MATTHEW 22:1-14

22 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

⁴ “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

⁵ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murdered and burned their city.

⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹ So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and 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 wedding clothes. ¹² He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

¹³ “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

¹⁴ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Let us pray,

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts, be pleasing and acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer… 

Our Scripture reading for today is a parable about salvation. With this strange story about a wedding banquet gone awry. Jesus teaches us how we are saved, and how we are to act given the fact that we have been saved. As we listen to the parable of the wedding banquet. We are challenged to reckon with our own discomfort at the universality of God’s love for humanity.

Jesus begins this parable by telling us that a king is preparing a wedding banquet. He prepares the feast. He readies the wedding clothes. He orders his servants to clean the palace. On the day of the wedding, his guests don’t show up. They’re too busy. Or they’d rather not be bothered. The king sends his servants to kill his wedding guests. Fearing that their behavior signified an open rebellion against the king.

The king then throws open the doors of the palace. He invites anyone milling about outside the palace to come and join the feast. The wedding hall is now filled with guests. All celebrating the wedding feast together. The king notices one man in attendance who isn’t wearing wedding clothes. Enraged, the king tells his servants to throw him out. For many are invited but few are chosen.

It’s helpful to remember that there are two parts to this parable. The first part is that like the doors of the king’s palace. The doors of God’s kingdom are thrown wide open to everyone. But once you decide to join the party, there are standards.

The first part of this parable would have been the most offensive part to the chief priests and the elders who assembled to hear Jesus speak. Remember a big part of the Jewish faith is believing that you are a part of Israel, God’s chosen people. Now Jesus is saying that God chooses everybody. Jesus is expanding their understanding of who all is included in God’s favor. In Jesus, salvation is now possible for everyone. And this news is highly unsettling for the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day.

The second part of the parable would have been more comforting for the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day. But perhaps highly unsettling for us. And that is once you’ve accepted that you want to follow Jesus, there are rules. The king throws out the man who showed up to the wedding without proper wedding clothes. Because its rude to behave this way. It’s not enough that the man showed up to the wedding. You have to show up and meet the community standards. At a wedding this means showing up to the wedding and dressing appropriately. In the life of Christian discipleship, it means professing faith in Jesus Christ, and behaving accordingly.

I think the second part of the parable is hard for us. Because it requires us to accept that God loves everyone. But God continues to hold us accountable for our behavior. In theory we’re okay with God loving everyone. But then we realize that that means that God loves the people who annoy us. Who’ve hurt us. Who continue to behave badly and rarely seem to suffer for it.

Worse still, (and this is the real kicker of this parable!) God continues to hold us accountable for our actions, even when it doesn’t feel like God is holding other people accountable for theirs. Other people showed up underdressed to the wedding banquet. Why does the king only punish one man?

This feeling of being unfairly persecuted- I call this feeling martyrdom syndrome. Where we become so focused on the unfairness of our own situation, we lose sight of the bigger picture. We forget that life is hard for everyone. And that God isn’t intentionally making my life more difficult than it needs to be.

I’m sure that all of us in this room have felt martyrdom syndrome at some point during this pandemic. I think this is because everyone is really going through it right now. We’re all unhappy with the sacrifices we have to make to keep our communities safe. So we’re looking for ways to show others how we’ve suffered worst of all. For example, if someone is upset that they have to work from home with poor internet access. Another is upset that they have to work from home while wrangling two children. While a third is upset that they have no work to do from home.

One of the commentaries I read for background on this parable asked me this unsettling question: “Can we live with a God who doesn’t care how great we are at our jobs, and who has chosen everyone?” I think this is a question worth considering as we reflect on this parable. I think it’s also worth reflecting on if we don’t deserve God’s love, and we cannot earn God’s love, and God loves us anyway, what motivates us to live into our identity as beloved children of God?

This line of thinking all started for me when I was on the phone with my mother this week. My mother loves to call me on Sunday afternoons (after I’ve preached twice!) to tell me about the sermon her pastor preached that morning. At her church they’re working through a sermon series on Jonah. You remember Jonah. God told him to go to Ninevah. Jonah said, no thanks, I’d rather not. So God has a whale swallow Jonah so he can reflect on his life choices. Jonah eventually goes to Ninevah, but God had to get pretty dramatic to get him there. 

Anyway, my mother called to share with me something new she learned about God that day. She said, I know we say all the time that God loves everybody. I never thought that Jonah getting swallowed by a whale was because God loved him, and God wanted him to be the best that he could be- a prophet in Ninevah. Maybe when bad things happen to us, when I feel like God is testing me, it’s because God is preparing me for a new chapter? So instead of being mad at God for the hard thing I’m going through, maybe it’s more helpful to focus on what I’m learning during this hard thing, and how I might use this learning in the future?

I about dropped my cell phone. I’m sure my mother’s pastor’s heart was feeling strangely warm. Somebody got the sermon! 

Jonah is a classic example of a man suffering from martyrdom syndrome in the Old Testament. Can’t you send someone else to Ninevah, God, I’m busy. Then when he’s in the belly of the whale he thinks no one has ever suffered as much as he suffers. But it’s only when he lets go of his anger at God that he’s able to trust God’s plan for his life. The whale expels him, and he’s able to minister to the people of Ninevah.

I share this story because I wonder if it might be more helpful for us to reflect on what God is teaching us in the midst of a difficult season of life than to be angry at God for putting us through a difficult season of life? When I look at the great men of scripture, or even the great men and women in my own life, the one thing they all have in common is that they’ve been through it. And at some point they used the anger they felt at having to go through it and used it as an opportunity to learn something new about God, about themselves, or about the world around them.

Friends my prayer for us is that we won’t waste this difficult season of life. That we will use it as an opportunity to draw closer to God and to one another. We will all face trials and tribulations. We will all mess up. And we will all get to decide how we meet those challenges. Knowing that Jesus goes out ahead of us. And will never leave us or forsake us.

Thanks be to God, 

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.