Year A
Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth\u2026 O God\u2026 speak your Truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all want to be accepted for who\u2026 and what\u2026 and how we are\u2026 we all want to be invited and included\u2026 and we can sometimes feel rejected when we\u2019re not\u2026 we all want to be loved\u2026 unconditionally\u2026 and we enjoy being a part of special rites of passage\u2026 like baptisms\u2026 and birthday parties\u2026 or Bar Mitzvahs\u2026 graduations\u2026 and weddings\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve been to some weddings that seemed to me\u2026 to be over the top\u2026 the appetizers alone at one cousin\u2019s wedding were in themselves a feast\u2026 and I\u2019ve been to back yard weddings with sandwiches and beer\u2026 I\u2019ve been to one wedding where the bride wore a white wedding dress\u2026 and red Converse high-tops\u2026 one that had a steampunk kind-of theme\u2026 different weddings for different folks\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when we\u2019re invited\u2026 almost no matter what it\u2019s to\u2026 there\u2019s almost always some fussing about what to wear\u2026 has the dress code been defined clearly enough\u2026 is there any uncertainty\u2026 any murkiness\u2026 do we call others to find out what they\u2019re wearing\u2026 after all\u2026 we don\u2019t want to draw any undue attention to ourselves\u2026 so do we seek an external social reference point\u2026 or do we trust and follow our internal reference point\u2026 Emmanuel\u2026 God with us\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And do we RSVP right away\u2026 or do we wait until midnight on the Reply By date\u2026 do we wait to see if something better comes along\u2026 and if there\u2019s a registry\u2026 do we think about how well we know the bride or groom\u2026 so we know how much money to spend on the gift\u2026 and even further\u2026 do we wonder who else has been invited\u2026 do we dare commit the faux pas<\/em> of asking with whom we\u2019ll be sitting\u2026 so many social conventions by which to abide\u2026 or not\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some social conventions in today\u2019s Gospel reading\u2026 the first one\u2026 is whether you say “No.” to the king\u2026 especially if you\u2019ve been invited\u2026 you don\u2019t make excuses\u2026 and you don\u2019t mistreat\u2026 or kill\u2026 those who come to make sure you received the invitation\u2026 what with so many mail sorting machines having been dismantled\u2026 or who may just wonder if you\u2019ve caught the virus and are all right\u2026 and it seems as though the King is righteously indignant\u2026 I mean one chose instead to go back to his business\u2026 and another decided to go to his farm\u2026 instead of coming to this wedding feast\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n This passage reminds me of the story in Luke 9:57\u2026 about those who said they would follow Jesus\u2026 even though Jesus said there\u2019d be no place to lay their heads\u2026 and there was one who said he had to first go and bury his father\u2026 and another who said he had to say farewell to those at home\u2026 and Jesus said\u2026 No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God<\/em>\u2026 that\u2019s startling\u2026 and sounds sharp\u2026 but I don\u2019t think that Jesus wants us to be cold and callous and uncaring and inconsiderate to those who love us and who we love\u2026 I think these stories are hyperbole\u2026 intentionally exaggerated to make a point\u2026 and the point is that we are all invited to God\u2019s banquet table\u2026 to God\u2019s feast\u2026 that feast is described in our reading from Isaiah\u2026 and in the Psalm\u2026 and in early Jewish history\u2026 before currency was invented\u2026 food and feasts were understood to be and to represent wealth\u2026 and God grieves when we choose to not accept the invitation\u2026 but we don\u2019t need to wonder about how the King keeps dinner warm while he wages war against the first set of guests\u2026 destroys their city\u2026 and then has the banquet in that same city the same day\u2026 that sort of thing isn’t a problem\u2026 so let\u2019s do a bit more unpacking\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Rev. Jim Liggett writes\u2026 in this allegory\u2026 the first guests stand for Israel\u2026 the first two sets of slaves who follow up on the invitation represent the prophets\u2026 which is why some of them are beaten up and killed\u2026 hardly the usual way of declining an invitation\u2026 the city that\u2019s destroyed represents Jerusalem\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the second part of the allegory\u2026 the slaves who are sent into the main streets to invite just anybody are the apostles\u2026 the followers of Jesus after the resurrection\u2026 who brought