When Weddings Don’t
Go as Planned
Matthew 22:1-14
Every
pastor can tell a story or two about a wedding that didn’t go as planned. My favorite is a wedding I performed years
ago on a hot August afternoon in Irwin Pennsylvania. Although the Bride and Groom and I had
carefully worked out every detail so that the wedding service would run
smoothly, none of us had consulted the community calendar.
So, when we
arrived at the church we discovered that we had scheduled the wedding right
smack dab in the middle of the annual fireman’s parade. Fire trucks and high school bands from all
over western Pennsylvania filled the streets on either side of the church. The
only way in for all of us, including the bride in her long flowing gown, was to
dodge between the fire trucks and high school bands.
The church
had no air conditioning so the windows had to be open and that meant I had to
literally shout above the whirring sirens and trombones blaring. “DO YOU TAKE THIS MAN TO BE YOUR HUSBAND?”
And when the Bride and Groom exchanged their vows, they also had to yell, “I
PROMISE BEFORE GOD AND THESE WITNESSES…”
And at the
end of the service, when I pronounced them husband and wife, the Norwin High
School Band, as if on cue, began to play John Philip Sousa’s Prince Charming
march. Drums rolled and trumpets
announced these two were now husband and wife.
Sometimes weddings don’t always go
as planned, but they can still turn out all right. I told the Bride and Groom that this was a
wedding no one would ever forget.
Our scripture today is about a
wedding like that. It did not start off as planned, but it finished in a way
that may surprise you. Before we follow
this story, let us pray:
Lord, in response to your call we
often feel inadequate and unprepared. We
are afraid we will fail and so never begin.
When we say, “I can’t, “ remind us again and again that through you we
can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.[1] Amen.
Again Jesus spoke to them in
parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a
wedding banquet for his son.”[2] In
mid-eastern culture there is no bigger deal than a wedding and in the world of
weddings none surpass a royal wedding.
The pomp and circumstance were unrivaled and the reception lasted a
week.
But, Jesus clearly had more in mind
than an article for Bride magazine. In
his stories the king was a code word for God, and not a particularly secret one
at that. The Old Testament is rife with
references of God as King, so everyone knew what he was talking about.
More than that, you find in the Old
Testament prophets marriage used as a metaphor to describe the intimate nature
of the relationship between God and his people.
The whole of the
prophecy of Hosea is wrapped in this image of God taking on the role of the
groom and the people as his bride. The
Apostle John later captures this image in the book of Revelation:
Let
us rejoice and exult
and give
him the glory,
for the
marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his
bride has made herself ready;
to her it has been granted to be
clothed
with fine
linen, bright and pure"--
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the
saints.[3]
So, marriage, with
its mystical “two become one” imagery, was seen as the one voluntary human
relationship that comes closest to approximating the relationship between God
and his people. Faithfulness, honesty,
commitment are the marks of a good marriage and of a good relationship with
God. The Wedding feast marks the
beginning of that relationship.
So, in Jesus’ parable the King
(God) sent out invitations. “You’re
invited, everything is prepared, and the barbeque is cooking. It’s going to be
great!”
Jesus audience understood this
part. The invitation had gone out long
before to Abraham and repeated often throughout the Old Testament with eleven
powerful words, “I will be your God and you shall be my people.”[4] That was the core of their identity. They
were God’s chosen people, so they clearly saw themselves at the beginning of
Jesus story, but not so much in what followed.
The invitations went out, but then
the excuses returned. In Luke’s version
of the story they’re spelled out. “'I have bought a piece of land, and I must
go out and see it; please accept my regrets.” Another said, “I have bought five
yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.”'
Another said, “'I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.”[5] All are plausible reasons for their absence,
but they didn’t really matter because people will do what people will do and
any old excuse will do.
The
problem with these excuses is that they filter in after the guests have already
returned their R.S.V.P.’s. In that day there were two sets of invitations. The first told you that you were invited and
the second listed the date and time. They had already replied to the first
invitation and told the king, “You can count on us. We’ll be there.” But, when the day came - they weren’t. They didn’t show up. They found other things to do. Maybe it was such a nice day they decided to
take a drive in the country instead.
Perhaps a football game conflicted, or maybe they just wanted to sleep
in because they worked hard all week.
The reasons didn’t really matter because if you don’t want to do
something any old excuse will do.
Anyone
who has ever put on wedding knows how frustrating and expensive that can
be. At $75 a plate the cost of those
no-shows can really add up.
The King
in Jesus’ parable expresses that same frustration and because he is the King he
can do something about it. Jesus said he
destroyed those who snubbed his invitation.
This is
not the only time Jesus spoke of God’s judgment. There are at least a dozen more parables that
raise the stakes and demonstrate how seriously God such rejection.
These
stories conflict with the warm and fuzzy image many have of God. They clash with our songs of “gentle Jesus
meek and mild”. So, most of us think
about this harsh reality as little as possible.
You’ll see a lot of pictures in people’s homes of Jesus with a child on
his knee and a lamb at his feet, but not many of Jesus with a whip-in-hand
turning over the tables of the racketeers in the temple.
The
reason these hard images of God are so difficult to take is because they are so
much beyond our control. We cannot
manipulate the almighty with flimsy excuses or self-righteous boasting.
To say,
“It’s my business to sin and God’s to forgive and doesn’t that work out well”
diminishes the justice and righteousness of God. It makes light of God’s desire to see people
treat themselves and each other with respect. It turns the tables and flips the
relationship upside down so that we become the masters and God becomes the
servant. God’s judgment is the can not
be denied reminder that we do not create the universe or the rules that govern
it.
