Pentecost 21, Proper 23, Year A

Isaiah, 25:1-9
Philippians, 4:4-13
Matthew, 22:1-14

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

THE CRUEL AND VIOLENT PARABLE OF TODAY'S GOSPEL has two distinct parts. It might even be seen as two separate, though related, parables: a parable of the marriage feast and a parable of the wedding garment. Our challenge is to perceive, under the parables' veneer of cruelty and violence, the far more important messages for us.

A king is preparing a marriage feast for his son, and he sends his servants to invite guests. But those invited would not come. The king sent more servants with invitations, and many of the people mocked the servants or simply ignored them, continuing on with their busy schedules. Other people beat and even murdered some of the servants. Now angry, the king sent his troops to kill the murderers and to burn their city. The king dispatched his servants a third time, this time to invite everyone they could find. The servants gathered everyone, both good and bad people, and these guests filled the marriage feast. That's part one.

When the king comes into the feast he finds a man who is not wearing a wedding garment. He's inappropriately attired. This also angers the king, who has his servants tie up his improperly dressed guest and throw him into the outer darkness, where his guest will suffer.

You would conclude correctly that the king represents God, and you would rightly be confused. You'd wonder, "This is a loving God, a God who lays down his life for us, but his marriage feast, his heavenly banquet, his Eucharistic feast, is not a scene of love and joy and happiness. It's a scene of judgment, and fierce judgment by a king who gets extremely distraught over how someone dresses."

The wedding garment is symbolic, but we can't be sure exactly what it signifies. Perhaps it's supposed to be a baptismal garment, or maybe a garment of righteousness, a symbol for obedience to God. God has excluded this person because he's not been baptized? Because he's not been obedient? We don't know. When we get into questions about why God has harshly judged this person, the meaning of the parable becomes impossible to decipher. The way God judges is a mystery, and we should not focus or act upon that part of the parable. Instead, there are three other far more pressing and less ambiguous lessons for us.

The first point. The dominant theme at the beginning of the parable is invitation. The king welcomes everyone, giving hospitality to the bad and the good. The parable directs our attention to the mission of the Church. We are the king's servants, and it is our responsibility to make invitations to people - come to church, come and see, enjoy life, enter the feast. It's evangelism, and it implies the responsibility each of us has for it.

God calls everyone of us to be his minister. Last week, Fred Sutton, our stewardship leader, sent a letter asking you to pray about your commitment to Christ's work in this parish in the coming year. We all know that stewardship is not only a matter of giving back to God treasure, but also giving time and talent. We're giving to God when we think, pray, and act as evangelists, when we extend hospitality, when we assume any form of Christian service and ministry to others - be it in the parish, in the community, in our homes, in our work places.

We should think of our financial giving and our service to the Church not as volunteering, but as our Christian privilege and Christian obligation to be part of God's work. While we are enormously grateful, while I am profoundly moved and amazed by the generosity and dedication of our parish family, Christian ministers - each one of us - we don't think of giving of time, talent, and treasure as doing a favor to which thanks is owed. My experience in Christian ministry is that the primary benefit of ministry is doing it. Christian ministry is its own reward. We discover that our giving and service to God, our sacrifices for our parish family and the wider community, that these acts give us meaning, friendship, love. We discover that through our participation in his ministry, God transforms us. He makes life better.

The second point. In the parable the king's servants give invitations to everybody, to the good and to the bad. In our highly polarized, factious culture, we should pay special attention to this. We are prone to assume an 'us versus them' mentality all too quickly. We have a lot to learn from one another, and we have cause to worry when there's not listening and dialogue. That applies to right and left, Protestant and Catholic, evangelical and high-Church, Christian and Muslim, believer and unbeliever.

For most of my life I've considered Washington to be my home. I love it. I find our local industry - politics - to be fascinating, important, exciting. We live in a cauldron of many strong, passionate beliefs about how people should live together, about how we should care for and support one another, about what a moral society looks like. At our best, it's a town of ideas and reflection upon them. We have to be very careful about assigning one side as good, the other as bad, and more importantly we have to remember that God wants everyone. He doesn't sort people out the way we do.

During the summer I read a book about Billy Graham. Graham cares deeply about moral issues in the country and has had some involvement with political organizations. In the late 1970s, he came to believe that he had become too involved in politics. I quote from the book:

"I'm for morality," [Billy] said, "but morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak out with such authority on the Panama Canal or superiority of armaments. Evangelists cannot be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in order to preach to all people, right and left. I haven't been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future."

