This gospel story is really off-putting at first, but diving deeper was fascinating. What is Jesus trying to tell us? More than one thing, I think.
Matthew 22:1-14
1 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, mistreated 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.”
Dear beloved of God, grace to you and peace this day from God the Provider through Christ the Shepherd. Amen.
One of the things we pastors are taught about preaching is that we should always ask of the text, “what’s the good news here?”
That question might be a little difficult to answer today, of our gospel reading. At first reading, it seems to be lacking in good news.
Jesus tells a story about a king who seems pretty impulsive and extreme. This king wants things done his way, and when that doesn’t happen, his reaction tends to be one of violence.
The “A” list of guests doesn’t win any prizes for good character, either. They either ignore the king’s invitation or quite literally kill the messenger.
The king then sends his servants out to invite folks from off the street – what we might call the “B” list or even the “C” list. And in the midst of this, one guy shows up without a wedding garment, which in Jesus’ time would have been a robe reserved for special occasions. It was worn to show respect for one’s host.
The king (not surprisingly) doesn’t take this well, and ends up having the guy chained up and thrown out. Lovely story.
Not only is this story off-color, but its interpretation over the centuries hasn’t fared much better. It’s been used in countless situations to justify violence against someone who offends whoever is in charge.
It’s been seen as an allegorical representation of God’s kingdom, with the king as God, the rude non-responsive guests as the Jewish religious leaders of the time, and the “B” and “C” list guests as the Gentiles and other Christians. In this reading, the violent destruction involving the “A” guest list is seen as God using Rome to destroy Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD (something Matthew’s audience would have just been through).
This is problematic on a number of levels. The framework of “God is love” is at distinct odds with a king who throws violent temper tantrums whenever he doesn’t get his way. It’s also very prone to interpretation as “supersessionism” – the idea that Christianity supercedes and is superior to Judaism, a way of thinking that continues to this day and has been responsible for literally millions of deaths of Jewish people around the world.
So why are we reading it? Fair question. Let us look at the broad scope of what’s going on in this story.
As a parable, it’s a story with a lesson, maybe even several lessons. One of the lessons that rises up for me is in the odd situation with the guy without a wedding robe.
This parable uses a paradox – being invited, and having an obligation in accepting that invitation – that is widely understood as illustrating that God invites all to the banquet – to discipleship – but then there are behaviors or actions that are expected.
Martin Luther explained this better than anyone when he said “God has no need of your good works, but your neighbor does.” While we are NOT saved by our good works – in other words, what we do has no bearing on God’s love for us, God loves us without condition – we ARE called to respond to that love in service to the neighbor. That is what the wedding robe represents: response. Going all-in when becoming a disciple of Jesus.
For a number of years now, the American church has been very leery of making this claim. Too many years of high-pressure tactics to increase church membership have resulted in a rebound of zero pressure.
And “pressure” is really not the right word. The tactics we might describe as “high-pressure” were really just tactics that benefited the church more than the surrounding community. They came off more like country-club rules than ways to grow as a disciple of Jesus.
But for the church to react by going to the polar opposite does no one any favors either. It cheapens the whole idea of discipleship. We might say “oh, but we don’t want folks to think they have to add anything else to their calendar.” Well, that’s more of the country-club realm.
Instead, when we invite people to walk with us in a life of service to the community and to the world, we put muscle and sinew on the bones of life in Christ. To say “I go to Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, and as followers of Jesus we believe our faith is shown most clearly when we serve others” carries legitimacy in this world. Try it! Just last week I was talking with the new Womens’ AA group meeting at our church on Wednesdays at noon. The conversation came around to the work we’re continuing in the community during the pandemic, and they all wanted to know more and could they be involved when this is all over?
I’ve found this to be true in virtually all age groups. Church as a calendar item holds far less interest for someone than church as a place and an opportunity to join others in service to the world and in worship of God.
Living our faith out in our daily lives is putting on that wedding robe. Going the extra step, because Jesus calls us to do that. It’s costly discipleship – not cheap grace.
Let’s pull back again, and look at the whole story. We’ve got a king with some control issues. (Which might give us a good idea of why the A-listers ignored the invitation.) Equating this king with God can end up normalizing depictions of God as an angry and violent ruler who ruthlessly punishes others; this has the effect of condoning imperial violence—past and present—that operates in arbitrary ways and dehumanizes people at the margins. We don’t need to look far to see examples of this from ancient and modern history.
If God the ruler is violent, human rulers and humans too can be justified in using excessive violence against others. It is also a means of allowing ourselves to be violent—through deeds or words—towards our neighbors that are less privileged than us.
Matthew may have used this allegory in his context because it worked for them. But we need not follow that literal allegorical path. As I examined the text closely, I noticed that Jesus says, “the kingdom of God may be compared to a king…”
Perhaps Jesus’ words here invite us to ask whether this particular king was fit to rule over his people – because in this story, he emerges as someone who was deeply undeserving of his power and abused it at will.
Perhaps in this lesson, Jesus is showing us that the power we associate with earthly kingdoms is not that of the kingdom of God. That the power plays of earthly kingdoms have no place in God’s kingdom. That God shows us true power in the cross, when Jesus surrenders all power but ultimately is victorious over death itself.
We hear in the words of institution that the new covenant is in Jesus’ blood shed for us and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. If God the ruler is violent, then Jesus’ death on the cross is meaningless; just another revolutionary killed by the state.
But if God the ruler deplores that violence – if God the ruler is a ruler through love and love alone – then this story calls us to live into our baptismal promise to reject the forces of evil and all the things that draw us away from God. To reject a way of living that relies on violence and oppression, and instead to adopt a way of being in the world that insists, “love is the way.”
Dear friends, I believe Jesus tells this story as a subtle way of communicating what not to do in the kingdom of God, as well as reminding us that as followers of Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to put on the wedding robe and become – as our baptismal words also tell us – workers together in the kingdom of God.
And ultimately, I think Jesus calls us to a new vision of kingdom, one that the late theologian Rachel Held Evans summed up well:
“This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more.”
Perhaps in this time of COVID, that vision burns a little more brightly before us as the celebration for which we yearn, in the future when it is safe to physically gather again.
Let us pray fervently for that day.
Amen.
Light from the Gorge 