There was a little church in the poor
part of town whose members didn't have much but very loving. A new
family moved into the neighborhood and it was apparent that they had
threadbare patched up clothing, so the pastor asked the congregation
to have a clothing drive to help out the family. And they did. With
smiles and well wishes, they presented the almost new clothing to the
family, with the invitation that they would be welcome at the little
church. The father of the family assured the membership that they
would be there. The next Sunday came and went, and the Sunday after
that. Finally the pastor went to the father and said, “you
certainly don't have to come to our church, but I thought you were
going to when we talked.” The father replied, “Well, we were,
but when we got all cleaned up and dressed in those clothes, we
decided we'd be more comfortable with the Episcopalians.”
This is the third parable Jesus
addresses to the chief priests and elders. Two weeks ago it was the
two sons; last week it was the tenants of the vineyard who refuse to
give the owner what is rightfully his; and then we come to this week.
And again, it's easy to read this as still another place where Jesus
says, “You Jews had your chance! I'm going to hand over the kingdom
to the gentiles!”
But before we jump to that, a little
background. The king is planning a wedding feast for his son. Only
the best people are invited. The king has told all the A-list upper
class high society people that the feast will take place on a
particular day, and they should hold the date. And the date comes,
and he sends out his servants to invite the guests. So far, so good.
Everyone listening to Jesus knew about those kind of parties.
Probably none of them had ever been invited to one, though. And they
had all heard this comparison before – there is more than one
description of God's kingdom as a wedding banquet, or at least a
banquet, in the Hebrew scriptures. And while it helped to be Jewish
to be invited, it was no guarantee; you had to also be a righteous
person.
Then Jesus starts to expand a bit.
People are turning the king down! And for stupid reasons. The social
event of the century, and you have to check out your farm? You can't
take the day off? And of course even more shocking is the fact that
the king's invitation is met with violence and even murder. Now we
could pause here and say, if the king is God, what next? It doesn't
sound like God when the king marshals his army and wipes out the city
and its inhabitants; it doesn't sound like our God, at least. But put
that aside for a minute; Jesus does not imply that the king is God.
And the next thing is almost as shocking. The king throws open the
banquet to everyone his servants can round up, and finally the
banquet hall is full. It doesn't appear that it matters whether you
are upper class or lower class, even good or bad – you are invited.
And then those who were listening
heard the most shocking statement of all. A man is thrown out, bound
hand and foot, because he isn't wearing a wedding garment. They knew
that the people who had come to the banquet would have been given a
simple white tunic to wear over their clothing – the wedding
garment.
Now if you were invited to a wedding
today you might have been given a card with your name and assigned
seat on it. Lets say you showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, tossed
the card on the floor and went up and sat at the head table. You
might get thrown out also, and that's kind of what the man in the
parable was like.
So what do we make of all this? How
does it apply to us? And really, it has nothing to do with the Jews
and the Gentiles. Matthew wrote at a time where this division was
just beginning, and some communities of Christians still considered
themselves to be Jews.
I think it's like this. Jesus is
still answering the question, what is the kingdom of heaven like?
And he starts with a familiar image – its like a wedding feast; and
only the right people are invited, people who had the right status,
the right friends, the right amount of money. And it really helped
to be a relative of the king.
But Jesus goes on to say that
actually, everyone is welcome, good or bad. Everyone is invited to
the banquet. So Jesus is saying that there are no preconditions to
the invitation; you don't have to pray a certain way or live like a
Pharisee, or have Abraham as your ancestor. And you can reject the
invitation. If you ignore it, that's up to you. If you actively
oppose the kingdom, there will be consequences.
But if you do accept the invitation,
you will have to change your life, you will have to, as Saint Paul
tells us, “put on Christ”. Every time we baptize someone in our
church, he or she puts on a white garment to symbolize this exact
thing. The man who was thrown out accepted the invitation but
refused to change, refused to be led by the Spirit of Christ.
If we put on Christ, that means that
we make a conscious effort to put God first in our lives. Jesus was
a man of prayer, and the reason he prayed was to learn what God
wanted of him, not to ask God for favors. And his prayers were often
prayers of thanksgiving, because he had seen the Father at work in
the world. And that should be our goal – to learn what God has in
mind for us and to be grateful for what we've been given.
But if we put on Christ that means we
make a conscious effort to notice the people who God puts in our path
– to notice that they, like us, are beloved of the Father and that
Jesus died for them. It's our task to see their need and try to do
something about it – and everyone needs something if only a sign of
connection and solidarity, like a smile or compliment or a serious
inquiry such as “How are you?” And if they haven't heard the
invitation to the wedding banquet, we may be the messengers that have
been sent out by the king.