Billy openly admitted he had allowed some blurring of his focus in the past. "It was a mistake," he said, "to identify the Kingdom of God with the American way of life."

After that, he would frequently respond to questions about politics with "I'm not for the left wing or the right wing. I'm for the whole bird."

John Akers, one of Billy's closest aides, told us, "Billy's principle was that you shouldn't do anything that would shut the door to the gospel. I can't tell you how important that is. People are constantly wanting him to sign a petition about something, and he declines. He's been called a moral coward for not taking this stand, or that stand, or the other stand. But from his standpoint, to do so was to unnecessarily close doors to the gospel." ⁽¹⁾

Billy Graham is a servant giving invitations to the marriage feast to everybody. Billy Graham is for the whole bird because God is for the whole bird. God loves everyone of us, accepts everyone of us - the good and the bad, those who try to be obedient and those who don't try.

The Church is a mixture of good and bad, a mixture of characters and a mixture of views, all held together by God, God who calls us to live in unity with him and with one another. That doesn't mean we have to agree with one another. The Church has always been a place of conflict and disagreement. S. Paul and the other apostles and the early disciples often banged heads. We should expect it today, maybe especially between people who have fully dedicated and committed their lives to Christ. The Church is a mixed bag. What's vital is mutual respect and honor and, yes, love for all, especially for people with whom we have differences. We are each part of Christ's body.

Paul's letter to the Philippians, today's epistle, makes that very point. S. Luke in Acts tells us that Paul started the church in Philippi when he went to a prayer meeting on the river bank and spoke to the women who had gathered there. These women became the leaders of the church in Philippi. In the verses just before his command to rejoice in the Lord - which we heard today, Paul addresses two of these women, Euodia and Syntyche, both important leaders of the Philippi church. It is specifically these women that today's epistle addresses.

Paul says that these friends have sacrificed and labored with him in spreading the gospel, but they must resolve their differences. Paul confronts his fellow saints because their squabbling was hurting the church. He reminds them that God is at work in them, that they must have forbearance, that they must stop being anxious, that they must offer prayer and thanksgiving. Today's epistle is the Apostle's message to Euodia and Syntyche: "You've got to work together. Let go of the small things that consume you. Focus your attention on higher things, on the big picture - not on trivialities. Praise God. Thank God. Rejoice in God."

The third point. We should notice that it is not the servants, but the king who decides to send the man without the wedding garment out of the marriage feast. God makes the judgment about who's in and who's out. That is not a decision for us to make. Paul says, "In passing judgment upon [another] you condemn yourself." (Rom 2:1)

Let's be clear about judgment. Some things are appropriate for us to judge. ⁽²⁾ We have to make decisions about things that draw us to God or push us away from God. We have to make decisions about how we experience the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the things that fill us with love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, self-control, faith. Some behavior is Christ-like; some is not. Some things strengthen our relationship with Christ; some do not. We must make judgments like these.

But it is wholly inappropriate, indeed sinful, to make judgments separating people, holding ourselves higher than others, questioning the worth of other people. God didn't separate himself from us. He became one of us, united with us. But so often when we hear ourselves, or someone else, denigrating another person, the underlying message is, "I'm better than that person." We often criticize people trying to make ourselves feel better about ourselves; it's a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Criticism can be enormously valuable, but it has to be offered directly, personally, and it has to be offered in love. But the danger is our criticism, our judgment, of another divides and separates, instead of unites and heals.

We are not very good judges. Christians, in particular, should notice that the people with whom Jesus had the most conflict were devout religious people - people like us. Jesus gets along with the prostitutes and the tax collectors, the sinners and outcasts. But the religious people were complacent about their relationship with God and with other people.

True religion, true Christianity is always trying to connect us more deeply with God and with other people; it unites people; it builds bridges; it rejoices. That's what today's parable is all about: inviting and reaching out in mission; respecting and honoring those with whom we disagree; with-holding judgment of others so that we can love them.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. Harold Myra and Marshall Shelly, The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham, Zondervan (2005), pp. 68-69.

2. Gregory Boyd, Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God, Baker Books (2004), p. 107, for the discussion on appropriate and inappropriate judgment.