The Banquet

Matthew 22:1-14

October 15, 2023

 

            Normally I try to begin my sermons with a clever or pointed illustration that leads us into the passage before us. But this has been a hard, sad, and frightening week. Too many weeks feels this way because the news here at home and from around the world is often bad news. But the terrible news coming out of Israel and Gaza, of the catastrophic loss of life of both Israelis and Palestinians is horrific. Although it has been many years since I was there, I vividly remember the people I met and the places I saw so it feels personal in a way other conflicts have not. Sadly, I believe the worst is still to come.

            So, when I tried to think of a story or illustration that would move us into this passage from Matthew’s gospel, nothing seemed appropriate or helpful. It has been a disturbing week, and we have a disturbing passage before us.

            Last week I said that sometimes there should be a warning label on scripture because scripture can both challenge and change us. It can also disturb and unsettle us, sometimes making me as a preacher want to skip the hard stories altogether and preach on something “nice” instead. But I am convinced we need the hard stories, the challenging stories, even the painful stories as much as we do the comforting ones. So, we dig into this parable duly warned.

            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.

Biblical scholars believe that Matthew is writing to a community in conflict. 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 unwilling 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, but you will also be destroyed.

            And, just as in last week’s parable of the vineyard, the emissaries of the king who brought the invitations were not only dismissed, but some of them were also abused, mistreated, and killed. 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 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 Matthew is putting into words what the minority 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 …

But while I can by empathetic with Matthew’s community because I know that I have also been guilty of wishing dire consequences for people I think have distorted the truth, especially what I believe to be the truth of the gospel, the violence of this passage is hard to take. That’s an understatement.

            When I think about the kingdom of heaven being like a banquet, I think more in terms of Isaiah’s poetry than I do Matthew’s stark and violent depiction. I relate more to the imagery of people from every nation gathered on the Lord’s holy mountain for a wonderful feast, a feast of celebration and thanksgiving. 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. But the stuff of my dreams is far from the reality that we are living in the world today.

            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 so much about punishment as it is on opening the eyes and heart and mind of the one being judged so that person can change course and can turn back to God. That does not make this parable any easier to hear or understand, but it helps – at least a little.

            But there is one more piece of this parable that we have not dealt with yet, and that is this poor, underdressed wedding guest at the end. What about him and his fate?

            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 must 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 live, in our words and in our deeds. If we are going to show up to the banquet, then we must really show up.  

            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?

            And if this guest was Jesus, was his banishment about being underdressed or was it that he refused to clothe himself in the same violence and vengefulness as all the rest? Maybe it wasn’t so much that he was underdressed but that he was wearing different clothes altogether?

            I don’t know which of these ideas is technically “correct.” I suppose there is a measure of truth in all of it. But I do know that when it comes violence – whether in this parable or the violence that we witness in our world – I want to put on different clothes. I want to dress myself, head to toe, heart and mind, in the clothing of peace and peacemaking. To paraphrase Dr. King, violence begets nothing but more violence. The only way forward is to stop, even if that means I am banished from the party altogether. The only way forward is to stop and trust that this banquet of violence is not what God wants for us, for all of us, for all of God’s children. The banquet God wants for us is the one described in Isaiah – a rich feast where all people gather at the table on the Lord’s holy mountain and God destroys death which hangs over all of us like a shroud. It is a feast where every tear is wiped away, every disgrace is taken away, and we sit at table together and give our God our thanks and praise. That is the banquet I long to attend. That is the banquet we all must work for and live for, even die for. May it be so. May it be so.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

The Stone

Matthew 21:33-46

October 8, 2023

 

Warning labels are an inherent part of our modern society. It seems that just about everything we use or consume or touch or even smell has a warning attached to it. We’ve all seen the pharmaceutical ads where the first 50 seconds of a 60 second spot touts a new medication’s amazing, miraculous, curative benefits, and then the last 10 seconds are used to list every conceivable side effect. Often, the side effects sound worse than the illness that warrants the medication. But if the warnings were not given, whether it’s on a new medication or something else, there would be a public outcry. It is in the best interest of everyone to be warned about something potentially dangerous or threatening to our health or well-being, even when the dangers come with something that may help us in the long run. 

            I sometimes think the same should be true for scripture. A warning label should be pasted both on the outside and inside cover of every Bible. Before we turn one page of our Bible, whatever the translation, there should be a warning label.

“Warning to all readers! You enter these pages at your own risk. Reading may change you.”   

