Matthew 22:1-14
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| The Peasant Wedding, Peter Brueghel the Elder 1566-1569 (PD) |
HOW’D I GET THIS PARABLE!?
I’ll tell you how!
My colleague played the shell game with the liturgical readings between this Sunday and last Sunday!
I’ll tell you EXACTLY how!
After attending a Synod wide conference with our Bishop, I met with some colleagues.
While in that meeting, my phone started buzzing.
I checked the messages which read something like this.
*TEXT MESSAGE* “Hey, let’s switch the bulletins for GIFT Sunday and New Member Sunday”
“NO!” *TEXT REPLY*
*TEXT MESSAGE* “Yes, I have good reasons”
“NO!” *TEXT REPLY*
*TEXT MESSAGE* “Too late, its done”
*TEXT REPLY* CENSORED
This Gospel, just as many of the parables we’ve been dealing with these past few weeks, is often avoided because it is considered such an unpleasant portrayal of God and Jesus’ vision of God’s Kingdom.
The fact is, that this isn’t really a story that Jesus just pulled out of his back pocket.
It is a story that can be found in many Jewish teachings, teachings called the Talmud.
Many of these stories are reflections on King Solomon and Israel under his reign.
But Jesus applies these stories to God, God’s Kingdom, and how people, to include OURSELVES will be treated at such a banquet.
And this is where the unpleasantness so often comes into play.
We are really worried about what has two thumbs and doesn’t like what Jesus has to say, rather than what the parable is honestly pointing to.
And how can we help but have such thoughts about this text with all the death and destruction, gnashing of teeth, outer darkness, and general abusive unpleasantries.
But my friend was right, not just about GIFT Sunday but about New Members Sunday.
This text is incredibly appropriate for this day, a day in which we receive new members into our midst.
This is the moment when all our new members get pretty tense, their eyes start searching for the exits.
That’s why we have ushers, folks, don’t even try it…
But before you start tensing up, waiting for the hazing to begin, let me point something out to you;
This text isn’t intended to draw our attention to the punishment we hear in the parable, it is meant to draw our attention to the invitation of the King.
It is meant to draw our attention to the OPPORTUNITY given by the King, a King whose invitation is consistently rejected.
The slaves of the King aren’t sent out to some plain old road or even an intersection.
All roads surrounding a kingdom or a city in the Ancient Near East funneled into one major thoroughfare which passed through that kingdom or city.
In this parable, the King is sending the slaves to gather in anyone and everyone at the bottleneck where all travelers would be passing.
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| Photo by Enrapture Media on Unsplash |
And so, it is a collection of all kinds of people.
Good people and bad people.
Probably some who are faithful to this King.
Perhaps some who are opposed to this King.
Certainly some travelers who may not even know the King at all.
Yet, they are all invited to enter into the feast.
Just reading this story or having it read to us, something gets lost.
Perhaps it is the fact that we are placing the King’s image onto God, holding God to our own standards rather than considering the immense sense of generosity involved in this parable.
Within my own context, I can’t imagine such an invitation.
When I take my kids to the bus stop, go for a run, or even a drive through my own neighborhood, I can’t help but cast a suspicious eye at anyone who doesn’t seem to belong there.
As if anyone that I don’t recognize is a terrorist agent for Al Shabbabity Boop or Cobra Commander.
That’s not just paranoia, sisters and brothers, that is a sense of mistrust that leads to complete inhospitality for one another.
It keeps us locked in a state of silence and mistrust in grocery stores, traveling, even on the beach!
Preparing for this week I started reflecting on the number of times I’ve told my kids to leave other families alone on the beach this past summer, as if I am trying to discourage their own hospitality.
Yet here in this parable, we find a King that opens up every opportunity to share the immensity of his wealth to all people, regardless of their worthiness.
REGARDLESS OF THEIR WORTHINESS!
And yet, we still look to the punishment of this text as if that is its main theme.
Even though we aren’t capable of THAT kind of hospitality.
Even though we aren’t open to THAT kind of generosity.
And if not because of our own greed, then at least because we are scared to make ourselves that vulnerable.
After all, what kind of riff raff would that let in?
~
A man was entering into heaven, when he came to a large gate.
Stopping at the gate, Peter came to meet him and proclaimed;
“Welcome to Heaven! All I need you to do now, is spell the word love for me and you may enter!”
“Oh, that’s easy!” he said,
“L-O-V-E”.
"Great come on in!” replied Peter, who then asked,
“Could you watch the gate for me a moment? I need to go speak to Gabriel.”
“Sure!” responded the man.
“Great, just remember to ask anyone who comes to the gate to spell the word love and then let them in!” instructed Peter.
“Got it!” assured the man.
A few minutes later, the man’s wife came walking up to the gate.
“How’d you get here?” he asked
“I got in an accident leaving YOUR stinking funeral!” replied his wife.
“No worries,” assured the husband,
“You’re almost in, all you’ve gotta do is spell Czechoslovakia and I'll pop the gate right open!”
