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22nd Sunday after Pentecost October 12, 2008 |
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22nd Sunday after Pentecost October 12, 2008 |
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Alexander Shaia calls this parable “a conundrum, a method of teaching structured to tie the mind in knots, thereby assisting in [changing] old ways of thinking. The theory is that while the mind is thus occupied, something may be loosened in the heart...” (Beyond the Biography of Jesus: The Journey of Quadratos, Book I, p. 72) As we read Matthew 22:1-14, may we not dismiss it in our puzzlement, but be open to having something in our hearts loosened.
Having read the parable, it’s obvious that we need to know the context. In year 70, the Jews experienced the worst disaster of their history. Their temple was destroyed. All of the priests and scribes, their families and tribal members were killed. No Torah scrolls or sign of the Temple were left. The Jews that survived fled to Antioch. It was in Antioch that Matthew wrote his Gospel to help the early Jewish Christians through this crisis. It is also written for us, when we go through major change and the need to begin again. With changes, questions emerge: How do we move forward?
Today’s Gospel is a parable Jesus told to people facing change and having to choose whether to go with God through the change or whether to go it alone. Jesus uses the image of a banquet – with details we would not use today. It’s a violent story with confusing analogies unless we update the details.
For instance, if someone were to come today into a neo-natal intensive care unit and refuse to wash their hands, those in charge would decisively show them the door rather than the at risk babies. No one wants contaminated fingers touching the newly born.
As the parable begins, a wedding banquet is being planned for the king’s son. A guest list is compiled and invitations are sent. The problem is none of those invited will come. We can wonder what this king did to make no one want to come to his son’s wedding.
Or maybe it says something about the son. We can also wonder what the king did to make them think they would get away with killing those who brought the invitations. They don’t get away with it. The king is outraged and has all those originally invited to the wedding killed and then sends others to invite anyone else they can find. There’s no time to waste. The fatted calf is prepared. The king wants the wedding hall full, now.
And they come – the poor and the sick, the women and the children, the crippled and the blind. Everyone not on the original guest list is now included. And they come – whether to honor the king or his son or to finally in their lives get a decent meal – we don’t know. What matters is – they come. And if the story ended here it would at least make logical sense. The rebellious get their due and the poor get welcomed in.
But the story doesn’t end here. Matthew includes another paragraph. One of those last minute invitees got in without a wedding garment. It’s hard to make sense out of the demand that everyone have a wedding garment on when these people have been brought in at the last minute from every far flung edge of society.
Some scholars say it was common for the poor to borrow a wedding garment from those who had them, so why didn’t this guy? Or that the host would provide them free of charge at the door, so why didn’t he pick one up? Others say the king would have been tolerant had the garmentless man explained his situation. But the man refuses to engage the king. He wants to touch the babies without having his hands washed. He wants the invitation but with no claims made on him whatsoever. Bonhoeffer calls this cheap grace.
But we can still be put off by the king’s harshness. What’s the big deal about wearing the right clothes? When was the last time you arrived at an event with the wrong attire? It happens. I think churches have done well to tell people they are welcome to come as they are comfortable so no one has that experience at church.
When I served a church in Santa Monica one of the teenagers in the youth group dyed his hair blue. His mom told him he couldn’t come to Communion like that. We discussed it and I told her I think God is colorblind. I didn’t think God would mind Michael being there with his blue hair. He came the next week.
But something else is going on here. Episcopal priest, Father Robert Capon says “Those who were invited do not have to get their act together in order to be worthy of the party. They have only to accept the acceptance and go with the flow.” In other words, to accept the invitation is to act like ones invited.
Anna Carter Florence of Columbia Theological Seminary suggests: “If you’re a wedding guest, by gum, then look like you’re at a wedding instead of a funeral! Take off the long face, change the droopy attitude, put on your party clothes and celebrate – because this is a celebration! And anyone who isn’t happy to be here – and happy to see who else is here, well …” (Lectionary Homiletics, October/2008, p. 20)
Dr. Florence goes on to say, “I know a lot of people who look about as happy to be in church as Eeyore. You would never guess, to look at them, that salvation is a good thing. You would never know that Christ has made a difference. They have no wedding garment – no outer sign that this is a party, that we are [Easter People]; that the gospel is good news. Sometimes,” she says, “I’m like that. I pout in my flip flops while everyone else is dancing in their party shoes. Sometimes I don’t put on the wedding garment that Jesus has already laid out for me, freshly laundered.”
This is true of me sometimes too, and maybe you. I know Christ is risen, but when Friday night comes and our kids are 500 miles away and I can’t ever have them over for dinner I can become an Eeyore in a matter of minutes. Other things may bring the long face out in you. Perhaps a loved one has died or a relationship is strained, or you’ve lost a job or you or a loved one have failing health, or you’re frightened by the economy or the war or global warming or the injustices in the world. Life is real and so are we.
The point of the parable isn’t that we should mask our realities. The point is that God’s grace embraces us with all our realities and calls us to trust the process. Accepting the invitation means trusting the goodness of the one who bids us come and be washed.
The man without the wedding garment didn’t trust the king’s goodness. Had he trusted he could have simply said, “Oh, I didn’t know there was a garment for me?” or he might have said to the neo-natal nurse, “I didn’t know where the wash basin was.” And the king would have said, “Absolutely, there’s a garment for you.” Or the nurse would say, “Here’s the basin, wash here. It’s all on the house – free for all who come!”
Martin Luther writes in the Small Catechism, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, but the Holy Spirit calls me through the Gospel.” Not even our inability to believe keeps us from God. The Holy Spirit calls us through the Gospel – if we will just trust the process.
We are the ones invited from the far flung edges of life. The Spirit has taken care of everything – but has not taken away our free will. There’s nothing to keep us from God’s goodness – from the banquet of grace – except our own choosing to not trust.
The Table of grace welcomes all. But to come isn’t just a yes to the food. It is to say yes to God who invites us just as we are with our hungers and hurts, our longings and misgivings. We do not have to have our lives or even our beliefs in order – just our hearts willing to take a chance on God who has already and forever taken a chance on us.
Amen
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Church, Chico, CA