Matthew 22.1-14

20th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23) | 15 Oct. 2023 | Matthew 22.1-14 | Richard O. Johnson |

Once more Jesus spoke to the people in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 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.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 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. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 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.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22.1-14)

When I was a student at Yale Divinity School, back in the last millennium, I once heard a presentation by a professor who had taught at Yale for several years, and then, during the late 1960s, had accepted a job at Stanford. He spoke about the culture shock of moving from New England to California at that particular time in history—going, as he said, from Yale, where there was still a coat and tie rule in the dining room, to Stanford, where there wasn’t even a shirt rule. I remember feeling a certain amount of smugness that I was from California, a much more laid back and enlightened place where things like what you wore to dinner didn’t really matter.

Dressing appropriately

Of course, it wasn’t always like that. I sometimes think back to what it meant to get ready for church when I was a teenager, at least in my family. I started getting ready the night before. I laid out my best clothes, I ironed my shirt, shined my shoes, picked out which of my two ties I was going to wear. In the morning, I showered until I was squeaky clean. I plastered my face with after shave lotion—an optimistic gesture, since I wasn’t really shaving yet!—and put on those freshly ironed clothes and shiny shoes, and off we went. It was indeed a production, but it was what you did to get ready to go to church. I still remember the shock I felt when I went away to college and one of my dorm mates, a very devout Roman Catholic, trundled off to Sunday evening mass in blue jeans and a T-shirt. “How inappropriate!” I thought, in my smug, college freshman way.

This morning’s parable features a guest who inappropriately dressed and is therefore unceremoniously ejected from the wedding banquet. It’s a great story, but we have to walk through it a step at a time in order to feel the impact.

Start with the fact that this is a wedding feast. The king’s son is getting married, and it is going to be a big blow-out celebration—the biggest party in years! So the king sends out the invitations to all the important people, and a strange thing happens: no one wants to come. We’re not sure just why that is. Our translation says the invited guests “made light of it,” but what the Greek really says here is that they just didn’t care, they weren’t interested. I don’t know about you, but I’m always getting phone calls inviting me to take advantage of some spectacular deal—offering me a great vacation, for instance, or a free television sit. All I have to do is . . .  well, you know the rest. I don’t like to be rude, but as soon as I get the gist of it, I say, “Sorry, I’m not interested” and hang up. That’s what these invited guests have done to the king: “Sorry, not interested.”

Thanks, but no thanks

Of course, there are many people who just aren’t interested in Christ’s invitation. Maybe they simply don’t understand what it’s about. When she was in college, our daughter was invited to join Phi Beta Kappa, the prestigious national honor society, and she did so. At graduation, her older brother asked what that meant, and we explained it. “Oh,” he said. “I think I was invited to do that, but I didn’t know what it was, and it cost money, so I ignored it.” Yes, that’s sometimes the way it is with people. They don’t understand what this invitation from Christ means, and so they ignore it.

Or sometimes it just isn’t as important as other things. In Luke’s version of this parable, that is the focus. The various guests have all kinds of excuses: “I just got married; I’ve just bought a new cow; I can’t come.” Translation: “Sorry, not interested.”

And so the king extends the invitation more widely. “Go invite everyone,” he says to his servants. They do so. They gather up everyone they can find—both good and bad, Matthew tells us. Again, that’s a difference from Luke’s version. In Luke, the servants invite the lame and the blind—symbols for the outcast and the oppressed. But here in Matthew, it’s the good and the bad.

This is for you

You know, I like that better. The invitation of Christ is extended to all of us—even the bad. Even me, when I’m bad. Another seminary story: My friend and I had been having a bit of conflict. I had said some things, done some things, that I regretted. I was feeling pretty bad about it. It was Friday, the day that Holy Communion was celebrated in the chapel. I was sitting in the back, feeling guilty, feeling unworthy to come to the feast. As the congregation moved forward to receive, my friend spotted me in the back, where I was stuck to my seat. He came right back to me and said, “This feast is for you, you know.” I got unstuck.

