Series: The Parables of Jesus No Excuses: The Parable of God s Party Rev. Dr. Scott Field Matthew 22: :15 AM Service

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1 Series: The Parables of Jesus No Excuses: The Parable of God s Party Rev. Dr. Scott Field Matthew 22: :15 AM Service The Kingdom of God is Like a Party The parable of the dinner party seems to give us a lot of trouble right from the start. In the first place, we seem to have missed the memo that God's salvation is like a party. For many of us, this Jesusfollowing is very serious stuff. If you don't believe it, just look at how it goes when we get together. Everyone is supposed to sit on hard benches in rows facing forward and be quiet. No dancing. No smoking. No drinking on church property. As if God had nothing to do with music or rhythm or dance; was somehow looking the other way when tobacco was created; looks down upon making wine, fermenting beer, or distilling liquor. I want to be careful here not to give the wrong message, but Christians seem to conclude that, at least in front of one another, God is inviting all of us to a sackcloth and ashes festival or a bread and water fasting convention. We have missed what Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor turned Roman Catholic priest called, "the conviviality of God." We may have no problem imagining God glowering at us, but do we have any sense of God dancing, swirling to the music, laughing out loud, and slapping us on the back with the joy of a long-lost family member who has returned home? The day of God's salvation is described in the Old Testament as "a feast of rich food for all people" (Isaiah 25:6). Even when we celebrate Holy Communion the Eucharistic prayer expresses our expectation and hope: This parable of Jesus, as recorded in Matthew s gospel, comes immediately after the parable of the unworthy tenants in the vineyard who meet an unexpected and horrible end because they have not managed the vineyard according to their agreement with the owner. The outline of the story is pretty simple; the meaning is pretty clear. A king is preparing a wedding feast for his son. Papyri from this time in Palestine testify to the practice of double invitations to special celebrations. The king much earlier honored his guest list with the invitation, and the people appropriately responded with a promise to come; the second invitation in the parable is merely to inform them that the feast is now ready and it is time to come. But then the plot takes an unexpected turn.

2 RSVP - No excuses Amazingly, when the dinner party is ready, and everyone on the invitation list contacted, nobody comes to the party. They all make excuses. We're familiar with this sort of thing, aren't we? Take it out of the God-sphere for a moment and just think about our normal way of responding to invitations. Of course, this parable is not actually about our social calendar, soccer schedule, or travel plans. This is about the invitation to God's feast; that is, about the invitation to salvation we have received through Jesus Christ. And there are actually two kinds of responses that led to a total no-show for the party: If we pick up the parallel version of this account in Luke s gospel we are given a bit more detail about the excuses (Luke 14:16-24). The RSVP regrets are based on good things; legit things. What you might call, the blessings of God: One has been able to purchase some property and needs to see to it. Another has been able to purchase five teams of oxen and needs to take care of them. And a third has just married -- and "those whom God has joined together, let no one separate." There s another parable of Jesus, most often called the Parable of the Four Soils.We will spend several weeks on this one parable again in January, but note that third obstacle, where the seed of the word of God, that is, our response to God's invitation to us, is tangled up in weeds and underbrush. And Jesus says the thorns that choke out the seed of God's invitation are the worries, riches, and pleasures of our lives. That is -- maybe except for the worries -- these are the GOOD THINGS of our lives. The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18 20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable. Jesus said some people hear the Word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life (Luke 8:14). In another place he said, The desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful (Mark 4:19). The pleasures of this life and the desires for other things these are not evil in themselves. These are not vices. These are gifts of God.

3 They are your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV-watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking. And all of them can become deadly substitutes for God. John Piper, A Hunger for God (Crossway, 1997), p.14 This reminds me of something from the 19th century Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: He told a story about a goose who was wounded and who landed in a barnyard with some chickens. He played with the chickens and ate with the chickens. After a while that goose thought he was a chicken. One day a flight of geese came over, migrating to their home. They gave a honk up there in the sky, and he heard it. Kierkegaard said, "Something stirred within the breast of this goose. Something called him to the skies. He began to flap the wings he hadn't used, and he rose a few feet into the air. Then he stopped, and he settled back again into the mud of the barnyard. He heard the cry, but he settled for less." So when we find ourselves always too busy with other things -- legitimate things, good things, important things -- but too busy to pray, pay attention to Scripture, worship and share life with other believers; no time left over to offer for the mission, too busy running from this and that, scheduling ourselves and our children so we've all but squeezed God out of our daily lives and weekly routines...perhaps we're the ones who have done important things but overlooked the most important thing: we have been too busy to respond to the invitation to live day by day as part of God's Kingdom people. Like the goose among the chickens, we've become accustomed to settling for less than God's invitation to us. This parable might be an important warning if we are overdriving our headlights or if our hunger for God, our attention to God's ways, our desire to be with God's people and involved in God's mission seems to have become just one more obligation in our schedule. And yet there is another group who refuse to come. They are the ones who purposefully disrespect the king who has invited them. They kill the messengers and indicate their willingness to provoke open rebellion. The king, understandably, sends forces to settle the uprising. They were invited and they refused. And they will be invited no more. The wrath of the king has been meted out upon them. But there is still more to the story. Inviting and Welcoming Others - No excuses Despite the anger and frustration with the original invitees and their excuses, there is a lot of food, the tables are set, the DJ's play list it cued up, and the bartender is stuck over there looking at an empty tip jar.