            I don’t say this to be irreverent. I say this because I believe that being faithful means that we must read scripture on its terms, not ours. It is not easy to do. I would much rather read the passages and stories in the Bible that confirm my understanding of God and skip the ones that challenge my preconceptions and firmly held notions. Yet if I want to be faithful in reading scripture, then I must also read the passages and stories and parables that challenge me, that push back at me, that make me struggle. I must read scripture on its own terms, not mine. That is where the warning label comes in. Reading scripture on its own terms may force us to not only see God differently, but to see ourselves differently as well. This passage from Matthew has the power to do both, so you have been warned. We read it at our own risk.

            As I studied this passage, what I repeatedly read in commentaries is that this parable has been used to justify anti-Semitism. If we read this story as pure allegory, it is easy to see how that interpretation has been reached.

To better understand the parable itself, we need to understand the scene in which it is set. Jesus is in the final days before his arrest and crucifixion. He is in the temple. He is in a confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes, the religious authorities. They want to stop him, silence him, at any cost. They have been challenging his authority. Jesus has responded to their challenges with parables. Our parable today, like another we’ve read in recent weeks, takes place in a vineyard.

The vineyard would have been a relatable, familiar example to the people listening to Jesus. In this story a vineyard was planted by a landowner. The landowner plants it, puts a fence around it, digs a wine press, and builds a watchtower. This was what any responsible landowner, any good landowner, would have done. He leaves the vineyard in the hands of his tenants and goes to another country. When harvest time rolls around, he sends his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest. Again, this would have been standard practice. But the tenants turn on the servants. They beat one, they kill another, and they stone a third. Yet the landowner does not retaliate. Instead he sends more slaves to them, and those slaves are treated the same way. 

            I suspect that everyone who heard Jesus tell this was thinking that surely the landowner would now rain down vengeance on the heads of the tenants. It was bad enough that they beat and killed the first slaves sent to them, but to do that a second time? No landowner would put up with that. But here’s the twist; not only did the landowner not retaliate, but he also decided to send one more emissary: his son. Surely, he thinks, his son will be respected. They won’t harm the landowner’s own flesh and blood. But when the tenants see the son approaching, they hatch a plot.

“Let’s kill the son, and then we’ll receive the inheritance.”

They seize the son, throw him out of the vineyard, and kill him too. When Jesus finishes his story, he asks the Pharisees,

“Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

The Pharisees respond,

“He will put those wretches to death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

            Just as Jesus did in the previous parables, the question that Jesus asks of the Pharisees puts them in a position to condemn themselves. The ones who refuse to give the share of the harvest to the landowner, the ones who kill the slaves and son of the landowner, then have the audacity and sense of entitlement to believe that the inheritance will still come to them, are the ones who will be put to a miserable death. They are the ones who will lose their place in the vineyard to others. The point of the parable seems obvious. Jesus says it. The Pharisees are the wicked tenants. 

            If the Pharisees are the wicked tenants who kill not only the slaves, but the son, then we can see how some interpreters have made the leap that the Jews are the ones who are sent out of the vineyard, and the Christians are the new tenants who “produce at the harvest time.” Reading the parable this way makes it an “us versus them” scenario. But here is where the warning label is needed. What makes us think that we – Christians, good church goers, etc. – are always the good guys? What makes us assume that we are the “good guys” in every story or parable?

Even more importantly, Matthew was writing to a congregation that was Jewish. Would he have been preaching their own replacement to them, to his people? I’m not convinced this parable is about one religious group replacing another, but about those who are called to be stewards of the vineyard – caretakers and cultivators – forgetting that call and grasping for power and ownership instead. The tenants seemed to have been confused as to who exactly owned that vineyard. The text makes it clear – it wasn’t them. But they were determined to live as though they owned it, as though they held power over it, and they made ghastly, terrible, deadly decisions to hold onto that power. And the repercussions of their decisions would not only haunt them but haunt future generations as well.

It seems to me that Jesus was calling out the Pharisees for forgetting the One to whom they and everyone else belonged. He called them out for forgetting that they were called to be stewards, not only of the Law, but of people. They were not the owners of the Law, but they thought they were. They believed it gave them power and they abused that power and they hurt God’s children, and that includes themselves. Jesus challenged the Pharisees and the religious leaders and all those who thought they knew God’s will and possessed power that only belongs to God to realize that God was and is doing a new thing. God would not be limited by their dogma. And God will not tolerate their abuse. Jesus goes on to quote,

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” 

            The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 

            Jesus also said,

“The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” 

            I have always heard those words as a terrible and violent punishment, a terrible, violent judgment. Yet maybe it isn’t a literal judgment. Maybe falling on that stone, the stone, is exactly what must happen for us to see the truth about ourselves, to see the truth of bad decisions we make, to see the truth about our own lives and the struggles that we wage in our own hearts. Perhaps falling on the stone is what must happen to break open our hardened hearts and closed minds and blinded eyes and tightly clenched hands.

