20 Pentecost A 2023
October 15, 2023
A Wedding Invitation
Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14
We are presented with absurdities in our lessons today.
The God of Israel rained down ten plagues on the greatest empire on earth, forcing Pharaoh to let the Hebrew slaves free. When Pharaoh’s army chased the Hebrews into the wilderness, God parted the Red Sea to enable them to escape, and when Pharaoh’s army tried to go through, God drowned them all.
When the people cried for food, God provided manna from heaven. When they were thirsty, he gave them water from a rock.
But when Moses turned his back for five minutes, they immediately turned their backs on the living God for a different, more tangible savior: gold.
What?
Your favorite president is in office and he’s planning a big Christmas party and you get an invitation.
Or: You’re a British citizen and you win the lottery for a seat at the royal wedding.
Or: Taylor Swift invites you to join her in her box at the Eagles game.
But you’ve got a budget meeting. Or a dental appointment. Or a dinner date with some friends. So you blow of the invitation.
What?
Or, when the messenger brings you your invitation to the White House, or the royal wedding, or the Eagles game, you attack the messenger, beat him up, or even murder him.
What?
Or, You get your invitation to the White House dinner. It clearly states that dress is formal. Oh, good, you say, can’t wait! So you put on your favorite old Eagles T-shirt you only wear around the house because it’s got holes and barbecue sauce stains all over it, and off you go to the White House.
What?
The king in the story doesn’t allegorically represent God. Jesus is not telling us that God is like a human king who overreacts when slighted. The king simply acts as earthly kings most likely would. It highlights the absurdity of the parable. Of course you wouldn’t murder the king’s messenger, because you’d know the king would send his soldiers to kill you and burn your city. How much more would you respect the messenger of the God who generously gives you your very life?
And yet, we all seem to have better things to do than to accept God’s invitation to join him and the rest of humankind at the wedding feast of heaven and earth, of the divine and the human.
And many, many people actively struggle against God’s passionate desire to join with us and bring heaven’s blessings of life and love and peace to all the world, particularly those who benefit most from division and conflict and injustice, that is, human powers and principalities, the rich and the powerful.
And gold is indeed the more attractive deity to most of humankind, despite its inherent valuelessness and lifelessness.
Just the day before the story we hear this morning in Matthew, Jesus had driven the moneychangers out of the temple courtyard. They got rich exchanging temple money, worthless anywhere but the temple, for Roman money, legal tender everywhere. For many Jews, this symbolized assimilation to the Roman culture of greed and exploitation even in the holiest of places.
And so Jesus is using this parable, this deep metaphor, to show the absurdity of the history of Israel’s leadership, who, again and again, refused God’s invitation to be at one with God’s people, because they had been tempted by the world’s offer of power and wealth. Jesus was telling the temple authorities that God would take the authority away from them, the so-called righteous Jews, and give it to the nameless crowds of Jewish sinners and tax collectors that Jesus had led into the temple courtyard.
But by the time Matthew was writing, his Jewish Christian audience heard this parable as Jesus’ prediction that God would reach beyond Israel to the Gentiles. But because Matthew wrote for Jews who had converted, and who were understandably doubtful about mixing with people God had formerly told them to reject, he added the bit about the wedding robe. Just because everyone is invited, doesn’t mean everyone gets it. Plenty of people accept the invitation and try to enter on their own terms, for their own hidden agendas, but ultimately, they will end up wandering in the dark.
Absurdity after absurdity.
This parable is set around a coming wedding feast because Jesus is now speaking specifically about the kingdom of heaven joining with the kingdoms of the world, about the divine marrying the human, about God becoming one with humankind.
And most importantly, Jesus’ parable has a life that goes beyond its original setting. Jesus announces that God is pushing past the so-called righteous Jews, calling them to unite with the unrighteous through forgiveness. Some will, most won’t, and some will, but for the wrong reasons.
But sixty years later, when Matthew writes this parable, Jesus is announcing that God is pushing past Israel to the Gentiles, and calling Jews to unite with Gentiles and Gentiles with Jews. Some will, most won’t, and some will, but for the wrong reasons.
So I think it entirely scriptural to see in this parable a pattern for all eternity. God is always announcing that he is pushing past even the boundaries he himself sets to draw more and more into this joyful wedding feast.
God set the boundaries against the tax collectors and sinners, and then transgressed them, as is entirely God’s right to do, by offering them forgiveness and inclusion.
God set the boundaries against the Samaritans and Gentiles, and then transgressed them, as is entirely God’s right to do.
How many other boundaries has God himself set and then transgressed for the sake of his passionate love for every one of us? For the sake of his intense desire to marry himself and his realm to us and ours?
And always, it will be gold at the bottom of the resistance against God. The God Mammon is still more attractive even to those who claim to be Christian. We’re still more interested in our constant consumption than we are in joining the wedding feast of the kingdom of heaven.
And even many who do accept the invitation seem to be doing it for their own agenda and not for God’s. They’re interested in magical powers to achieve their own desires, or money, or fame.
But most of all, it’s the good brother of the parable of the prodigal son that fights most fiercely against God’s desire. It’s religionists themselves that are the greatest obstacle against him, the ones who keep wanting to set up a wall, a boundary, a class of people who don’t belong. The parable asserts without ambiguity that it’s God’s business who is welcome and who isn’t.
It’s our job to accept the invitation with joy, and put on the appropriate attire.
Some might wonder why I wear this robe in worship. Is it to make myself special? To set myself above everyone? It might seem that way. But the alba, that is, the white robe, used to be a garment given to every believer when they emerged naked from baptism. A powerful symbol that we have joined the royal priesthood of God.
It’s the wedding feast robe, the robe that celebrates the joining of God with us, and us with God and each other.
Put on your robe. Be of one mind with Christ. Come to the feast. And be sure to welcome all to the Lord’s table as God has welcomed you.
Amen.
