Sunday
October 12, 2014
Cathedral
Church of the Nativity
Proper 19 A
1Once 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
We’ve
all heard that saying – it looks like a duck, it sounds like a duck and walks
like a duck then it must be a duck.
Well
today’s Gospel looks like a single parable about a wedding feast, and while it might
look like a duck, but in reality it’s not.
In reality it’s two ducks, or rather two parables strewn together over the
course of creating our canon because they are both set in the same context of a
royal wedding banquet.
If
we were to break today’s reading into the two distinct stories the first
dealing with the invited guests and the second dealing with the inappropriately
attired guest we can see this selection in a much different light. Especially if we consider the context in
which the Gospel of Matthew was written.
A context of complicated social responsibilities and expectations not
easily translated into our modern mainly middle class American culture.
It
is believed that the author or authors of Matthew’s gospel survived the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and accordingly the author and those who
followed blamed the Jewish leaders for their complacency in the Roman
occupation.
The
parables of Matthew indicate over and over again an understanding that while
the Israelites were the chosen people, they denied their esteemed status as the
ancestors of Abraham and Sarah. Those
who were the rightful heirs of the Kingdom of God were cast aside by their own choices.
This
is what Matthew is attempting to prove in having Jesus tell parables where
those who were invited deny their invitation by choosing what appeared to be
the good alternative options –one went to his farm and the other to his
business. Later in the same parable,
these invited guests assault the slaves who come to escort them to the festivities.
It
can be understood that the slaves are an analogy for the prophets whose lives
are recorded in scriptures, they were those who served the King without
distraction, without differentiation.
They were not slaves to the land or to the economic pressures of the
world.
Matthew’s
author continually derides the Pharisees for their inability to see that the
Kingdom of God is greater than the Kingdoms of People and this parable is no
different. He casts the light in such a
way that the Pharisees neglect to see that they are being honored as guests at
the King’s wedding feast, instead they are choosing to focus on earthly matters
instead of heavenly things.
Only
after those who had initially been invited are destroyed and their city burned
do they realize that they have chosen unwisely to focus on their work rather
than their life. Some bible scholars
claim that this is an allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem and use it to
base their understanding of the time in which Matthew’s gospel was
composed. But the destruction of the
farms and the business could also be an allusion to the temporary nature of the
human world, and the understanding that the Kingdom of God is eternal where the
kingdoms of humanity are fragile.
The
second parable – the “what not to wear” parable is a little more complicated. It seems that the King has prepared a feast,
but the guest whom he invited, the Pharisees, who are distracted, are unworthy
of their invitation. Instead the adopted
heirs, the sinners and tax collectors, who have no right to even be invited to
the wedding banquet, are now given the place of honor at the table. The
Pharisees are the same but the context of this parable is different, the guests
in the first parable would rather farm or sell wares, but in this parable, they
are deemed unworthy of attending the event for some unknown reason.
So
instead of having unworthy guests at his table the King casts a wide net out
into the community inviting all who the slaves encounter on the street into the
wedding feast.
Upon
entering the feast the King finds the ragamuffin crowd of guests, including the
one who is inappropriately attired and the sentence for this fashion crime is
being gagged, tied and left outside of the city walls where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth. I thought
Joan Rivers was a tough fashion critic, apparently this King is even more
judgmental.
But
as with all parables there is exaggeration and hyperbole present in the
images. The message is extreme but there
is a lesson to be learned in this parable as well. And I believe the message is you better be
prepared.
Now
I have a bit of a confession to make, I am a HUGE fan of Rupaul’s Drag Race and
also Project Runway so when I hear this parable I imagine the King looking at
this wretched individual like Rupaul and tell on of the drag queen contenstants
to “sashay away”. Or Heidi Klum “auf wiedersehen -ing” another designer whose
outfit just didn’t pass muster.
But
the problem is that the man on the street wasn’t planning on coming to a
wedding that day, he wasn’t planning on meeting RuPaul, or Heidi Klum, he was
planning to just run to the store. I
feel like it's the first century equivalent of showing up to class in your
pajama pants, or running to Wawa for a quart of milk with your grubby sweats
on.
So
why is the King so judgmental? What
does it matter what the unintended guest is wearing? Shouldn’t we all be received and accepted as
we are, aren’t we a come as you are kingdom?
I
think that the point isn’t as superficial as it seems. The point isn’t that the guest is dressed in
white after labor day or seersucker before memorial day. The fashion faux pas is an example of how one
ought to constantly life “as if” and be prepared to enter the Kingdom of
Heaven.
We
shouldn’t live our lives in the “good enough” realm. At a certain point in my life I lived by the
motto- “done is better than good” and how many of us can relate to that
feeling. When 7 million things are
pulling us in 7 million directions when our lives are out of control we
sometimes feel like our “C game” is good enough. This is what Jesus is warning us against in
the second parable.
We
always ought to bring our “A Game” – we always should be ready to serve God
when the call comes, we should always be ready to follow the commandments, and
if we come up short there will be judgment.
However,
there is one aspect of this parable that I think is missing, or at least it is
not directly mentioned, the Tim Gun character, the mentor, the advocate, the
prophet, the dare I say it, the messiah (the savior) who stands before us and
teaches us and helps us to do our best with what we have been given. The person who tells us to “make it work”
when what we are working on isn’t quite up to snuff, and that person isn’t the
slave who will bind us and throw us into the darkness, but that person is Jesus
who is telling us we have to be prepared- which is not a new theme for the
parables in Matthew- who shares with us many times, the message of being
prepared for the coming of the Kingdom.
Proof that Matthew and those who followed him believed that the Kingdom
was coming eminiently.
For
us 2000 years later the immediacy of the end of days doesn’t seem so inevitable
in our lifetime. We tend to live our
lives not as if the invitation will be coming soon rather we tend to focus on
our day to day life and loose track of what is truly important. We tend to get comfortable and complacent and
figure that getting by is good enough.
But what we are called to do as Christians is respond to the invitation
the opportunity, the chance to take risks and fulfill our calling to Love God
and love our Neighbor in all places and at all times. What we as Christians are called to do is be
prepared at all times to fulfill our baptismal vows to: observe the sacraments;
preserve the prayers; resist evil; proclaim the Gospel; seek, serve, and love
our neighbors; and strive for justice for every human being; not some times,
not when it is convenient, not when it suits our agenda, but at all times.
Jesus
teaches us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like so that we won’t miss the
invitation, and we won’t show up unprepared.
He wants us to make it work. But
it’s up to each of us to make the choices to respond, to show up and not skate
by.
Amen.
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