The Wedding Banquet

Sunday Sermon, October 9, 2011, Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 23. Year A
Most Christians think that they have a pretty good understanding of God and how God operates, what we used to refer to in seminary as the ‘economy of God. The problem however is that once we think we have God figured out, we realize if we are honest, that he is bigger than whatever we can imagine. Topics like heaven and hell and who will go where are discussed much of the time with the utmost confidence. With most Christians what they believe is a matter of black and white, absolutes that cannot nor should not ever be examined or reexamined.
To be sure we have in the person of Jesus Christ the perfect revelation of God. And from his life and his teachings and his actions we can derive much about how God interacts with his creation and specifically how he interacts with us as part of that creation.
However, what has happened as Christianity has developed over time and history is a sense that somehow we as Christians are ‘in’ and others are simply ‘out’ unless they conform to what we believe and act as we act. We have all the facts about God. We believe that those who reject or deny or never accept or are born into another religion or have a different lifestyle or even a different political view cannot will never be able to enjoy those things that God in his infinite goodness has promised to all of us.
There is among Christians this idea that because we think we know God fully that we have somehow been given the right to judge others. Holy Scripture has been distorted, added to, and misunderstood so much that it is difficult to even have a conversation with another Christian about what Jesus actually said and more importantly, what he actually meant. Many of us when we read Scripture read into it things that are not there. We see things from our own cultural, political or economic perspective not realizing that God is much bigger and broader than anything we can imagine. The problem with thinking we know God in every detail is that once we think this way we put God into a box. God has become for many Christians, finite and predictable. To think this way is a huge mistake. And if you cannot or do not want to take my word for it than let’s look at the words of Scripture for this morning and in particular the Gospel reading from Matthew.
The Gospel for this morning is a perfect example that God is neither finite nor predictable. The main point of this story is about invitation; more specifically God’s constant, persistent and repeated invitation to God’s great party. But, in order to better understand this story we need to do some unpacking.
First, it is important to know that most biblical scholars agree that this is a story in which the writer, St. Matthew took a story of Jesus and reworked it to fit the context of those to whom he was in community with, those who would hear the story. You can find the other version of this story in the fourteenth chapter of Luke which is probably closer to how Jesus told it. What Matthew does is to soup it up so it really is no longer a parable but an allegory. Matthew turns the story into an allegory of God’s salvation history – a way of telling others what he sees as the central action of God and his plans for human history.
In an allegory unlike most parables we do not need to worry about details making sense. In this allegory the first guest represents Israel and the first two sets of slaves represent the prophets of the Old Testament which is why some are beaten up and killed. The city that is destroyed represents Jerusalem.
In the second part of the allegory the slaves who are sent into the streets to invite everybody are the apostles who after Jesus’ resurrection brought the church together. And as Matthew and his audience are well aware, the church is filled with both good and bad, righteous and unrighteous; just as it is today. After all everyone means everyone. And just as the church was different from the leaders of Israel, so too is the first crowd different from the second.
What happens next in this allegory is very significant. It is a picture of the last judgment, the second coming. In the allegory the king has come to see who has stumbled or been dragged into his party. It is at this point that most biblical scholars become interested in the part of the story that deals with the guy who gets tossed out for no other reason than the fact that he is not properly dressed. What is that all about? Well, some biblical scholars say that the reference to the robe came from the fact that all people going to a first century wedding would have actually had in their closets a white robe especially for such an occasion.
Others say the garment is a metaphor for baptism, while others say it is a metaphor for good works. St. Augustine said that the wedding robe was a garment which represented the “love that springs from a pure heart, a clear conscience and a good faith.” Some say it was a real garment that the host gave to his guests after they arrived to cover up street clothing. This fits in with what Matthew is talking about. In terms of the reason for this man getting the boot some say it was the man’s silence that got him into trouble not the fact that he was not dressed right and still others contend that his getting tossed out had to do with his inner state or condition.
What St. Matthew is ultimately trying to convey to his listeners is this. We have to have the choice to reject the invitation, to refuse the robe; to say no to God. The guy who refuses to put on the robe becomes a symbol for everyone invited to the feast who declines to participate. It is about the freedom we have as human beings to say no to God.
And it’s important that we have this choice, that we have the freedom to say no, to refuse to put on the garment handed us at the door, and so, thereby, to take our chances outside. If we can’t do that, if we can’t say no, then we can’t really say yes either, and we’re just sheep rounded up into a pen.

Our humanity, our freedom, our very dignity demands that we have what the king gave that fool in the story, which is the opportunity to walk away from the greatest gift he could imagine, a gift he had, in fact, already been given.

And the poor guy had to really work at it; he was given all sorts of chances. But the King would not take away the man’s option to say no. The king would not treat him as someone whose actions didn’t matter and whose choices didn’t matter.
This is Matthew’s understanding of the whole story of sacred history, from the beginning of Israel to his guesses about the final judgment.

And who knows about our stubborn friend who is gnashing his teeth in the outer darkness? The parable hints that the character of the King is such that, sooner or later, he just might send a slave or two out that direction to issue, as he did with his first set of guests, one more batch of invitations.
Perhaps what St. Matthew is trying to convey is that God’s love is so vast, so great, so deep, and so complex that his invitations to come to his party never run out. Think about it. Amen.