Invited to the Banquet

Philippians 4: 1-9; Matthew 22: 1-14

FPC; 10-12-08

          One would think the people invited to the royal wedding party would have welcomed and accepted the invitation.  After all, in the first century world, there was no greater honor than to be included on the invitation list to such an event. 

          Instead each person declines the invitation, amazingly, incomprehensibly.  “I can’t come.  I don’t want to come.”  The King receives a royal snubbing.  Some even respond by seizing and killing those poor servants who are merely following the king’s instructions to deliver the invitations. 

          After avenging the death of his servants, the king sends out another wave of invitations, extended not only to the good but also to the bad.  What a gracious invitation.  The banquet hall becomes filled with guests.

          One of the guests is inappropriately attired.   He somehow missed the line at the bottom of the invitation: proper wedding attire only. 

          Because he didn’t wear the proper clothes, that man, according to the story, is not only rejected.  He is cast into outer darkness, that place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.  It is not a good place to be.        

          In this allegory the King represents God, the invitation to the wedding party is an invitation to life in God’s kingdom; and the servants in the story are the prophets.  The wedding garment is kingdom talk for new life, righteous living, behavior consistent with Jesus’ teachings. 

          By telling this story, neither Matthew nor Jesus is suggesting that one’s salvation hinges on what one pulls from the closet to wear.  They both are saying that there are certain expectations of those who accept the invitation to life in God’s kingdom. 

           Someone has said: “To wear a wedding garment is to know the significance of the occasion, to allow God’s gracious invitation to change our lives, and to live accordingly.”[1] 

          This story may remind you, as it does me, of the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree.  In that story, a fig tree that does not produce figs is cursed and chopped down; in this story, a wedding guest without a wedding garment is chastised and then expelled into outer darkness.  In both stories, the theme is integrity:  Be who you are. 

          If you are a fig tree, make figs.  If you are a guest at the wedding banquet or a guest in God’s kingdom, act like one by wearing the proper clothes, by maintaining ethics consistent with Jesus’ life, by allowing his teachings to guide and inspire the way you live.[2] 

          Church historian Martin Marty remembers a convention of historians where one of the presentations was on Protestant clergy in the South prior to 1861: “They were moral, devout, learned, caring, and generous preachers. And to a man they defended slavery, claiming that it was biblically mandated and the will of God.” “How could they have been so blind?” the historians asked, until a wise one among them suggested that each write on a piece of paper, “What would make people a century from now ask of us, “How could they have been so blind?”

          The historians were unanimous in their responses: for us it’s poverty and the poor….[3]   That’s the issue that would make people a century from now ask: “How could they have been so blind?”

          As you think about the upcoming election and how you might mark your ballot, have you thought about the candidates’ views of the poor and how their tax proposals and proposed budgetary plans are going to affect the poor?  The text encourages us to ask such questions, questions about our responsibilities in civic affairs, in the affairs of our places of business, as members of the church and in our homes.  Are the garments you are wearing appropriate for life in God’s kingdom? 

          Seminary professor, Tom Long, has told of an experience he had while attending a conference in a large city.  He stayed in a hotel there and was surprised to find, posted to the elevator door, a small, handwritten notice which read, “Party tonight!  Room 210.  Eight o’clock P.M.  Everyone invited!”  He could hardly picture who would throw such a party, or for what reason, but he imagined that at 8:00, room 210 would be filled by an unlikely assortment of people-sales representatives seeking a little relief from the tedium of the road; a vacationing couple tired of sightseeing; a man stopping overnight in the middle of a long journey, looking for a bit of festivity; a few inquisitive and wary hotel employees, there because of professional responsibility; perhaps some young people who had slipped out of their parents’ rooms, anxiously curious about what was happening in room 210. 

          Alas, the sign by the elevator soon came down, replaced by a typewritten statement from the hotel staff explaining that the original notice was a hoax, a practical joke.  Long says, “that made sense, of course, but in a way it was too bad.  For a brief moment, those of us staying at the hotel were tantalized by the possibility that there just might be a party going on somewhere to which we all were invited-a party where it didn’t make much difference who we were when we walked in the door, or what motivated us to come; a party we could come to out of boredom, loneliness, curiosity, responsibility, eagerness to be in fellowship or simply out of desire to come and see what was happening; a party where it didn’t matter nearly as much what got us in the door, as to what would happen to us when we arrived.”[4] 

          This is no hoax!  There is a party happening.  Unlike Tom Long who couldn’t imagine who would throw a party for a bunch of hotel strangers, I know who is throwing this one. God, who is filled with grace, invites all to come, the bad as well as the good; it doesn’t matter who you are when you come in the door.  The gifts of God’s mercy and joy are the party favors he gives to ones who accept the invitation.  The wedding hall is filled with guests.  You are present.

          But you cannot continue to wear the clothes you were wearing when you arrived.  Justification is an act of God’s free grace; but God’s grace is not cheap.  Sanctification, transformation by the Spirit of God, is required of those who have come to the celebration.   

          Check out the clothes you are wearing.  If you’re not dressed appropriately for the wedding banquet, for goodness sake and for Christ’s sake, put on some new clothes, put on the clothes the Lord gives you to wear.  Make a vigorous effort to live the Christian life.   Or as the Apostle Paul reminds us in today’s epistle reading: “Do the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in Christ and the God of peace will be with you.”