~
We don’t have the same standards as God when it comes to just about anything.
And when it comes to welcoming others, FULLY, into our lives, giving them access to all that is ours, truly taking them in as our own, we certainly don’t have the same standards as this King, much less God.
But the point of the parable is not to extend the kind of invitation that God extends, it is to accept the kind of invitation God extends to us.
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| Photo by Sweet Ice Cream Photography on Unsplash |
Recognizing both the cost and the value of that invitation, and savoring it for the gift it truly is.
And here is where Pastor Nate uses the same old cliche’ he uses all the time…
At the font, at the table, in the forgiveness of our sins, in the Word.
Blah blah blah, he used that last time.
But that isn’t a line, I really mean it.
THAT IS the oxen and fat calves, brought to this table for us.
Yet it just doesn’t carry the same weight anymore.
It doesn’t stand up to sports, sleeping in, having some alone time, or the late Saturday night that seemed to bleed into our Sunday morning.
And I’m not sure when I became so out of touch with it all.
I never saw when or where our faith became more about who we said we were, rather than showing up to receive the invitation extended to us.
Showing up hungry for the feast, excited to extend our hands, hearts, and voices to the One who is responsible for all things bestowed upon us!
I don’t think that this is a recent development either, because Matthew speaks directly to this issue.
Not only does Matthew’s telling of this parable begin with two extremes, it ends with two extremes.
Those who are initially invited are a bit too busy, one managing a farm and one managing a business.
They sound like pretty responsible folks, right? They get a pass don’t they?
Yet, they get lumped in with the rest of the group who commit an unequivocally evil act; MURDER!
Matthew takes a little of the edge off of this motif in the end when he plainly states that both the “good” and the “bad” are gathered into the banquet during the second round of invitations.
But we can be assured by the language that these two groups of good and bad are about as distinguishable as the previous group that was lumped in together.
And herein, Matthew clarifies this parable in a way Luke never attempts to, Matthew’s telling goes ahead and outlines the expectation.
He does it with the part of the parable that no one likes, no one wants to hear, and we all seem to find personally offensive for one simple reason.
The King seems like a petty snob!
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Now every vocational call I have ever answered required a uniform, but only during the inspection of that uniforms care was it ever declared a possession of mine.
If I ever failed to meet the standards or expectations of that uniform, I was warned that it represented something higher than me.
I was warned that I needed to care for it because of what it represented, and if I failed to meet these expectations, it was a uniform that could be removed, because in all reality, it didn’t belong to me.
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| My father and I in the first days of wearing one of many uniforms |
It is why all Marine recruits dream of the day they can wear those coveted dress blues and all seminarians strive to don a stole upon their shoulders.
But these uniforms do not really belong to the one that bears them on their back, because these uniforms represent something higher than the wearer.
So does the wedding garment.
This “friend” who becomes the center of attention for the King didn’t forget to pack his formal dinner wear and it isn’t because he can’t afford the right attire or doesn’t have a reasonable fashion sense.
Just as those who were first invited to attend the banquet were unwilling to receive the King’s invitation, this guest is unwilling to wear the proper wedding garment.
Some say that it was customary for the guests to be given wedding attire by the King, and in the Talmud, the King does in fact provide the garments to his guests.
Regardless of the cultural or historical context, the language is clear; this guest has been less than willing to wear the expected garb BY CHOICE.
Big deal! Right?
But this is a direct sign of outright disrespect to the King, it is the highest offense one can commit, because it only involves the simple act of willing participation.
The community Matthew is seeing take shape is a smorgasbord of Gentiles, Jews, pagans, Zealots, and curious eyes on the fringes of the first century Christian community.
Folks who have suggestions like,
“This isn’t how we did it back when I went to Aphrodite’s temple!”
Or
“I liked the big tv screens and goat sacrifices at Zeus’s place!”
Matthew is painting a picture of radical hospitality and an open invitation to all, yet drawing the line that they are gathered together for the purpose of one thing alone;
To worship the Lord God with a sense of reverence and authenticity for the identity they’ve received in the waters of their baptisms.
~
I’ve said it time and again.
All those who’ve visited and most of our new members who’ve spoken with me have heard me say it.
I don’t work in sales, I work in customer service.
I want people to worship God, and whether that is here or somewhere else, I DON”T CARE.
Not because I don’t want to see us grow, not because I don’t think we have something here to offer.
But because Matthew seems to say the same thing that the great theologian, Popeye, once said,
“I yam’s what I yam’s”.
And you are welcome to be part of who and what we are in this place because all are truly invited -and all means all-.
But make no mistake, we are here for the sole purpose of conformity, not to stand out or demand to be recognized individually but to conform to the One who first loved us, who willing died for us, and who wrapped that garment around our shoulders in the waters of our baptisms and will once again wrap us in that garment in our final breaths,
Because that garment is the faith given to us through Jesus Christ that we are honored to wear daily, especially on this day.
Amen
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| Photo by Michael D Beckwith on Unsplash |
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