One
preacher observed, “What makes this judgment scripture terrible to me is what
it exposes about a sovereign God who is radically different than me, whose mind
I cannot read, whose decisions I cannot predict, whose actions I cannot
control.”[6]
The writer to the Hebrews said, “It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.[7] But, do we have a choice? Those are the hands we are in. Our only decision is whether we are willing
to rest peacefully in the hands of God or continually struggle and try to
wriggle out of them and so fall into God knows what.
Jesus
described the surprising nature of God when he said, “The king told his servant
to go out into the highways and byways and invite everyone you see.”[8] That would include, of course, the deserving
and the undeserving, the popular and the rejected, the powerful and the weak,
rich or poor, black or white, they are all precious in his sight.
In other
words, you might be surprised at whom you meet in heaven. You might bump into someone you never thought
you’d see - and then discover they are surprised to see you as well. In this world no walks around with a nametag
marked with a halo or a pitchfork. The
minute you put someone in one category or another you break Jesus’ command,
“Judge not lest you be judged.”[9]
This open
invitation was a new feature to a world where religion was usually defined by
geographical boundaries and ethnic backgrounds.
The idea that there could be crossover, that anyone and everyone might
be welcome into your particular religious tent had never really occurred to
many before that – certainly not to Jesus’ audience for whom faith and family
history were virtually identical. This
Jewish version of karma created a caste system that placed you at birth in the
front or back of the line that led to God.
Jesus
said in this parable, everyone is welcome at the table. It doesn’t matter who you are or from where
you’ve come. It doesn’t matter what
you’ve done or what you wish you’d done.
All that matters is that you show up ready and willing to receive what
the king will offer, and that is “grace upon grace.”[10]
But, not
everyone is willing to accept the king’s hospitality, and that’s the meaning of
the cryptic backend of Jesus’ parable.
“When the
king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a
wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a
wedding robe? And he was
speechless. 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.”[11]
On the
surface this is a puzzler, because one minute the man is just hanging out at
the market place, and the next he’s invited in to a sumptuous wedding feast
only to be told he doesn’t pass muster because he hasn’t conformed to the dress
code.
Parents,
this verse is not to be used to get your children to wear a coat and tie to
church. It does not mean an usher will,
if you are not dressed properly, throw you out into the outer darkness where
there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Dressing appropriately in church is certainly
an act of respect towards God and those with whom you worship, but failing that
will not result in your ejection from worship in this church.
The
meaning of Jesus’ cryptic warning is better understood with an old story I
heard about the television journalist, Hugh Downs. It seems he once attended a function in
Washington D.C. with his wife. When the
time came to return to New York, they discovered that their flight had been
cancelled due to bad weather. Downs
immediately called the front desk and was informed that they could catch a five
o’clock train, which was leaving in forty-five minutes. So, while Mrs. Downs
was showering, to save time, Hugh hurriedly packed all their belongings, called
the bell captain and asked that the bags be rushed right over to the train
station and be put on the train. A
bellhop came and carried them away.
Five
minutes later, Mrs. Downs stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, and
said, “Honey, would you please hand me my green dress.”
Well, you
know what happened next. Mrs. Downs got
a new dress – a nice new and expensive new dress.
In the
Bible clothing is used to describe sin and sometimes it reflects
righteousness. The prophet Isaiah said,
“all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags”.[12] By that he meant that if you think some token
of generosity or an occasional act of kindness will somehow force open heaven’s
doors to let you in, then you’ve cheapened the grace of God. It would be as if you asked your spouse after
opening up your Christmas morning present, “how much do I owe you for that?”
Remember what the prophet said,
“For the Lord has clothed
me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me
with the robe of righteousness.”[13]
The man in Jesus’ parable was thrown out into the outer
darkness because he likely refused to accept God’s garment of salvation or be
clothed in his robe of righteousness. He
could not let go of the notion that he somehow deserved to be there and so he
tried to justify himself by telling himself and others, “I may not be perfect,
but I’m still better than a lot of people I know.”
Jesus
closed this parable with this simple but sobering statement, “For many are
called, but few are chosen.”[14] This marks, I think, the balance between the
sovereignty of God and our freedom to choose.
The invitations go out to everyone, but not everyone will accept.
I worry
about that and maybe you do to. But before we struggle with the question of
where Jews and Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus and everyone else stand before
God; we ought to wrestle first with the question, where do I stand? How many excuses have I offered? How many invitations to serve have I turned
down? Am I relying on a token gift of
generosity or an occasional act of kindness?
Or, am I relying upon the grace of God demonstrated and confirmed
through Jesus Christ? Am I relying upon
God’s grace upon grace? For that is the
only way any of us will ever join in God’s great wedding feast.
Lord, w
have come at Your own invitation,
Chose by
You, to be counted as friends;
Yours is
the strength that sustains dedication,
Ours a
commitment we know never ends.[15]
Grant, O
Lord, your grace upon grace we pray.
Amen.
[1]
Philippians 4:13
[2] Matthew
22:2
[3]
Revelation 19:7-8
[4]
Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 7:23, 30:22, Ezekiel 31:28
[5] Luke
14:19-20
[6] Taylor,
Barbara Brown: Tales of Terror, Times
of Wonder.
[7] Hebrews
10:31
[8] Matthew
22:9
[9] Matthew
7:1
[10] John
1:16
[11] Matthew
11:11-13
[12] Isaiah
64:6
[13] Isaiah
61:10
[14] Matthew
22:14
[15] Green,
Fred Pratt: Lord, We Have Come at Your Own Invitation. Presbyterian
Hymnal #516.
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