Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 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.” 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” 10 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.
11 ‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. 13 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.” 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.’
Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
This morning’s parable presents us with Matthew’s vision of salvation. In it quite simply, we are offered life with God. Ours to have just for accepting God’s invitation. And ours to lose by turning away. So this is not Jesus meek and mild today. It is a sort of tough love Jesus. And he presents it to us in a parable:
A king plans an elaborate wedding banquet for his son and sends invitations to all of the local nobility to share in the festivities. At the appointed hour, the king's servants go out to let the guests know that it is time to begin the celebration. But there is an unexpected turn of events - the guests don't come because they didn’t take it seriously, they had other places to be. They decided not to attend.
The king very much wanted to have them as his guests. So he sends out even more servants to gather up these guests. But this time not only do they refuse to come, some actually turn violent killing the messengers sent to them by the king who was offering them a feast.
So as not to deprive his son of the promised feast, the king sends out even more servants this time to round up anyone and everyone to attend the celebration - but not before exacting some judgment on the invited guests who chose not to attend the banquet that had been prepared for them. They and the empire of their making are all destroyed.
Why does Jesus begin this parable by saying that the kingdom of heaven might be compared to this scene? Surely we wonder about the characters in this parable and why they so rudely - even violently - refuse the king's gracious invitation? Who is this king who takes such action against guests choose not to come? Who are the servants who are slaughtered in the midst of simply doing their jobs?
The king, of course, is God. The servants sent out with the invitation to come to the banquet are the prophets, the teachers and Jesus himself. The banquet is eternal life and all the joy, and healing and peace that involves. And the guests – well, that’s all of us. There are surely similarities we can see, how ancient people, too, lived busy lives and apparently, could easily say “I’ll pay attention to that tomorrow.” Even “I hear you, I know what you want and I’ll get to it… but not right now.” So in the end, the kingdom of heaven is like this: the expected guests are absent and the most unlikely ones are present.
Jesus is still speaking to the religious leaders and the temple authorities in Jerusalem when he tells this parable. Do we think that they take to heart? Or might these first century descendants of the people called Israel, these keepers of the law, might they have believed that the kingdom was theirs by right and by lineage? Did they realize that they, too, were called to live faithful lives?
Many of us may see ourselves among the chosen but if we, like those first guests invited to the wedding banquet, failed to heed the call of Jesus to faithful discipleship and go on about our lives and routines uninterrupted with our true allegiance to the world around us first and our relationship with God second -- or worse deciding to destroy the messengers of God that are sent to remind us of who and whose we are, we will realize the sad consequences of our choices because we create our own separation from God.
Our call is clear: we are called to be a people who are transformed by the love of Christ. Indeed our garment is a garment of Christ's love with a purpose.
And what is that proper garment? St. Paul tells the Ephesians it is the whole armor of God in chapter 6.
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Put on the whole armor of God or experience what Jesus calls “outer darkness.” Don’t attempt to become a guest, a beneficiary of God’s grace, he says, without proper preparation of heart and mind. Judgment of others who make light of the banquet or who go about their business and go away is not our concern. Instead, we are to get busy preparing ourselves for judgment, preparing ourselves to meet the king who gives the wedding banquet.
And we are called to respond to our call to discipleship by following Christ, by loving God and neighbor, by walking in Christ's ways and by setting aside the ways of the world. God's banquet table will be open to the marginalized, to the neighbors who haven't been regular church goers, to those who haven't made it to the top of any who's who list or won any awards. The banquet table will be open to all who are willing to open our hearts to wear the garment of Christ's love and to walk in Christ's ways.
Matthew's gospel clearly dispels any notion that the long-awaited Messiah has come for any one group of people. Indeed this Messiah has come from all the world, has ministered to the world, and sends his disciples forth into all the whole world to bring everyone to the feast. We are free. With the free will that was given to humankind in creation, we're free to refuse God's invitation.
We are free to be wed to the routines and the existence of our human dictates rather than to walk in solidarity with God's commandments. We're also free to suffer the consequences of our choices. But first and foremost we are loved enough by our God that God will over and over again seek us out to draw us back into relationship. And we are free to choose to accept God's love and to live with God forever.
So today we will present ourselves for holy communion confident that lives grounded in fifth and good works will be acceptable in the kingdom of heaven. The good news, as we will say at the end of communion today, is that the eternal God, our heavenly father has graciously assured us that we are living member of the Body of Christ and heirs of his eternal kingdom. We will pray for the strength to do the work that God has given us to do to love and serve God as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord. It’s not an easy gospel to hear. But there can hardly be one more important. Amen
