Appropriate Attire Required
Please pray with me. Dear Lord, during this time of incredible challenge, when so much of what was familiar has disappeared and so much of what remains is changed, help us to keep our focus on what is sure and unchanging: your invitation to a new and better life through Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord. Amen.
This is a familiar gospel. The king, the banquet, the rude guests. Perhaps most familiar is the final verse: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Ah yes, we say to ourselves as we count ourselves among both the called and the chosen few. I’m not going to lie, that’s the trajectory my reading has always taken. However, as I prepared for today, I realized just how little attention I have actually paid to what Jesus makes clear in the story. This is not a warm and fuzzy, feel-good Gospel. This Gospel calls to account those who claim a place at the Lord’s table.
The parable begins with the king announcing his son’s wedding, preparing a banquet to celebrate the event, and issuing invitations. Nothing unusual. We have all been either the recipients or the originators of such invitations. However, that is pretty much the last piece of the story that can objectively be viewed as “usual and customary.”
The initial invitation is met with—a total lack of response. What? Nobody wants to go to the king’s banquet. Seems odd. But, not to be deterred, he sends out emissaries with the details of the banquet he plans to serve. Come on, he says, the feast is ready, all we need is you! Again—nothing. Actually, that’s not true. The responses range from indifference, to mistreatment of the messengers, and finally to their actual murder. What? The king is enraged and declares all-out war, kills the murderers, and burns the city. But not to worry, the wedding is still on! He instructs the slaves he has left to go to the furthest corners of his territory and bring in everyone—the good and the bad–in order to fill the wedding hall with guests. Along with everything else that is weird about this story, don’t you wonder how long all this took? In the telling we get no indication. A day? A week? Who’s taking care of all that food? Nothing, it seems, is going to stand in the way of this banquet. The ending is the strangest thing yet. In the midst of a now filled banquet hall, with anything but the originally planned for guests, the king singles out one man and has him bound and thrown into the “outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” for not wearing a “wedding robe.” Wait what? After going to so much trouble to fill the hall, why would he worry about what the man was wearing? I submit to you I have never asked myself that question. But seriously, exactly what is wrong with his clothes?
Let’s take a moment, then, to consider the importance of what we wear. It is certainly true that different jobs/situations carry with them specific expectations as to how people should dress. Students must comply with dress codes. Surgeons/doctors wear scrubs and protective equipment when treating patients. Athletes wear specific uniforms. Company employees often wear branded clothing when they work, and many are required to wear photo IDs as well. Pastors wear clerical collars. In the present moment, we wear face masks when out in public. Until relatively recently, there was even a “dress code” of sorts for church. Men wore suits and ties. Women wore dresses. Children wore their “Sunday best.” But, going to a wedding, that was a step above even church: a chance to put on your fanciest clothes as a way to celebrate and honor the occasion. If we really think about it, what someone is wearing often gives us an immediate understanding of not only who/what they might be and but also about what they might do or how we can expect them to behave. Hold that thought for later, please.
The first clue to untangling the lesson of this parable is in verse 2; “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.” Jesus was talking to the priests and the elders of his time who were at that point pretty actively involved in discrediting him. Matthew was writing to a first century congregation struggling with what one commentator calls “an intramural conflict within Judaism.” A struggle that saw one group of faithful Jews who accepted Jesus as Messiah, and another group that rejected not only that view, but also rejected the prophets as well. It’s good to know these things, but more important is how this parable describes us. Where are we or better yet, who are we in the confluence of all these invitations, missed opportunities, and rejections?
Let’s be clear. The “king” in this story is who we know as God, and the invitations are the ways in which God reaches out to and back to us in order to bring us into relationship. Like the first group of invitees to the banquet given by the king in the parable, we often do not do God the courtesy of a prompt RSVP. In modern terms, we often treat God’s invitation as a “Save the Date” notification. A commitment that we recognize, but often which we often seem to assume does not demand immediate action. We can simply put off thinking about it until we have a better sense of how it fits with all our other commitments. We are, in fact, happy to get the invitation, and fully intend to respond. We have faith that this initial invitation as it were is enough to get us a seat at the banquet table. And so, we continue to go about our business while the “Save the Date” notification either gets lost among other pieces of extraneous mail or sits among kids’ pictures, shopping lists, and other miscellany on the bulletin board that is our refrigerator door. We have a list of priorities and sometimes, this particular invitation is not at the top of the list.
