The Parable of 2020 - Matthew 22:1-14

Good morning, friends. I hope you have been safe and well this week. It’s good to be with you and to say our prayers together. I wish we had a happier, more uplifting scripture lesson to share this morning. Instead, I have the dubious honor of welcoming you to what is quite possibly the worst parable in the Bible, the king’s ominous wedding banquet. It’s the story of a disastrous party, hosted by a murderous king who rages, and attended by a poor guy who gets tied up and thrown out into the street. Really great material for a sermon, said no preacher ever. But I promise we can find some light shining in the story, and it might be just what we need these days.

Let me start by mentioning that when Luke tells this story, it’s a warm and fuzzy version. In his telling, a guy throws a big dinner party, but his friends don’t bother to come. So he sends his servant to invite the B list, which now includes the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. And he also tells his servant to bring literally everyone else from the outer reaches of the town, and don’t forget the people who sleep around the church or under the bridge at night. They all come, marveling at their invitation because they never thought they’d be worthy enough for such a fancy party. It’s a glorious image of the kingdom of heaven. And it’s in keeping with what we know of the story teller. Jesus is known for an expansive hospitality toward everyone, and especially for all the wrong sorts of people. 

I do wish Matthew had kept to his notes, and simply told Luke’s version. But instead, he added details that are really troubling. To be fair, Jesus might have told different versions of the same story. I imagine that he reused material from time to time. All preachers do it. And we should note that Matthew places this parable right in the middle of holy week, when things are extremely tense. The stakes could not be higher for Jesus. The religious authorities are trying to trap him on the grounds of blasphemy, sacrilege, or fraud, whatever they can catch him with. And catching him will be a matter of life or death for Jesus. Jesus tells this parable in response to being confronted about his authority, and the scene is as hot as it can be. Maybe it’s no surprise that Matthew ups the ante in the story’s details, making the host of the party not just a generous man but a powerful king, and the occasion not just a nice dinner party but a wedding banquet for his own son. 

We then come quickly to the hard part in the story, and there’s easy way to spin it. Why would Jesus say that the kingdom of God has anything to do with a king who is so enraged that he sends an army to kill the people who reject his invitation and then burn down the city, all while the first course sits ready on the tables? This part is neither holy nor edifying, but it does sound familiar. Matthew the storyteller likely has the fall of Jerusalem in mind, which happens a few years earlier, when those in power really did burn down the city and the Temple (David Lose). Matthew’s fledgling Christian community was still trying to make sense of those awful events. For us today, it’s not a far stretch to say that we find ourselves in similarly tumultuous times. Our cities are on fire, literally and figuratively. In just this year alone, we’ve seen wildfires, a pandemic, cries for racial justice, and politics so ugly that each side wants to destroy the other. Some days, it feels like everything is on fire. Maybe instead of calling this the parable of the king’s wedding banquet, perhaps it should be known henceforth as the parable of 2020. 

On the bright side, this strange, violent story does still includes the ever expanding invitation list. We breathe a sigh of relief as we focus on the grace part of the story. The hall is filled with wedding guests, both good and evil. No one had to be perfect to get in, and the misfits are sitting right next to the righteous, enjoying the heavenly feast together. It’s a glorious sight. It’s a vision of the kingdom we can get behind. 

Ah, but the story twists again in a painful way, this time with the guy who comes to the party but gets called out for the minor infraction of not wearing a wedding robe. “Friend,” says the king, but it’s really more like “hey buster.” “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” The man is speechless. The king has him bound hand and foot and thrown out into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The parable of 2020 it is. 

I promised you that there is some light shining in this story. A preacher sure has to work for it, but it’s getting closer. Scholars believe that Matthew’s community would have made an immediate association with the detail of the wedding robe each guest had to put on to get into the party. It was the baptismal robe, what each new Christian wore upon entering the community. Christening gowns and albs are fabric descendants of this early practice. The robe symbolizes putting on Christ as our new identity. The wedding robe, or baptismal gown, in the parable is an outward sign of the inward grace of our acceptance in the kingdom. Even in this awful parable, it should be noted that literally everyone is invited to the feast, and all who come are given a robe, a great equalizer in grace. That insight, that perspective on each other from God’s point of view, ought to change how we treat one another. 

The most interesting detail to me in this whole story is the fact that the guy without a robe is speechless. He is unwilling to fully join the party. He comes, but does not accept the terms of grace. The storyteller makes him speechless because there is literally no defense that works against grace. No amount of worth or hard work or superiority gets us any closer to God’s favor than other people. As hard as it is to accept, this includes everyone, from our enemies, to our political opponents and the people sleeping under the bridge. The man in the story gets tossed out for refusing the terms of grace. He is in a hell of his own making (Robert Capon). The take away is bleak but true. Whether it’s the guy who gets tossed out by a fictional king or us, who toss ourselves out for refusing to accept how grace works, there is no defense. Anyone who has ever ruminated on what’s wrong with other people knows that there is no joy to be found there. 

Where is the light, you ask? The story reminds us that we can change. We can heal from being bitter, judgmental, and calculating. We can accept the invitation to the kingdom and put on the wedding robe. We can put on Christ and allow our beautiful new attire to change our hearts and to make a real difference in how we live. We often say that everyone is welcome at church; come as you are. It’s an open invitation to all. If you come, expect to be changed. Come as you are, but don’t insist on staying as you were (Richard W. Voelz). Don’t be like the poor guy who refused the robe. 

It’s a timeless message, but it’s also an urgent one. This parable of 2020 reminds us to see one another through the eyes of grace, that’s the timeless part. The story also reminds us that while the invitation to the kingdom is wonderful in and of itself, we also need to be converted into kingdom people. This is urgent. That fact that we are collectively at each others’ throats won’t change until we start to change. None of the fires currently burning in our world will be put out unless each of us changes. The parable insists that if we accept the invitation, if we put on the robe of Christ, we will be able to change. We are the recipients of both grace and a holy expectation, that putting on Christ will change us. There is always hope in the possibility of transformation even, maybe especially, in 2020.