October 11, 2020
Matthew 22:1-14
Here is a rather strange parable. Jesus says that here is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like…Now, if you are listening as I did. You would expect Jesus to tell a story of wonder and delight with rainbows and angels crowding round the gates of heaven. But listen to the parable: A king gives a wedding banquet for his son. This sounds delightful! The king sends his servants out to call all who had been invited saying that it is time to come to the wedding banquet. Ahh…we are all expecting a party. Alas…no one comes.
So again the king sends out his servants to say to the people that everything is ready, come to the banquet for the oxen and fatted calf has been prepared! And you and I know that the guests are going to jump at the chance for this kingly celebration and feast.
But those who heard this second invitation and no doubt smelled the delicious meats roasting on the fire…made light of the invitation and went away…one to his farm and another to his business and the rest of the invitees seized the servants and mistreated them and killed them.
Clearly this wedding banquet is going awry. It’s unlike any wedding invitations and acceptances that I have ever seen.
The king is enraged and sends his troops and destroys all the murderers and burns their city to the ground. Have a nice day.
A third time the king sends out his servants and declares that those who were invited were not worthy. The servants are instructed to go into the streets and gather both good and bad and bring them to the feast. So the wedding hall was filled.
This is such a strange parable…and parables by their very nature are a bit off…so that we are forced to look at stories in new ways. In this parable we asking our brains to make sense of things that are difficult to make sense of. We are knocked off balance in order to see things a new way. So, come on a walk with me.
Follow me on a sand road around the lake where we go in Michigan. The sand road leaves the main road and winds around the back of a couple lakes. It’s pretty isolated. Go past the old stone quarry and into the forest again and there on your right is a graveyard.
It has no headstones or graves but it has something much more incongruous there in the forest. Laid end to end among the tall pine trees are boats. Boats that used to float on the nearby lakes. Fishing boats that used to have small engines on them but now they are laid end to end in four rows. Probably 15 or more boats. Old metal boats. Old wooden boats rotting. An attempt or two to carve a boat out of logs. Even a large wooden Great Lakes boat without its engine. How odd to see them lined up in the forest…NOT their natural habitat. To see them there startles you. How did they get here and who put them here? Why store them up in the forest in the hills? It’s disconcerting to see it and even more odd to try and comprehend it.
The parable that we have been reading for today is equally disconcerting. The Kingdom of Heaven, what IS it like? Jesus goes on to tell that parable of being invited and ignoring the invitation. Then the people actually kill the messengers and the King retaliates and in the end…all the people of the town, the people in the streets, the deserving and the seemingly undeserving are called to the wedding.
The Kingdom of Heaven is for those who…is for those who come to the Kingdom, for the doors are thrown wide open and the invitation is given to all. What is there about us Christians that we might wonder if there is some strict requirement for entering the Kingdom, some poll tax, some secret handshake. It seems the main requirement is…to accept the invitation.
We are meeting with our Confirmation Class now. We have 14 students. We meet, we wear masks, we are careful. It’s unfortunate that they cannot acolyte this year, but this is our world. Still, I want them to understand why we use acolytes and what it means to bring the light into the sanctuary…and to have the candles lit behind the pulpit and to gaze upon the light and then at the end of the service to take the light back out. I asked why we unlit the candles and then took the light back out. Several raised their hands and they knew. It is the light of God…and so we take it with us as we go.
About 20 years ago at another church that I served, we also used acolytes. At the end of service, they were taking the light off the altar and back down the aisle…one of the acolytes held the light and he was also blowing bubbles with his bubble gum. Afterwards the head of the worship board asked me why I didn’t tell the acolytes NOT to blow bubbles as they came back down the aisle. I had to answer truthfully…it just never occurred to me that blowing bubbles was something that they would do at the end of a worship service as they walked down the aisle. It just never occurred to me.
And it never occurred to the people who received the invitation to the banquet, that it really WAS for them. It just never occurred to them. But it was real.
The letter to the church in Philippi says, Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.