            “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

            This isn’t a parable about destruction for destruction’s sake. This is a parable about God building something new, using the stone that was rejected by some to be the cornerstone, the building block for the new thing God is doing.

            Yes, this is a hard, hard parable to read, to hear, to understand. But hearing the truth about us is never easy. Hearing the truth about our actions, our past, our history is painful. But it’s also necessary. Jesus was telling the Pharisees the truth about themselves, about their leadership, about their abuses. He was telling them that he was the stone upon which they would fall. They didn’t want to hear it. But maybe in doing this he was also offering them grace. Maybe he was also offering them mercy, a chance to repent, to turn around, to reorient themselves in the path God called them to follow. Maybe Jesus knew that he was the stone they must fall upon for their hearts to be broken wide open. Maybe he didn’t want the Pharisees, even them, to be destroyed as much as he wanted them to be made whole. Maybe that’s what we need from this parable as well: a moment of truth-telling that breaks our hearts wide open and God’s grace that makes us whole.

            Warning to all who would hear these words. They just might change us.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

 

Make My Joy Complete -- World Communion Sunday

Philippians 2:1-13

October 1, 2023

 

            A Canadian public service announcement with the hashtag EatTogether came out a few years ago. It was obviously pre-Covid, that time which feels like a very, very long time ago when we knew nothing of social distancing. But I remember when I first watched it thinking, “This is good stuff right here. This is kingdom stuff.”

            I hadn’t thought about this PSA for a long time, but for some reason it rolled across my social media this week, and I watched it again. As I was preparing for this sermon, I looked for it on YouTube and watched it again, then I watched it a few more times just for good measure.

            This is one of the few times when I wish we had access to a screen, so I could show you this rather than try to describe it, but I’ll do my best. And if you have access to YouTube, I highly recommend that you watch this when you can.

            The PSA opens with a young woman coming home from work. She walks into her apartment building with other residents and everyone except her is staring at their phones, oblivious to everything and everyone around them. Many people have headphones on or earbuds in so they can tune out the world even more completely. The doorman sitting behind his desk is staring into his phone, not paying attention to who is coming and going. She gets onto the elevator to go to her apartment and it’s the same thing. There is no interaction, no smiling, no casual chatting as the elevator makes it journey upwards. The people are only aware of when the elevator reaches their floor and then they move off, still staring at their phones.

            The woman is clearly bothered by this. She looks at the people around her in dismay. And when she walks into her apartment, she finds her roommate, headphones on, staring at her laptop with her tablet also open beside her. The young woman is frustrated and drums her fingers on a small table beside the door. That’s when she gets an idea.

            The next scene is of this young woman and her roommate, bringing that table and another small table out into the hallway. They bring out chairs, and they set the tables with tablecloths and dishes and utensils and even some candles. They bring out their dinner, and they sit down and wait. In the next minute the elevator door opens, and a family – a mother, father, and daughter – step off. The little girl pulls her mother toward the two women, and they join them at the table, bringing out their own table and chairs and adding their own dishes of food to the meal. After this, some guys poke their head out their door, see what’s happening and join them, doing the same as the earlier family helping the collective table and meal grow by adding theirs. And so it goes. Neighbors up and down the floor do the same. People are talking and laughing, shaking hands, sharing food. It is all lovely.

Then the little girl crawls underneath the conglomeration of tables and goes to a door at the far end of the hallway. All talk at the table stops, and all heads turn her way, wondering what will happen. The little girl knocks on the door and when it is opened by an older gentleman, she beckons him to come join them. He looks at the people gathered in the hallway, then closes his door. In a second it is opened again, and he brings out a bottle of wine and a smoked sausage and walks with the little girl to join the others at the table. Everyone cheers and makes him welcome. There is no narration to any of this, other than a fabulous version of the song, What the World Needs Now. You don’t hear the conversations. There is no deep voice over explaining what is happening, but in a PSA that lasts less than two minutes, you watch as strangers become neighbors, and neighbors become friends, and bonds are made, and a meal is shared, and one table is created out of many, and all are welcomed. #EatTogether.