Thankfully, like the king, God is willing to ask us more than once. Come on, he says. The table is set. The menu is awesome. This is going to be a feast and a celebration. Are you coming? This is where the story gets a little dicey. Not only do many of the invitees laugh at this repeated invitation and go about their business—work, personal concerns, etc., some get downright nasty about it. They seize the messengers mistreat and kill them. Clearly, they do not want to be bothered. And the king, in total frustration, strikes back. Matthew’s readers would have understood the king’s response as a reference to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and perhaps interpreted as evidence of God’s judgement on those who reject Jesus. And, there are some modern believers who point to catastrophic events such as the current pandemic as a sign of God’s judgement on our sinful world. I do not. Our God is merciful, he does not extract such punishment. We however, are often the instruments of our own stubbornness and hence reap the consequences of our actions. . . or our failure to act.
This particular part of the parable is, then, is highly relevant in today’s world. I read the following in some background information Pastor Klonowski provided, “. . .Legitimate occupations become sinister when they become preoccupations. The irony of this depiction is that rejection (by those invited) is not made in the pursuit of evil ends but in the pursuit of good ones. The problem is not that the invited want to carouse or do evil; it is that they would prefer to do their God-given tasks, ‘. . .one to his field, another to his business.’ . . ., we worship the work of our own hands.” God-given tasks…our jobs, our families, our leisure time, our homes…all blessings given to us by a generous God. What a pity that these blessings can become the reasons for ignoring God’s repeated invitations to take a seat at the banquet table. Would it seem unfair of God to take us off the list of invitees if we continue to place attendance at the banquet table somewhere down the list of our priorities?
Thankfully, we know that God, like the king in the story, is determined to have this party. He has the hall booked, the tables set, the meal prepared. If the original invitees are too rude or too busy to attend, he will broaden the invitation. Go into the main streets, the king tells his messengers, and invite everyone you see. The good and the bad. We hear this same wide-open invitation from God when we are invited to share at the Lord’s table. If you have been here often, if you have not been here long. If you have tried. If you have failed. Come, for it is God who invites you, and it is God’s will that you should meet God here. . .come then to this table of bounty. And the messengers go, and the hall is filled.
Phew! It feels like that should be the end, right? But not, not so fast. While circling the hall and greeting the guests, the king finds one that troubles him. Now, we go back to the original problem—the clothes. The king is so offended by the man’s lack of a “wedding robe” that he has him bound and thrown out. And then that final verse; “Many are called, but few are chosen.” We need to be clear about that choice part. Exactly what differentiates the called from the chosen?
Just as the king instructs his messengers to go and invite everyone, the good and the bad, so too does God through Christ Jesus extend a broad and all-inclusive invitation. Jesus comports with all manner of sinners and outcasts, the disciples are sent to preach to “all nations,” nobody is excluded. But once we accept the invitation, send in our RSVP so to speak, it is our responsibility to make sure we know the parameters of the event and to come appropriately dressed. The “friend” at the king’s banquet apparently did not pay attention to that expectation.
I found a commentary by Sharon H. Ringe very helpful at this juncture. She says, “Clearly the issue is not the man’s clothing, but rather how he presents himself in this ultimate moment…it appears that Matthew envisions further accountability beyond. . .our “yes!” to God’s invitation to the banquet.” Ringe sees the parable as an example of the tension between the affirmation in the second chapter of James that one’s faith can be seen in one’s deeds of justice and compassion, and Paul’s affirmation that our standing before God depends only on an acceptance of God’s grace. Ringe explains her willingness to see this through James’ position by suggesting that Paul’s “costly and radical notion of faith as the commitment of one’s entire life may have become watered down to a matter of intellectual belief or emotional trust that does not bring one’s behavior into play.” Or, as Luther came to believe, “Those who see the wedding garment as love can be tolerated if only they do not mean that the invited were justified thereby. . .Faith, which puts on the righteousness of Christ, is the true garment. It is active through love and does the works of love.” In other words, just showing up, or evidencing trust in God’s grace is not enough. We have to represent.
So it is about how we are clothed after all, because that clothing says something about who we are and how we are expected to behave. We recognize a physician’s stethoscope, a pastor’s collar, a football player’s helmet and pads. We know what they represent and how they aid in the performance of the jobs or activities. The particulars of our banquet attire: acts of justice and compassion, feeding ALL the hungry, tending ALL the sick, welcoming ALL the strangers, seeking justice for ALL humankind, loving, quite simply ALL our neighbors as God has loved us, are how we will be recognized, and like that hapless “friend,” ultimately judged.
God has invited us to a great celebration. Send back the RSVP, then check the closet and make sure you have the appropriate dress for the occasion.