4 But, instead of blowing out the candles, taking down the tent and spending the next who knows how many meals eating all of the delicacies prepared by the caterer, this party-throwing-god does something amazing: I don't imagine that there is a MAXIMUM CAPACITY placard in the wall of heaven, but if there is, I think we can surmise from this parable that God is not content until heaven is a full house. In this story, then, the servant is sent throughout the town to gather up anybody who wants to come to the party. And there is still room! So, the servant is sent farther out into the countryside to invite anyone who wants to come. The early leaders of the Christian movement understood this inviting as going in concentric circles: The first group would be the religious regulars, like the Pharisees, to whom Jesus originally told the parable. But they were busy with this and that. Perhaps, because they thought there was always time for another trip to the Temple, another worship service, another Bible study -- and the Temple was always there, after all, and always had worship services, after all, and there was always at least one Bible study or another that you could find... well, they would get to God whenever they got around to it. There were more important things on their list. So, because they had no time for God, God had no room for them. The second circle, the town people, were the ones close at hand -- maybe they could smell the roasting meats or hear the DJ checking the sound system or note the catering trucks pulling up at the venue. They knew something was going on and they were ready to say yes to the invitation because, honestly, in their estimation, though they had other things to do there was nothing quite as exciting as an invitation to a party of this magnitude and class! The third circle, the people in the countryside, truth to tell, might not have liked the music the DJ had on her playlist, and may have preferred their Four-Buck Chuck to the high-class vintage from Napa on the tables, but the servant was not to be deterred by the polite refusal of the people who would not normally expect to be invited to an occasion like this. Urge them. Bring them with you. Don't take "no" for an answer; find another way for them to say "yes." This parable is a clear warning to all of us: so many things, so many good things, can capture our attention and time that we miss our opportunity to come to God's salvation. But equally important is the clear expectation that we will be part of making the invitation to everwidening circles of people. Most churches have a vague and guilt-ridden memory of this expectation. It is called evangelism or faith-sharing or, sometimes it is given the wonky jargon-ish phrase of "radical hospitality." From my admittedly limited observation, I would suggest that there are several less-than-effective ways in which communities of Christ-followers have attempted to invite others to follow Jesus:

5 Raiding Parties: send out some specially-trained church members, preferably with a background in either marital arts of selling insurance, to make cold calls and convince people to come to church -- or else. Bait and Switch: set things up so people don't know they are really coming to a church. Put in a coffee shop. Remove crosses, Bibles, pulpits, even architecture that looks "church-y". Then, after they are comfortably accustomed to being in a cool place with cool music and cool people, invite them to follow Jesus. If they're not paying attention, they might just think that is part of the whole package of "cool." Whiteboard Jesus: this is for those faith communities that want to project a vaguely spiritual but not specifically Christ-centered feng shui. Like using a whiteboard and erasable marker, everyone is invited to draw their own Jesus. We could go on and on with this, but time does not allow today. The simple point is that God's invitation travels across the networks of our personal relationships. You and I might be afraid we won't know what to say or how to answer some arcane theological question that might be thrown our way. But our fears are mostly unfounded. What's the chance? % of unchurched people who are somewhat likely to attend worship if invited 82% % of church member who invite an unchurched person to attend worship 2% % of formerly active church folks who are open to the idea of becoming involved in a church community again 72% % of unchurched people who have never been invited to worship in their whole lives 70% The research on this is pretty consistent: "Eighty-two percent of the unchurched are at least somewhat likely to attend church if invited." Dr. Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door "Only two percent of church members invite an unchurched person to church. Ninety-eighty percent of church-goers never extend an invitation in a given year." Dr. Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door

6 A study including more than 15,000 adults revealed that about two-thirds are willing to receive information about a local church from a family member and 56 percent from a friend or neighbor. The message is clear that the unchurched are open to conversations about church. Philip Nation, LifeWay Research "Seventy-two percent of those who used to participate in church are open to the idea of becoming involved in a faith community again but will not respond to or direct mail. Personal invitation by someone they know is most likely to engage them" - Scott McConnell, LifeWay Research. 7 out of 10 unchurched people have never been invited to church in their whole lives. -Dr. Thom Ranier Wow! With that kind of opportunity, why would we settle for anything less? Friends, each of us is invited to God's Party of Salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And each of us has the opportunity, in our relationships, to extend the invitation to others as well. Are you coming to the party? Who are you bringing with you?