Matthew 22:1-14
October 11, 2020
I remember the first time I became
aware of the abbreviation RSVP. Sadly, it was not because our family had
received an invitation that required an RSVP. No, I first heard this combination
of letters one afternoon after school when I was watching Gilligan’s Island.
It was a classic and timeless
episode. The Howells, Thurston and Lovey, were holding a fancy soiree, and they
delivered invitations to the other five island dwellers. Gilligan read his to
the Skipper and wanted to know what a rizvip was. Skipper patiently
explained to him that it was not rizvip, it was R. S. V. P. RSVP, as you
may know, is from the French phrase repondez sil vous plait, “respond if
you please.” This whole episode, like so many episodes of Gilligan’s Island,
was full of surprises and unexpected turns. Skipper’s invitation did not
arrive. Everyone got upset, thinking he had been excluded. The other islanders,
who normally loved the Howell’s parties, expressed their dismay through their
RSVP’s, declining the Howell’s hospitality. It turned out it was a huge
misunderstanding, and soon everyone figured out what happened, friendships were
mended, and the party was a huge success. However, and this is a big spoiler
alert, they still don’t get off the island.
I chose a kind of silly story to
lead us into a really disturbing and even frightening parable. Was it last week
that I said how tempted I was in the face of the parable about the vineyard to
skip the gospel passage altogether and preach on something else? It was just
last week. Well, I do believe that this week’s text is worse. Matthew’s
parables are getting darker, but the times in which Jesus is telling them are
getting darker as well. The plots to have Jesus killed are fomenting. He is
angering the religious authorities. He speaks truth to those in power, and
therefore he is a threat to those in power. This parable, which is dark and
hard to hear, is right in line with what is happening in the world around
Jesus.
“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.”
The context in which Jesus is
speaking this parable and the others that we have read is dark. As much as the
crowds around him have lauded him, followed him, sought after him, and
beseeched him, Jesus knows that his ultimate rejection by the world is fast
approaching. As I said earlier, he is angering the powers-that-be. He is making
enemies, and those enemies are plotting to seek their revenge. That is the
context in which Jesus is speaking these parables. But we are dealing with a
larger context as well because Matthew is writing his gospel account to a
particular audience in a particular context too.
Scholars
believe that Matthew’s gospel is the most Jewish of the four gospels. He is a
Jew writing to other Jews. And in his community, his church if you will, a
split is happening. His community is splintering and dividing. Matthew and
those others who have heard the good news of Jesus and believed are most likely
the minority. It seems that the majority are not willing or unable to hear or
believe the good news, and the result is a theological and emotional battle for
the soul of the community.
Although a similar parable to this
one is found in the gospel of Luke, Matthew takes this parable and makes it a
grave, even sinister, warning. If you do not accept the invitation to the
king’s feast, if you decline, even though you were supposed to be on the guest
list, you will not only be replaced by someone else, you will be destroyed.
Yikes.
And, just as in last week’s parable
of the vineyard, the emissaries of the king who brought the invitations were
not only dismissed, some of them were abused and mistreated. So it is understandable,
sort of, why the king would be angry, but it is still a struggle – at least for
me – as to how to grasp or understand the terrible turn that takes place in the
parable. The king is not only angry. The king sends out his troops and destroys
those who declined, those who murdered the emissaries and burns down their
city. Then, while the city is on fire, others are invited. The party doors are
thrown open to a brand-new guest list.
But as I said, Matthew is writing to
a community that is splintering over who believes and who does not. Matthew
Skinner, a professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, and one of the
contributors to WorkingPreacher.org. said that we must read this parable and
indeed this gospel with empathy. We must have empathy for what the community
Matthew is writing to is going through. We must have empathy because in moments
of division and polarization, do we not also wish that those on the other side
of the line might suffer consequences for what we feel are their wrong beliefs
or lack of belief entirely
And
while it might be hard for us to consider the possibility that Matthew would be
manipulating this parable to awaken the collective conscious of those in his
community who have turned away from the gospel, that may be some of what is
happening here. Does this mean that Matthew is putting words into Jesus’ mouth
to evoke a particular response from his community? No. But I think he is
putting into words what the group of believers in his community must have felt.
