Matthew 22:1-14
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. 3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4Again 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.’5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’10Those 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, 12and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.13Then 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.’ 14For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Who here as planned a wedding before? I know for one that it is a very stressful time, since you want everything to be perfect, so that both you and all your guests will have a wonderful time. It has a sense of magic about it and it is a joyous occasion, yet the desire to make it amazing for everyone takes its toll. Between finding the right place to have the reception and picking the write hymns and getting the right food and sending out all the immaculate invitations, it can bring a person to their limits. And then when the RSVPs start coming in, then it becomes a daily ritual of either celebration or mourning, as people either say they are coming or say they are unable. And then there is the worst ones, when people do not send in a reply and you sit there going “did they receive it or was it lost in the mail? Did they forget about the wedding? Or do they just not care enough about us to respectfully tell us whether or not they are coming?” and all the stress builds and builds until that day when the slightest issue can send a person into a tailspin, because it matters so much that everything is right and that everyone is happy.
So I can understand how the king in this parable can be so stressed out and infuriated with those who have betrayed him by not coming to the wedding. And it is a betrayal, because those who are invited to weddings are normally those whom we cherish and want to share our moments of joy and out of our bounty with. So when they don’t come, without a good reason, they betray the king. And when they mistreat the messengers and kill them, that’s a royal betrayal. Luckily for us, no one killed any of the post office workers who dropped off the invites, but I can’t say for certain that none were chased by dogs.
So the king takes the recourse and revenge that this betrayal brings about. Now, those invited had been given second chances. Keep in mind, that most mortal kings would have gone and slain those who did not come when they first refused, since at the time, refusing the king was the same as outright rebellion, because it dishonored the king and showed that your allegiance was not to him. But instead of outright punishment, the king tries again, which would dishonor the king but he wanted the people to come and join in the festivities and to honor them. It was only after the invited killed the slaves that the king sent his armies and destroyed the city.
So now what was the king to do? The food had all been ordered, the wine had all been brought, the bride had her dress and the groom his tux, but now there was no one to come and join in the festivities and they wanted to share their joy and their abundance with others… So what do they do? They go out and they invite everyone that they meet on the streets to the wedding banquet, whether they are good or bad, whether they know them or not. All who were found were brought into the celebration. And this was not some celebration that lasted merely hours, instead it is a celebration that last seven full days. Seven days! I know how much a wedding reception costs now, and it’s hard to swallow when inviting friends and family, so how much more is the cost when it’s for seven days and you don’t know the people who are coming at all. Yet the King does so with little thought to the cost, because it is His desire to celebrate with others and to give out of His abundance.
And so it is with God and all of us. We do not earn the right to be invited by God to His feast, but instead He has us brought in because we are there. It is when we think we are too good or when it is expected and not seen as honorific as it truly is that we get into trouble. That is the problem with the first round of guests. They expected the invite, because they were powerful and saw themselves at least as equals to the king, not really needing him. It is when we become so full of ourselves that we lose sight of we are truly are compared to the King that we put ourselves in trouble. It is when we forget that God is truly the one in control, the one whom we owe everything that we have, that we become full of ourselves and begin to reject that which God has loving offered and given for us.
That is the crime of the one who is without his wedding robe at the party. Just like the ones who didn’t come or murdered the slaves, this one believed that he was too good to do what was required of him. Instead of wearing the proper attire, he decided to show up however he wanted, since the king should be glad to have him there no matter what.
When I was in college, I decided to rush a fraternity. It was my sophomore year, and I had a lot of friends in the house and it was basically a sure thing that I would be in. The day of the rush dinner I come an hour early, which was mistake number one. While this was not an event you wanted to be late too, there is such a thing as being too early as well. Also, the dress code was business casual, so at least a polo shirt and nice pants. I was in this green long sleeve t-shirt, cargo pants, and sneakers. But hey, I didn’t see a problem, cause I’m Sean, and I belong here, I’m at the house almost daily. Wrong. That was not a fair assumption. Instead my friends look at me and tell me to get out. I was shocked. I thought I was dressed fairly well, after all the shirt was fifty bucks, the most expensive shirt I had in my closet. But my friends were right, I had put myself on a pedestal and I allowed myself to think more highly of myself than I should have. Now I was lucky, in that they let me come in after I had changed into more suitable attire, but I was cast out originally and there was some gnashing of teeth.
The man in the story is not as lucky though, for he is bound and tossed out for his offense, for not wearing the right clothing. Now to be clear, this does not mean that there is a dress code for worship or that you have to have nice clothing to be part of God’s feast. Instead it means that we must clothe ourselves in the proper fashion for God, and our clothing is our beliefs and how we live out our lives, since those things are all intertwined. Each of our actions is a thread that forms our clothes at the celebration. When we clothe ourselves in repentance, in the radical re-orientation that focuses us on God and causes us to act in thanksgiving with love, mercy and compassion, we are clothed in that beautiful wedding robe. When we act out of self-importance, without mercy and compassion, with greed and fear and envy, that is when we form our t-shirts and cargo pants, unfit for the wedding feast.
All of us have been invited to join in the feast, and we are called to go out and to give that invitation to others as well so they may join in the celebration and know the joy that is in following our savior. But we must live out our lives in true faith if we hope to stay in that celebration, if we are not to be tossed out into the darkness. It is through our giving of ourselves to others, through the acts of compassion and mercy that we do, and through our desire to show love and thanks to our God that our robes are made and we may be a part of the feast that has no end.
And we must not take pride in those garments and begin to believe that they are not any more beautiful than any other, for it is when we begin to judge one another, when we begin to set ourselves above other that we will begin to fall and falter and we will be sent out into that darkness. For it is that moment that we become those who ignored and those who mistreated, for our self-importance is what leads us down the path of destruction and our robes become nothing but rags.
Instead, let us always look upon our brothers and sisters with the most positive eye we can, with the most compassion and love in our hearts. In that way, we may emulate our loving God and we may bring healing and invitation to all that we meet, instead of condemnation and fear. For we do not worship a God who desires to be separate from His creation and his children, but rather one who desires to bring us in to celebrate and to share his love and joy with us.
Amen
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