What is it that the catechism says? “When is a person rightly prepared to receive this sacrament? Fasting and other outward preparations serve a good purpose. However, that person is well prepared and worthy who believes these words, given and shed for you for the remission of sins.” The good and the bad. The invitation is for all.

Charles Wesley based a wonderful hymn on this parable; it’s not one familiar to most Lutherans but it should be:

Come, sinners, to the gospel feast.

Let every soul be Jesus’ guest.

Ye need not one be left behind,

For God hath bid all mankind.

Sent by my Lord, on you I call,

The invitation is to all.

Come, all the world! Come, sinner, thou!

All things in Christ are ready now.

The wedding robe

All things ready, the banquet hall filled. But then there occurs a problem. It seems there is a guest without a wedding robe. This so disturbs the king that he has the fellow thrown out. Down through the centuries, theologians have puzzled about what the wedding robe might represent. In the early church, opinion was that it symbolized holiness of life. You could not be in the banquet unless your life was adorned with Christian virtues. St. Augustine took a different tack, arguing that the robe represented love. Luther in his time preferred to understand the wedding robe as faith. I suppose you could make an argument for any of those ideas, but I have a different sense of it. What is the primary emotion at a wedding feast, anyway? Isn’t it joy? Isn’t primarily a time of celebration, a time of rejoicing with the wedding couple?

Stay with me on this for a minute. Joy permeates our other two lessons this morning. In Isaiah, the Lord lays out a great feast, a feast of rich food and well-aged wine, and the response of the people is, “Let us be glad and rejoice in our salvation.” And in Philippians, Paul urges his readers to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

Of C. S. Lewis it was said that if you wanted to describe his life in one word, it would be “joy.” Indeed, he titled his autobiography Surprised by Joy. The surprise came when Lewis, once a great skeptic, at last became a Christian. He laid to rest his intellectual problems, he made a conscious decision to follow Christ—but he was unprepared for the resulting joy. He thought the Christian life was going to be one of struggle and challenge— and indeed it was, in many respects. And yet there was this joy.

The joy of discipleship

Do you suppose the man without a wedding robe might represent the Christian who is without joy—the Christian who sees faith as nothing but a burden, who sees following Christ as gritting one’s teeth and fighting to stay on the narrow path? Yes, that would be a lot like a guest at a wedding who comes simply out of obligation, resenting it every step of the way, and resolved that, by golly, I’ll go, but I’m not going to have any fun! Who would want that person at the party?

And so it is at this banquet of joy given by the great King. We’re all invited, good and bad. It isn’t always easy to come; it isn’t always convenient. But the inconvenience, the “burden,” if you will, is nothing compared to the joy. Indeed, as Helmut Thielicke puts it, “the dressing up and preparing … is itself a part of the celebration and is full of joy. … Repentance is not a woebegone renunciation of things that mean a lot to me; it is a joyful homecoming to the place where certain things no longer have any importance to me.”

Now there’s one more thing to say, and it’s very important. Maybe you feel a little sympathy for the guy with no wedding robe. After all, perhaps he didn’t realize he was about to be invited to a wedding. He was no doubt one of the last-minute invitees. But here’s what you need to know: The custom at the time was that the host provided the wedding robe. That was part of the invitation. You showed up, just as you were; before going into the banquet hall, you were given this festive robe to put on. It was a gift! The fellow without the robe seems to have refused the gift. For whatever reason, he decided just to keep his filthy old clothes, and not exchange them for the robe of joy and celebration. That’s why the king is so offended.

And how about you? You’ve come to the feast; you’ve responded to the invitation. But how are you dressed? Are you still hanging on to the old, soiled garments of pride, or of resentment, or of anger? Still clinging to the filthy rags of greed and selfishness? You’re here at the party—but are you rejoicing?

Soul, adorn yourself with gladness,

Leave the gloomy haunts of sadness,

Come into the daylight’s splendor,

There with joy your praises render.

Bless the one whose grace unbounded

This amazing banquet founded;

He, though heavenly, high and holy,

Deigns to dwell with you most lowly.

—

Pastor Richard O. Johnson

Webster, NY

roj@nccn.net