No matter how many times I watch this PSA, it never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It reminds me of family meals growing up, meals where we could slow down a little, and enjoy one another’s company, and when – especially after a celebratory meal – we would relax, and stories would be told and memories shared even as they were being created. If there was one blessing from Covid and being in lockdown, its that our family gathered around the table on a regular basis, and once a week, other members of our family, still within our bubble, would join us and we would eat together and laugh and love – all around the table.

I doubt that Paul was thinking about a table in his letter to the Philippians, although food and eating together was certainly part of his theology. But in this letter, Paul is writing from prison. It may be that his life will soon come to an end. But Paul does not bemoan his situation. Instead he sees it as another opportunity to advance the gospel. Yet Paul must have realized that this might be his last opportunity to write to the church in Philippi, to encourage and exhort the people there, so he writes this letter, and he encourages the Philippians to remember that being disciples of Jesus the Christ goes against the grain of the world. The values to which disciples ascribe are often countercultural to the values proclaimed by the world. What the Roman Empire states as being important – getting ahead, keeping up with the Joneses, or the Caesars as the case may be, individualism and isolationism – are not the values that are important to those who would follow Christ.

To underscore all of this, he uses in our verses today what is believed by scholars to have been an ancient hymn, what is often referred to as the Christ Hymn. Paul begins this part of the letter by writing,

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

And then Paul weaves in the words from what must have been the hymn. Words that affirm that even though Jesus was the human incarnation of God, he didn’t believe that his divinity was something to be used or exploited. Instead he humbled himself. He emptied himself. He took on the role of slave and became obedient to the point of death, even a criminal’s execution on a cross. So, those who would follow Jesus the Christ, those who would seek to be his disciples in the world must be willing to do the same. We must be willing to humble ourselves, to not think that we are better than others or above others regardless of our worldly situation. We are to approach life and each other with humility. We are to have the same mind as Christ and share that same mind with each other.

Now these words are beautiful, but they can also be tricky to interpret. They have sometimes been interpreted to mean that every Christian must think exactly alike. And if we don’t, if we think differently from one another, then somebody must be wrong. When it comes to interpreting these words about humility, we must be careful as well. There are people who have been humiliated by life, by unjust circumstances and oppression by others. To ask them for humility seems false and wrong. Paul’s urging for humility as also been interpreted as meaning that a “good Christian” should never think about themselves, their own needs, or their own welfare. Instead they should be a doormat for the world, and the truth is that when it comes to this interpretation, it has often been used against people who are already treated like doormats by others.

I’m not convinced that Paul meant for his words to be interpreted in this way. I don’t think he expected every disciple to think the same way. That would be uniformity, not unity. I don’t think he wanted people to be humiliated or to be treated like dirt for the sake of Christ. Instead, I think Paul wanted disciples to recognize that true humility is not about self-degradation but about seeing that God’s world is much bigger than our one, limited perspective can grasp. Maybe true humility is not about telling ourselves that we’re losers and others aren’t, that we are low and they are high, but about reminding ourselves that we could be wrong. Someone we may wholeheartedly disagree with could have a truth to share. Humility is understanding that there is no work too low for us to do, and that we are all on the same road together, trying to walk the same walk.

And that brings me back to the table. You see what I love about World Communion Sunday is the image I have of people all around the globe gathering at a table and sharing some form of the bread and drinking some version of the cup, and repeating the words that we will hear in just a few minutes: that when Jesus took the bread and the cup of wine, he infused these common, everyday elements with a deeper meaning and asked those at table with him to remember him. When we gather at this table, we too are called to remember him; to remember how he lived his life and how he approached his death and how God pulled him from the grave to new life, and in doing so, did the same for us.

And today, whatever the time zone, whatever the style of church or sanctuary, whatever the style of table – grand or simple, however the elements are presented, people around the world are remembering, and they’re recommitting to the walk, to this shared journey, to imitating the mind of Christ, the humility of Christ, so that the good news continues to be shared and so this world can be better for all of us and all creation. That is the power of the Lord’s Supper and what we do this day. And that is the power of this table. If we can see one another through this table, not just today but every day, and if we can remember what Jesus did and does and will do, than we come closer to sharing the mind of Christ. Then we will truly live lives of humility and obedience and love. When we come to this table, may we remember, may we grow in faith and love, and then may we leave this table and go out, living and loving likewise, making God’s joy complete.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.