the church together\u2026 and the church\u2026 as Matthew knew\u2026 was filled with both good and bad\u2026 righteous and unrighteous\u2026 deserving and undeserving\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n After all\u2026 everyone\u2026 means everyone\u2026 and the second crowd is very different from the first one\u2026 just as the church was very different from the leaders of Israel\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the wedding hall\u2026 the church\u2026 is filled with all kinds of guests\u2026 this was true then and it’s true now\u2026 but Matthew’s saying that in spite of the prophets\u2026 Israel’s leaders have ignored God’s banquet for God’s son\u2026 and now the church is made up of the apostles\u2026 the apostles were the slaves who were sent to the outcasts\u2026 to the lower classes\u2026 to women\u2026 to the gentiles\u2026 to the ones who had been ignored\u2026 and the apostles are told not to judge\u2026 but just to invite\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n What happens next is BIG\u2026 what happens next is the second coming\u2026 the King arrives to see his guests\u2026 to see who has managed to stumble or to be dragged into the banquet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now there’s a lot of speculation about the guy who gets tossed out\u2026 no one’s really sure what kind of wedding robe he was lacking or what made a wedding robe\u2026 a wedding robe\u2026 Saint Augustine thought the wedding robe was\u2026 love that springs from a pure heart\u2026 a clear conscience\u2026 and a genuine faith<\/em>\u2026 some scholars think it was a baptismal robe or maybe just a clean set of clothes\u2026 but some scholars say the problem was now what he was wearing.. but how he was on the inside<\/em>\u2026 some say it was simply his silence\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what’s happening here is not about actual Palestinian social customs\u2026 this is a story about the final judgment\u2026 and sooner or later\u2026 the King is going to arrive\u2026 and if you matter\u2026 if you are a real person\u2026 then you have to be able to say “No.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because really\u2026 in order for “getting in” to matter\u2026 you have to be able to choose\u2026 to\u2026 not\u2026 get\u2026 in\u2026 God could have created us so that we would mindlessly accept the invitation and love God back\u2026 but we all know\u2026 that love that’s forced\u2026 isn’t really love at all\u2026 in order for getting in to matter\u2026 to mean something\u2026 it has to be a choice\u2026 and if you haven’t chosen\u2026 you really aren’t there\u2026 and so the guy who’s silent\u2026 doesn’t get kicked out because he violated Leviticus 19:19 by wearing some fabric made by weaving together two different materials\u2026 he represents the freedom we have\u2026 to say no to God\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it’s impossible for us to understand just how outrageous God’s radical grace\u2026 welcome\u2026 inclusion\u2026 and forgiveness… and love are. But I for one… thank God for the ability to choose to love back\u2026 and so when we arrive at the heavenly banquet\u2026 will we ask who else is there\u2026 or with whom we\u2019ve been seated\u2026 or simply relish that we are there\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year A Isaiah 25:1-9 Psalm 23 Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22:1-14 May the words of my mouth\u2026 O God\u2026 speak your Truth\u2026 We all want to be accepted for who\u2026 and what\u2026 and how we are\u2026 we all want to be invited and included\u2026 and we can sometimes feel rejected when we\u2019re not\u2026 we all want to be loved\u2026 unconditionally\u2026 and we enjoy being a part of special rites of passage\u2026 like baptisms\u2026 and birthday parties\u2026 or Bar Mitzvahs\u2026 graduations\u2026 and weddings\u2026 I\u2019ve been to some weddings that seemed to me\u2026 to be over the top\u2026 the appetizers alone at one cousin\u2019s wedding were in themselves a feast\u2026 and I\u2019ve been to back yard weddings with sandwiches and beer\u2026 I\u2019ve been to one wedding where the bride wore a white wedding dress\u2026 and red Converse high-tops\u2026 one that had a steampunk kind-of theme\u2026 different weddings for different folks\u2026 And when we\u2019re invited\u2026 almost no matter what it\u2019s to\u2026 there\u2019s almost always some fussing about what to wear\u2026 has the dress code been defined clearly enough\u2026 is there any uncertainty\u2026 any murkiness\u2026 do we call others to find out what they\u2019re wearing\u2026 after all\u2026 we don\u2019t want to draw any undue attention to ourselves\u2026 so do we seek an external social reference point\u2026 or do we trust and follow our internal reference point\u2026 Emmanuel\u2026 God with us\u2026 And