Year A, Proper 23
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
North Andover, Massachusetts
The Rev. Stephanie Chase Wilson

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

A family invited some people to dinner.  At the table, the wife turned to her 6-year-old daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?”  “I wouldn’t know what to say,” the girl replied.  “Just say what you hear Mommy say,” the mother answered.  The daughter bowed her head and said, “Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?”

That may have been what the King was thinking who invited the people from the streets to the wedding banquet.  Actually, he was delighted that this crowd had accepted his invitation after the first lot turned him down.  But this second group included both the good and the bad and there were some less than ideal guests among them.  In fact, he approached one man and confronted him about his inappropriate attire.  When the man couldn’t defend his action, the king took a rather drastic step and threw the guest into the outer darkness.
 
Up until this point we were seeing the king as a generous man, but that last part seems a bit harsh.  We know the guests were invited off the streets, which means they probably weren’t the most prosperous crowd.  For the most part such folks wouldn’t own dress clothes.  Why punish a man for something he couldn’t prevent?

The story is an allegory.  Each character represents some one or event and it is meant to tell us something about their relationship to each other.  This is not a lesson on how to be a king, or about etiquette at a dinner party, this is about the Kingdom of heaven.  Jesus says at the very beginning, “the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to …”

Last week we heard about the vineyards and the evil tenants.  The week before we heard about the two sons, one who was obedient and the other who was not.  Today’s parable is the third in a series telling us about the Kingdom.  Like the others, this week’s story is addressing the Israelite leadership; they are depicted as the first guests who turned down the invitation.  The slaves who announce the invitation could be seen as the prophets of God.  The guests from the streets are the Christians, both gentile and Jew, who accept Christ. 

The interesting thing to note is that in the story the slaves “gathered all whom they found, both good and bad.”  The point is, just being a Christian is not enough.  The church is a mixture of good and bad.  We are all invited to the banquet, but we do not all accept this blessing with humility and gratitude.  Some folks take the gospel to heart and some just warm a pew on Sunday morning.  We are a collection of sinners trying to live as Christ taught us. But not everyone is trying.  

    Today’s parable hinges on the guy without a wedding robe. Jesus is pointing out that while Christians may be invited to the banquet, and in fact are enjoying the privileges of the feast, there are certain expectations we must meet or we will be uninvited. St. Augustine thought the wedding robe symbolized charity, as found it 1 Cor 13. Martin Luther thought it was faith.  Calvin understood it as good works (Bruner, 777). However you interpret it, the point is, there are expectations of us. We are to put on the robe.

Just as you wouldn’t show up at a wedding reception without bringing some kind of gift or thinking about what you were going to wear, you can’t just show up at God’s feast. There has to be some outward sign that you are taking the invitation seriously.
Something is expected, even though the invitation is sheer grace. Grace is free, but it’s not cheap. God invites everyone, but allows us the free will to RSVP or not.

At the banquet, while the other guests humbly and gratefully trade in their street clothes for celebration clothes this one guest is guzzling the drink and cramming the food in his mouth. Traditionally the host would have provided the wedding robe so by not wearing the robe, the guest is insulting the host. The guest is focused on himself and not on the wedding, the purpose of the gathering. In other words, while the Reign of God is given to the new guests because those first invited don’t deserve it, the “newbies” don’t deserve it, either. They must accept the gift with humility and gratitude. They need to guard against the same self-righteousness and apathy that they might accuse others of. As Jesus says [Matt. 7:21-23] “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”



Like the first guests, we too may find excuses for not doing the will of God.  Remember, many of them had perfectly legitimate excuses for not attending the wedding banquet. One had a farm. Another had a business.  It was good things, not bad, that distracted them.

“Likewise, the call of Christ, in its specifics, can be very inconvenient. Like the invitees, we find it easy to accept Christ in principle, and, like them, we find it less easy to accept the particulars – Christ’s call to serve on the Vestry -- or to teach Sunday school -- or to be ethical in our dealings at work – [or to spend time nourishing our relationship with God] -- or to love our neighbor as ourselves -- or to tithe. The place where the “rubber hits the road” can be pretty gritty. We are sorely tempted to reserve our discipleship for the parts of life that don’t require us to change -- that don’t force us out of our comfort zone.” 1

God invites everyone to the feast.  It’s just that some people want to come only if it is on their own terms, in their own clothes.

This parable is not meant to frighten us.  It is meant to comfort us.  We are invited. In other words, the parable has two foci. The first is what I have been speaking of: that there are expectations of us. The second focus is the very fact that we have been offered this gift of the Kingdom. God loves us so much that he is inviting us to the banquet. You are precious to God. We are just pulled in off the streets and offered this amazing feast. And while we are expected to respond, the invitation itself is offered before we have done anything to deserve it. You are invited to the banquet just as you are.

This week as we have all watched the markets around the world tumble and hear ominous warnings of economic meltdown, we wonder what this will mean for us. Where is God in all this? Well, I can’t tell you that God will wave a magic wand and make all the bad news go away. God isn’t Santa Claus. The Lord, however, is present with us. A God who would offer us the entire Kingdom, a wedding banquet, will not abandon us now. St. Paul’s has lived through two world wars, one depression, and countless other challenges, and still the church and its people are standing. In times of anxiety, confidence in God’s love and guidance will give us the courage and wisdom to face our current challenges.
And if Kingdom living begins in this life, we will find it within ourselves and our community regardless of the state of the stock market.

We don’t have to be rich or smart or fashionable or even particularly nice, and God still offers us the Kingdom. But it is when we respond that we will find joy and fulfillment, no matter the external turmoil. The King wants us to enjoy the banquet. And all we have to do is put on the robe.

Amen.

 Footnote 1 “Exegesis,” by Richard Donovan, from the Deacon Sil website, 10/10/02