ll get tossed out just like that hapless party guest who forgot his tuxedo.
So let’s focus on that for a minute. What’s that all about? The king never announced a dress code, especially for that mixed lot that he rounded up off the streets. As far as we know, he hasn’t handed out any clothing that he expects people to wear. (One of the participants in our weekly Bible study thinks he should have, but the story doesn’t say.)
All we know is the king weeds out the one guy who isn’t properly dressed. That’s one detail of the story that has given the theologians an opportunity to earn their paychecks.
- Saint Augustine said the wedding gown represented charity
– the wedding guest wasn’t dressed in love.
- Martin Luther said the wedding gown symbolizes faith – the
guest is inside the door, but he just doesn’t trust the host. So he gets
expelled.
- John Calvin said the wedding gown is a metaphor for good
works – you’ve got to grow up and act like a Christian even after
you become a Christian.
Over and over, Jesus says the “higher righteousness” is worn like a cloak by people who do the will of the heavenly Father (7:21). They are the ones who:
·
give up all arrogance and become
humble like a child (18:2),
·
care for the lost, the left out, and
the little ones (18:10),
·
forgive seven times, and seventy
more times than that (18:22),
·
leave behind the charms of the world
for Jesus’ sake (19:29),
·
give out cups of water to the
thirsty and blankets to those who are chilled (25:34-36).
The higher righteousness is a life of unrestricted love, a life where others benefit by our goodness. It’s the life that becomes so joyful and generous that people can’t tell the difference between Jesus and you. Just imagine the conversation overheard in God’s banquet hall: “Hey, Henry, isn’t that Sally over there?” “I can’t really tell; she looks like Jesus.”
This is the “higher righteousness.” Tt’s a life on earth that is saturated with the generosity of heaven. Grace may welcome us into the party, but it’s the higher righteousness keeps us there.
That is the message of this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad parable. It was a message pretty much lost on those who murdered the Christ who first told it. I hope it’s a message that we hear, not just with our ears but with our hearts.
In the final analysis, it’s one thing to know we are loved by God. All of us are loved by God, and it’s one thing to know we are loved by God. But it’s another thing to know we are admired by God. Do you know the difference?
It’s the difference between being invited to the party and being allowed to stay.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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