What a Party 2019_03_17. Rev. Kara Markell

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1 1 2019_03_17 Lent 3 Matthew What a Party Rev. Kara Markell Lake Washington Christian Church 1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 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.' 5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, "The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' 10 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. 11 "But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, "Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 14 For many are called, but few are chosen." Let us Pray: Eternal God, through the Word made flesh your kingdom has broken into our world. Help us now to hear your Word, and give us grace to respond in faithful obedience, that our lives might be signs of the new life given through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Among the gospel writers, Matthew s voice is that of a stern teacher. He is like the Russian music history professor I had who used to quote Dostoevsky and then say, Oh, just go home and read the Brothers Karamazov tonight, you ll understand what I mean. Yeah, Dr. Dolskaya, all of us worn-out grad students are going to spend our night reading Dostoevsky. We find our selves having that same reaction to Matthew s Jesus sometimes: Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. Yeah, right, Jesus. Obey everything that I have commanded you. Ok, sure, Jesus. If your hand or foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. You can practically see the disciples rolling their eyes at each other. It s easy to make light of it, but Matthew doesn t have time for wannabes and posers. And yet, at the same time Matthew s Jesus is also Emmanuel, God with us. He is the kind and tenderhearted healer. He welcomes a child onto his lap and tells his followers to be like this. He stands up for the broken and marginalized. He reminds us that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. So I caution us with this story, which sounds very harsh and unforgiving, as do many of Jesus teachings in Matthew, to remember a few things. First, it is a metaphor

2 2 for the kingdom of heaven. And all metaphors are limited. They don t explain or account for every possible question we might have. That s why Jesus uses so many different metaphors for the kingdom. Second, we just have to be careful as we read and wrestle with the text. It is OK to push back at the violence it could prompt us to consider how ubiquitous violence is in our own stories what we read and watch. Parables should be thought provoking even in their strangeness and they will probably challenge our sensibilities. Finally, we have to be mindful of the context of where this story comes in the gospel. Jesus entry into Jerusalem has already happened what we celebrate on Palm Sunday. According to Matthew, the next thing Jesus does is turn over the tables in the temple. At the very end of chapter 21, right before this story, Jesus has been teaching in the temple, using parables, telling stories, and the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables and realized Jesus was talking about them. And they wanted to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowds who thought Jesus was a prophet. So, this story takes place in Jesus last week. This kind of teaching, against the religious elites, is in part what gets Jesus killed. This helps to explain the over the top quality of the story. The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a wedding banquet. So, we have at the outset a feeling of joy and celebration. Among Jesus listeners for whom food might often be scarce, the idea of a banquet would sound like an even more joyous and desirable thing. Banquet and feast imagery is very familiar to Jews as a metaphor for God s abundant love and the relationship God extends to God s people. And in the Hebrew Scriptures God instructs the people to feast as a way of remembering God s abundance. In Revelation, heaven is described as a feast. But the wedding in this story, doesn t go so well. Even though the host is a king and everyone s received their invitations, when the announcement comes that the banquet is ready, they make light of it. They shrug their shoulders meh to the king. And then this story goes off the rails. The guests, who we would think are friends of the king and important people, not only refuse the invitation, but abuse the messengers, and kill them. They literally kill the messenger. We don t expect Jesus to tell a story that rivals the Game of Thrones Red Wedding, but here it is. The king is enraged, and he strikes back with devastating force, against his own people. And while our minds are reeling from that, we realize the banquet is still on. The king does something else shocking when he sends more messengers out into the streets to invite everyone you find. And so, they did, and that group of guests was composed of good and bad, so many that the wedding hall was full. Obviously, this is not a real story. Jesus, like my Russian professor, likes to use hyperbole to make his points. It s a violent and troubling story, but it s just a story. And we need to unpack some of the images to figure out what the good news of this parable might be? It makes a little more sense if we put it into the context of the community Matthew is writing to. There was a growing tension in the Jewish community in the first century those who remained with the institutional religion as it was, and those who were students of Jesus. The Jesus followers believed they had heard God s call to come to the wedding feast for the Son, Jesus. And the religious leaders were also invited, but

3 3 didn t come. They had rejected the invitation, ignoring or even persecuting prophets and missionaries of this Jesus movement remember historically Paul s letters were written before the gospels. The burning city imagery would have reminded Matthew s community of the destruction of the temple, something they were still struggling to understand. And the invitation to find everyone mirrored the growing embrace of outsiders into this fellowship gathered around Jesus. So, we have judgment against those who were invited into this new kingdom of heaven, followed by an even more inclusive invitation, to which many people all kinds, good and bad, insiders and outsiders respond and come into the kingdom. It would be nice if Matthew stopped there, as Luke does, but he doesn t. With the party in full swing, the king takes time to go around the room and greet his guests. He encounters someone who is not dressed properly this guest stands out. The king asks about his wedding robe and gets no response maybe the same shoulder shrug the other invited guests give. So, the guest is thrown out, hands and feet bound, into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Huh?! We want to stand up for the guy. Of course he s not dressed properly, he was pulled in off the street! But here s the thing the doors of the hall are thrown wide open and literally everyone is invited. And every other person was dressed properly. Once you re in, there are standards. This is a warning against complacency, which is one of the things the religious elites of Jesus day are guilty of. You can t be at the party and go on acting like you are not at an extraordinary party. Think about last year s wedding of the year: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Everyone who showed up was in proper wedding dress, right? Nobody showed up in jeans and a comfy sweatshirt. If you re going to show up at an event like that, there are expectations. The kingdom of heaven is like that. There are no prerequisites to being at a banquet. But, if you re going to respond to the invitation, there are some expectations that come along with it. The guests are welcomed into a new life and relationship. But the welcome, the host, is not indifferent about the way you live. Many are called, many are invited, but few can actually live up to this call, fully embody this new way of life, God s way of life. This is why Paul prays in Ephesians 4 that we may live a life worthy of the calling we have received. So, how is this parable good news? Well, the invitation is for everyone, for the elite and those living in the farthest reaches, the rich and the poor. For a king to invite just anybody to a royal wedding is pretty surprising. And everyone has capacity to live up to the standards of the kingdom, good and bad, but not everyone does. It s not just about showing up, you have to do something. Paul, in Romans, reminds the Christian community to behave appropriately by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Christ is the robe we wear and orients our life and action. The parables get us to think differently. They invite us to consider the magnitude of the graciousness of God. What is the intensity of the judgment of God? What does contempt for the grace of God look like? Matthew disturbs our comfortable theology. What does it mean that God is outraged when humanity rejects God s grace?

4 The kingdom of heaven is like that. If it were easy, we d be living it already. It runs counter to how the world works. We know that in the story because the very next line of scripture says Then the Pharisees went off and began to plot how they might trap Jesus by his speech. They ve got to discredit or destroy this Jesus, because he ll start a revolution. That s revolution is up to us now, to show up to the party, ready to party, ready to co-create this realm of generous abundance, radical inclusion and righteous living that Jesus desires for everyone. And that s good news. Amen. 4

5 5 Holy One, called by many names, our hearts are once again touched and broken by events in our communities. You created us from love and call us to love you and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Once again we find ourselves facing the reality that fear is among us instead of love. We pray for the families and friends of those murdered and injured in Christchurch, New Zealand today. We pray for Muslim communities globally and extend love, peace and comfort in the midst of yet another tragic moment. We pray for healing for the injured and for lives that are torn apart today. We stand boldly as Christians believing that the love that comes from you is greater than the fear that destroys lives and communities. Amen.