22 PENTECOST, PROPER 23, YEAR A

SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE

12 OCTOBER 2008

THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY

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Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23; Philippians 4:1-9, Matthew 22:1-14

Just when you think you’ve heard the harshest of Jesus’ parables, along comes another one. Like the one today. The story of the king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.

What sort of father is he, anyway? And what sort of king? He sends his slaves out to round up the guests, but the guests blow the invitation off. It seems they don’t even want to go to the wedding feast.  The king is furious at this snub, furious at this lack of respect, and the feast is all ready, the tables set, meat cooked and waiting to be served. Some of the would-be guests even kill the king’s slaves who show up with the invitations.  The king is so enraged that he sends his army out to kill those would-be guests and burn down their city. 

No benevolent dictator, that king.

But then, it seems everything changes. The king opens the wedding feast up to everyone. “Go, invite everyone you can find!” he tells his slaves. “Bring everyone in, both the good people and the bad ones. Everyone.”  Having been snubbed and dishonored and insulted by the refusal of the original invitees to attend, he now tolerates an even greater insult to himself: letting everyone, even riff-raff, come into his banquet hall. Sitting down to eat with any old person? In your own house? Unheard of. We might smile happily at this turn of events. A bad king turned good at last. And they all lived happily ever after.

But that’s NOT the end today. There’s the added bit about the guy who comes without the right clothes. The king spots him somewhere among the guests. He sees this man sitting there in his own clothes, not wearing a wedding robe. “Friend,” calls out the king, and then he banishes the speechless guest. “Into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” adds Matthew, in his typical little postscript.

So again we ask: What sort of king is this anyway?  What is Jesus up to here? What is Matthew telling us?

Jesus no doubt was telling this story against the religious leaders of his own day.  Leaders who interfered with the outbreaking of God’s kingdom.

Matthew told the story for his own time, decades after Jesus death. By then, the religious leaders Jesus had railed against earlier were all dead, their Temple obliterated, Jerusalem destroyed, Israel dispersed and no longer even an intact nation. It was a time of chaos. And in the midst of the chaos, the new Christian communities were trying to survive and work out their own identity.

Two different contexts, Jesus’ and Matthew’s, one story for both. And then there’s us in our own time and context. And how do we hear the story for ourselves?

Actually, it’s a double story: the first part about the violent king who ended up welcoming the whole world into his feast. Jesus and Matthew the gospel writer both told the first part.  The second part tells about the man who came to the banquet unprepared.  It may be that Matthew himself tacked that second part onto the first, since he was talking to the new church, a message for new Christians.

The first part is easier to understand--the violent king turned generous, the king who was transformed, who ended up welcoming everyone into his kingdom, both the good and the bad, the king who fed everyone no matter who they were, the king who was willing to risk his reputation by eating with random nobodies. The king who stands for the generosity and welcome of God to all of us. As for the king’s initial violence, some attribute that to the pangs that so often accompany  real transformation. Isn’t it true, that turmoil often happens when a person undergoes a change, or an organization, or even when a nation changes direction? But hat’s a sermon for another day.

The second part of today’s story is the part that we remember most, I think. At least I do. About the poor fellow who suddenly finds himself in the king’s own dining hall, food piled up in front of him, and he can scarcely believe his good fortune. Never mind that he wasn’t dressed right, here he was anyway. Whoopee!

But no sooner had he sunk his teeth into the barbequed whatever than he found himself out on the street again, gnashing his teeth in the outer darkness. And all because he hadn’t worn the proper clothes.  

What had he done wrong? Just that?

I think it’s more a matter of what HADN’T he done. Clearly, what he hadn’t done was to prepare himself. He hadn’t bothered to get the clothes he needed. He hadn’t done it because he hadn’t cared enough to have done so. What if he’d said, “I can’t accept your invitation, O King, because I don’t have a wedding robe? I really, really want to be there, but I can’t find the clothes?” The guy didn’t say that, though. He merely slid in to the banquet anyway and gobbled up the king’s generosity and it was no big deal.

No big deal. No preparation.

Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, puts it this way. “Do we desire God’s kingdom enough to begin to ‘dress’ for it in this life?”

Our younger dog, Angus (black lab), puts it another way. His passion for the banquet, for food, is so great that he will do almost anything to get it. I tap his metal dish and he runs and careens into the closed door at the end of the hallway where he eats, he sits without being told to, his whole body quivering. And by the time he finishes his meal, he can’t wait for the next one. Desire and preparation for the banquet, that’s Angus’ main goal in life.

What’s our main goal?

The hapless man in today’s story was not prepared and it seemed that he didn’t care enough to have done something about the invitation when it came. And once he was inside the banquet hall, there’s no evidence in the story to suggest that he felt out of place for having neglected to prepare for it. He seemed to take it all for granted. No big deal, look at me. Great food. I’m in.

Matthew is talking to the new Christian community. And to us. The message has everything to do with how seriously we take God’s invitation.  How seriously do we prepare and continually prepare for life within God’s community?  How seriously do we take and follow our vows of baptism? Even in a time of chaos and confusion? It was hard for the early Christians to do that in their chaotic time. It’s certainly hard for us in ours. But the demands on us are never lifted. The consequences for careless acceptance are always real. We’re in, but how do we show God our delight at being there?

And----and here’s another thought---think about this. Even “outer darkness” is part of God’s created order. The story doesn’t say the underdressed, unprepared man was thrown out into utter oblivion, just darkness.  And we don’t know how long he actually stayed in the darkness.

This story doesn’t have a neat ending; it doesn’t “resolve.” 

We do, though, know about God’s continual promise of forgiveness. On that we base our Christian hope.  God’s welcome is forever open through the Cross of Christ. And we must know that each of us has been given the gift of imagination. So perhaps the best way to take this story with us, to begin to resolve it and make it our own, is to let our imaginations loose---for seeing what might be next for the man without the wedding robe and for ourselves.