PENTECOST 22, A – October 12, 2008

SCRIPTURES – Isaiah 25:6-9; Phil. 4:4-13; Matt. 22:1-14 

 Today we hear from Jesus a simple story about God and His kingdom; and yet, because He speaks to a culture that is different from ours and with customs that are foreign to us, His story is not so simple. Now, you get the basics, don’t you? God is the King; His Son is, of course, Jesus Himself; and the wedding feast to which He invites people is the eternal celebration that will take place in heaven. Those who receive the invitation and gladly come will enjoy the feast of salvation in heaven, and those who despise the invitation, showing that they despise God, will be cast out into hell. May that never be us! Be glad in God, then. “Rejoice in the Lord always!” as Paul urges. Listen to and believe in Him and in His Son, that you may enjoy the eternal feast in heaven! 

But, there are things in this parable that sound very strange to us. We’ve never had kings in this country, after all. God’s wedding banquet may not seem that grand because his actions seem very harsh. He condemns people just because they don’t accept an invitation to a wedding, or don’t dress the way he likes!? That’s bizarre! To correctly understand Christ’s parable of the king and his feast, you need to think as you did when you were a child and heard the story of Cinderella. The king is having a ball! It will be in honor of his son, who will choose a wife. How exciting! All the people in that story are excited, and rightly so. How wonderful to be welcomed into the castle for a grand ball, to enjoy the feasting and dancing and beautiful gowns! The king is having a ball! Who wouldn’t want to go? Oh, I hope I’m invited! 

This is how the people in Jesus’ day thought of God’s kingdom. The Jewish people knew God was their King, and for centuries they had awaited the coming of the Messiah, the Savior He had promised. When He came, it would be a time of joy and celebration – a wedding feast! They knew Jesus in His parable was talking about the coming of the Messiah. But, the actions of God, the king in the parable; well, they would have sounded as strange to their ears as they do to ours, but in a far different way. What a good and merciful king who is inviting people to the incredible feast he is providing! But his invitation is rejected – unheard of, an incredible slap in the face and public dishonoring of him! The king is having a ball! Who wouldn’t want to go? So, what does he do? Well, He sends more servants out to plead with the people to come. It’s as if he was getting down on the ground and begging them! King Herod or Caesar would never do that. No one would ever think of rejecting them! But, Jesus says, God, the King of kings and Ruler over all creation, was being rejected by them, His own people. Incredible! Still, He is patient and merciful. He earnestly wants them to receive his invitation and come, and so He pleads with them! How could such a good King be rejected? How could His servants be abused and even killed? Such injustice and insult demanded a response. Their destruction was deserved. 

Christ’s description of God in the parable now becomes the most counter-cultural. When those who were first invited reject the invitation, what does the king do? He sends his servants out to invite the people in the streets, who would be the poor, the diseased, the crude, and even the pagan Gentiles, and urge them to come. “Those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.” Incredible! Unheard of! Is God really that merciful? Yes, He is. We’re not welcomed into heaven because of our goodness, for we are not good! Our good and merciful God invites and welcomes us. Rejoice in Him! 

And then comes the last, and perhaps most confusing, part of the parable. “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ” What the heck is this all about? Again, it’s about the goodness of God and the insulting arrogance of men. The king, you see, knew that he would be welcoming to his feast the poor, the diseased, and the crude. They would have nothing; their clothing would be dirty and tattered. And so, he provided for them wedding garments, beautiful clothing to cover their lowliness and shame and give them dignity and honor. They could now truly enjoy his feast. 

Except for this one guy. “I’m not going to wear those clothes,” he says to the servants who try to put on him the beautiful clothing the king has provided. “My clothes are good enough. He can take me the way I am!” What an insult! What arrogance! He has rejected the king’s goodness, just as much as those who rejected the invitation. He deserves to be thrown out into the outer darkness.

This is the part that we most need to listen to, for this is our day, our thinking. Must God accept you on your own terms? Must the celebration of His feast of salvation be dictated by your own tastes? Who the heck do we think we are? 

Yes, God demands that we must leave behind everything that is ours to enter into His kingdom. But, what do we really have to boast about before God and hang onto?

q   Our wisdom? Sure, today we understand a lot more of our world and how it works. Have we solved poverty? Have we cured every disease? Have we established any perfectly just and benevolent government?

q   How about your own goodness and mercy. Are you always kind and merciful? Have you done enough to help the poor? Do you visit the sick, and especially those who have been forgotten in nursing homes and institutions? Why not? “But I do my best!” Do you really?

Even the best of our works are filthy rags compared to the goodness and mercy of God, who to save us laid upon His only-begotten Son our sin and death. Boast in the Lord Jesus and in all that He has done for you! Don’t hang onto the clothing of your own goodness, but rejoice in the garment of salvation that God clothes you with, which is Christ Himself, His life, death, and resurrection for you. Rejoice that God has given you this garment, this Savior. God invited you into His kingdom and clothed you with His Son when He baptized you. Baptism into Christ is the garment of salvation. Scripture tells us this. In Galatians 3 we are told:
 

“All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (3:27-28)
 

Being clothed with Baptism into Christ we are one in Christ, as husbands and wives are one flesh! In Ephesians 5 marriage is spoken of, and husbands and wives are told how to live with each other. It goes on to say:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Him-self up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (5:25-27)

Your baptism is the robe of Christ, His righteousness wrapped around you to cover the nakedness of your sin. It is the garment of salvation that makes you beautiful in God’s sight. 

Rejoice, then, in your baptism, and so rejoice in Christ! Listen to Him and receive Him. And, look forward with joyous anticipation to your wedding day, when Jesus comes again in glory to take you to your home in heaven. Death will then be swallowed up forever, tears will be wiped form all faces, and we will feast in the presence of our good and gracious King!