do we RSVP right away\u2026 or do we wait until midnight on the Reply By date\u2026 do we wait to see if something better comes along\u2026 and if there\u2019s a registry\u2026 do we think about how well we know the bride or groom\u2026 so we know how much money to spend on the gift\u2026 and even further\u2026 do we wonder who else has been invited\u2026 do we dare commit the faux pas of asking with whom we\u2019ll be sitting\u2026 so many social conventions by which to abide\u2026 or not\u2026 There are some social conventions in today\u2019s Gospel reading\u2026 the first one\u2026 is whether you say “No.” to the king\u2026 especially if you\u2019ve been invited\u2026 you don\u2019t make excuses\u2026 and you don\u2019t mistreat\u2026 or kill\u2026 those who come to make sure you received the invitation\u2026 what with so many mail sorting machines having been dismantled\u2026 or who may just wonder if you\u2019ve caught the virus and are all right\u2026 and it seems as though the King is righteously indignant\u2026 I mean one chose instead to go back to his business\u2026 and another decided to go to his farm\u2026 instead of coming to this wedding feast\u2026 This passage reminds me of the story in Luke 9:57\u2026 about those who said they would follow Jesus\u2026 even though Jesus said there\u2019d be no place to lay their heads\u2026 and there was one who said he had to first go and bury his father\u2026 and another who said he had to say farewell to those at home\u2026 and Jesus said\u2026 No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God\u2026 that\u2019s startling\u2026 and sounds sharp\u2026 but I don\u2019t think that Jesus wants us to be cold and callous and uncaring and inconsiderate to those who love us and who we love\u2026 I think these stories are hyperbole\u2026 intentionally exaggerated to make a point\u2026 and the point is that we are all invited to God\u2019s banquet table\u2026 to God\u2019s feast\u2026 that feast is described in our reading from Isaiah\u2026 and in the Psalm\u2026 and in early Jewish history\u2026 before currency was invented\u2026 food and feasts were understood to be and to represent wealth\u2026 and God grieves when we choose to not accept the invitation\u2026 but we don\u2019t need to wonder about how the King keeps dinner warm while he wages war against the first set of guests\u2026 destroys their city\u2026 and then has the banquet in that same city the same day\u2026 that sort of thing isn’t a problem\u2026 so let\u2019s do a bit more unpacking\u2026 The Rev. Jim Liggett writes\u2026 in this allegory\u2026 the first guests stand for Israel\u2026 the first two sets of slaves who follow up on the invitation represent the prophets\u2026 which is why some of them are beaten up and killed\u2026 hardly the usual way of declining an invitation\u2026 the city that\u2019s destroyed represents Jerusalem\u2026 In the second part of the allegory\u2026 the slaves who are sent into the main streets to invite just anybody are the apostles\u2026 the followers of Jesus after the resurrection\u2026 who brought the church together\u2026 and the church\u2026 as Matthew knew\u2026 was filled with both good and bad\u2026 righteous and unrighteous\u2026 deserving and undeserving\u2026 After all\u2026 everyone\u2026 means everyone\u2026 and the second crowd is very different from the first one\u2026 just as the church was very different from the leaders of Israel\u2026 So the wedding hall\u2026 the church\u2026 is filled with all kinds of guests\u2026 this was true then and it’s true now\u2026 but Matthew’s saying that in spite of the prophets\u2026 Israel’s leaders have ignored God’s banquet for God’s son\u2026 and now the church is made up of the apostles\u2026 the apostles were the slaves who were sent to the outcasts\u2026 to the lower classes\u2026 to women\u2026 to the gentiles\u2026 to the ones who had been ignored\u2026 and the apostles are told not to judge\u2026 but just to invite\u2026 What happens next is BIG\u2026 what happens next is the second coming\u2026 the King arrives to see his guests\u2026 to see who has managed to stumble or to be dragged into the banquet\u2026 Now there’s a lot of speculation about the guy who gets tossed out\u2026 no one’s really sure what kind of wedding robe he was lacking or what made a wedding robe\u2026 a wedding robe\u2026 Saint Augustine thought the wedding robe was\u2026 love that springs from a pure heart\u2026 a clear conscience\u2026 and a genuine faith\u2026 some scholars think it was a baptismal robe or maybe just a clean set of clothes\u2026 but some scholars say the problem was now what he was wearing.. but how he was on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":976,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/banquet-e1602436804387.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":975,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}