We have told you the truth, and you won’t believe, so here are the consequences
… the kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son …
Skinner’s admonition to read this
parable and indeed the whole gospel with empathy struck a chord with me. I
realized that as disturbing as I find this parable to be, I also know that I am
guilty of wishing for these same results to happen to those whom I believe have
distorted the gospel message. Maybe all of us do. Perhaps we do not wish for
total destruction or for their cities to burn to the ground, but we may wish
that they feel the sting of repercussion for their own actions. I’ll be honest,
I certainly have wished those things.
That is a tough thing to admit, but
unless I am in total denial, I have to be willing to own up to the fact that it
is true. Because there are a whole lot of people out there who proclaim to be
Christian, to be a disciple of Jesus as I do, but their take on what that
means, their interpretation of the gospel, is so radically different from mine
that I despair of ever finding a common ground other than in the name
“Christian” itself. I suspect they may feel the same way about me.
Because the truth is when it comes
the kingdom of heaven, when it comes to the idea that the kingdom of heaven is
like a wedding banquet thrown by a king, before I say yes to the invitation,
before I give my RSVP, I would really like to know who is on the guestlist. I
want to know who is going to be there. Who will I have to sit next to? Who must
I socialize with? What if I fundamentally disagree with him? What will I do?
What will I say?
And
when it comes to the guest list, the real truth is that I would like to have
some say in who is on it, and more importantly, who is not. But that isn’t how
a banquet in the kingdom of heaven works, is it? I usually love this kind of
imagery. I love the idea of the kingdom of heaven being a great banquet, a
feast, in which there is always room at the table for every person. I have had
dreams of feasts like this, where we sit at the table with friends and family,
with neighbors and strangers who we realize were our neighbors all along, with
those who are living and those who are living in God, and it is the most
beautiful and wonderful dream. There is no thought to the guest list because we
are all invited, and we have all accepted the invitation. But that is in my
dreams, and I am far from living out that dream in my waking life.
You see as hard as this parable is, to
hear, to read, to understand, to contend with, we also hold it in tension with
what we believe and know about God. What we believe and know is that God is a
God of grace. God is a God of love and mercy, and yes, judgment too. But
judgment in Matthew’s gospel is not solely fixed on punishment but on opening
the eyes and heart and mind of the one being judged so that person can change
course, can turn back to God. And if this is what we believe, that God is a
gracious, merciful, loving, and reproving God, then we have to let go of our
need to see who is on the guest list. We must be willing to accept that God has
invited others to come to the wedding banquet, even others who challenge us. We
have to accept that God may just show grace to others that I would not show
grace to if it were up to me. God may invite others that I would not invite.
But what about that guy at the end?
The man who shows up for the feast but is kicked out for wearing the wrong
clothes? What do we do with this? This seems to take the parable from difficult
to downright impossible. In my study of this passage, I have heard a few
theories. One is that if we accept the invitation, then we have to be prepared
to follow through in every way. Being a disciple of Christ is not just about
saying, “yes,” then sitting back and resting on our laurels. Being a disciple
means striving to live the life we have been called to, in our words and in our
deeds. It is not enough to just show up at the banquet, we have to dress
ourselves accordingly.
A second possibility is that the
idea of the king representing God is wrong. When it comes to the guest who is
thrown out of the banquet, we must consider that the party goers are us and the
man banished from our communion is Jesus himself. If Jesus, a Middle-Eastern
itinerant, hard truth speaking, temple cleansing, parable telling, welcomer of
society’s outcasts, misfits, and rogues preacher were to show up at our doors,
would we welcome him in? Would we make room at the table for him especially
since he would not look like us or sound like us or think like us?
I don’t know which of these ideas is
technically “correct.” I suppose they both hold truth. But I do know that what
we must lean on when it comes to parables like this one is God’s grace. This is
not grace that excuses all our misdeeds no matter what. This is not a grace
that helps us just enough that we learn to tolerate the differences of others.
This is a grace that not only forgives us our weaknesses but reminds us that
others have weaknesses too. This is a grace that calls us back to the party, to
the banquet table, and restores our name to the guest list. Thanks be to God
for this grace, for this abiding grace, for this amazing grace.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.” Amen.
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