Dinner Gone Cold
Matthew 22:1-14

October 13, 2002

One of those 1960’s TV game shows found a woman winning a week at the luxurious Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City. She burst into tears before the millions watching. “I’ve got to get everything new!” She wanted to dress for the occasion, and for this grand occasion she knew she probably would not be up to the challenge.

The kingdom of heaven is like that, sort of.

After all the fuss and ado regarding wedding guests who turned down the invitation and street people and less-than-desirable characters being invited in their place, you would not think that proper dress is a problem. Yet the kingdom of heaven depends upon what you wear.

Few parables lend themselves to allegory as readily as the Wedding Feast. Just about every detail seems to be paralleled by a situation in the landscape of Jesus. Before one can get started, the biggest problem with the parable, though I hear few mention it, is that the kingdom of heaven is compared to a party. Religious people don’t have parties: it’s against their religion. Christianity is a duty, a somber walking with the Lord, a struggle against the deadly forces of evil. Except for those wild bacchanalian choir parties, this church does not know of such things. How much passion do you think is generated at those pot-lucks?

Not only does Jesus describe heaven as a great feast, but so does the Old Testament when Isaiah looks forward to the banquet at the end of time hosted by the Messiah. Martin Luther liked his beer, so it is in our Protestant blood after all. I can’t imagine how all those Puritans and Presbyterians and Methodists read this parable and then went out and made sure the world was safe from fun. Too much of a paradigm shift.

The king naturally is God, and the son for whom he threw the party is Jesus, the Son of God. The servants the king sends out with the invitations are the prophets who are ignored and worse, are attacked and killed. The king sends his army to burn their city, just as the Romans would raze and burn down Jerusalem and the Temple during the Jewish revolt in 70 A.D. The excuses of the invitees are no allegories. They are real, still contemporary, and still lame.

They all made light of the invitation. They didn’t think it was serious. One went back to his farm, another to his business, and supposedly worked instead of rested and played. I’m not sure they really worked. Luke’s version has three excuses that are verging on the inane and funny. The first one has just bought the farm and needs to check it out. Don’t you check it out first before writing the check?

The second one is more of the same, having just bought five oxen and wants to check them out to see if they work. Being stood up for a bunch of oxen is something of an insult for any human host. The third excuse claims he has a new wife and has to be with her. People then did not discuss intimate details in public, so this would have been a rather crude excuse if it were to be taken seriously. These excuses may only be topped by the ones we have perhaps used.

The problem is deeper than you think. Each of these invitees, fine upstanding citizens that they are, could not come because they had a “previous commitment.” A previous commitment to what else but themselves.

The Arabic mystic al-Ghazzali said it plainly: “Listen, my friend, if you do not want to be with God, it is not because you are too busy; but you do not like God and do not want God, and you had better face the fact.”

The king knew the facts and sent out more servants in search of anyone that moved, inviting the lower edge of society to the banquet table. Both the good and the bad were brought in for the party. So much for the good morals and behaviour we emphasize in our sermons and Sunday Schools. It had to be a wild party. Heaven is quite an event.

Ah, but you’ve heard all this before, about how we church people have to be more welcoming to all kinds of people, especially those who are not our kind of people. It is a familiar refrain in our churches; just don’t force us to have to do it right away. One of the most persistent complaints in liberal circles during the Civil Rights movement was that the blacks were trying to gain their rights and freedoms too quickly. If they would be more gradual, instead of demanding freedom now, they would have gotten farther and faster in time.

An even more unsettling thought has to be thought. Suppose you and I are after all that second group of invitees, the people on the street. Good and bad we know we are. All the original invitees, all the supposedly spiritual elite, had already made their excuses and eliminated themselves. Spiritually, we are the ones the cat dragged in, and we have been able to justify ourselves being included in the feast. The party becomes more fun all the time.

It would be preferable to have the parable end right there, with a riotous party and banquet firmly underway. But there’s an added bit about proper wedding clothes. It doesn’t sit well, for if you invite bums to a dinner party, can you expect tuxedos?

I doubt any of us have escaped wearing a uniform. Indeed, we figuratively would kill to wear certain kinds of uniforms. Hockey Canada, for instance, or a surgeon’s gown, a judge’s robe, a police uniform, and it goes on and on. You have to earn the right to wear such uniforms.

Go back now. If you and I are drawn out of the second batch of invitees, then we really don’t deserve to be here. But no one, for that matter, deserves to be a member of a particular church. You don’t qualify by your righteousness to be a member. Who among us would be good enough to qualify?

If God lets you into the church, into the feast and party, then you and I have got to change. Change into a different set of clothes, just like the woman who won the week at the Waldorf-Astoria. Change your behaviour and conduct. Sure, God takes you in exactly as you are, ragtag and all. That does not mean you can keep acting the same way as out on the streets. If you are answering God’s call and invitation, then you better get ready to live a new life. Different and higher standards, that’s the price of a meal and a party. You’ve got to change your life.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan