Pr. Doug's Sermon: October 9, 2011

Matthew 22:1-14


Here we go again….


For yet another week, we get to hear Jesus tell us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like… in rather harsh terms…

Recall last week, he described it as a vineyard…

A vineyard?
Now that’s an image I like.
I can relate very well to grapes and soil and sun and rain and of course the product of all that stuff. Honestly, I have never met a grape I don’t like.


In fact, when I think of grapes and vineyards, I picture crisp autumn days around any one of our beautiful Finger Lakes, filled with vineyard and winery tours with family and friends.



So the Kingdom of God is like a vineyard? That’s great, until Jesus says a little more…

The Kingdom is like a vineyard….with evil workers on the verge of expulsion.
Well that is certainly a comforting image…

A vineyard with evil workers……


How about them apples?



“The Kingdom of God” says Jesus, “is like a royal wedding banquet”.

A royal wedding? Now that’s something that sounds appealing….

I can relate to that…..in as much as I have seen a couple of them on television over the past few years.

I mean who can forget the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton? The hats alone were enough to warrant worldwide television coverage.
From Princess Beatrice’s giant sculpted bow, to Victoria Beckham’s spiky alien antenna, royal fashion was quite the topic of conversation.


So just when you thought it was safe to venture into the waters of royal wedding fashion, along comes Jesus with his own fashion statement…

As he tells a parable about a king who invited guests to a royal wedding only to find one of the guests disrespectfully attired; not wearing a wedding robe.

After offering a harsh fashion critique, the king has this guest bound and thrown out into the darkness where there is endless weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Followed by the harshest of words that conclude our gospel reading for the day: “For many are called, but few are chosen”.

The gospel of the Lord…Praise to you O Christ.

Praise to you O Christ? Really? We really concluded the Gospel reading with these words? “Many are called, but few are chosen?”


How does he do that? How is it that Jesus can take a perfectly normal, everyday and quite enjoyable image and ruin it with a parable?

Of course, I guess that’s what parables do don’t they? They take something that we know a lot about and they ruin it for us by casting it in a different light.

A light that displaces all of our assumptions…

A light that re-arranges our spiritual furniture…

A light that tells one story on the surface, but on a deeper level points to something else and challenges us to discover THAT something else.


And Jesus is no stranger to the parable….

In the 4 gospels alone, Jesus uses parables to get his point across 26 times. Add the non-canonical gospel of Thomas and you’ve got 29.

I mean if you think about it, the use of parable is brilliant.

For like a Trojan Horse of old, through the use of familiar images, the parable gets past our defenses and once there, unleashes its gospel truth: it’s Kingdom of God perspective: messing up everything for us: especially messing up the concept of “life on our terms”.


So little wonder that when we hear Jesus talking about “many” being called, but only a “few” being chosen, we begin to squirm in our Lutheran “justification by grace through faith” shoes.

I don’t know about you. But I like the concept of “justification by faith”.

I like knowing that in the Cross of Christ, God has done it all for me…

And as a result, I like thinking that nothing is required of me….

I like thinking that God loves me so much that not only did He send his son to die for me, but also that he accepts and affirms everything about me.

He affirms me when I come to church…

He affirms me when I decide to skip church this week


He affirms me when I tithe my life…

And he affirms me when I keep it all to myself.


I call this living life on my terms:

The Lutheran pastor and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called this “cheap grace”.

Not only living life on my terms…

But living like the rest of the world…modeling my life on the world’s standards and not aspiring to live a different life under the cross of grace.

Not aspiring to live a different life under the cross of grace.

Living life under one’s own terms…

Maybe in Jesus’ royal wedding parable this morning, that was the problem with the guest who showed up without a wedding garment.

Maybe instead of coming to a wedding to become intimately connected to the king: To God, this wedding guest came looking simply for his own dietary nourishment…just came to fill his belly.

Looking only to his own needs and desires while wearing blinders to the realities around him.


But whatever the motivations of this guest, it is clear that something is expected of him…

That there is a garment he is expected to wear which differs from the one he normally wears…

A garment that is different from the ones worn by the rest of the world.


You see, I do not believe that Jesus tells this parable in order to figure out who is “in” and who is “out” of God’s Kingdom… some may translate it that way: but they would be wrong.

I believe this parable is all about how life is lived as a resident of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And how, as residents of that Kingdom, we are called to a different way of life.

A different way of life where in following Christ, we bear His Image.









Just imagine for a moment, what bearing the image of Christ could look like:



Healing…

Teaching…

Feeding…



Each of these: An image of Christ.


Being poured out….

Breaking down barriers…

Loving the unlovable…


Each of these: An image of Christ.


So here we are: Gathered before this banquet table today, not with fancy hats and classic couture worthy of a Buckingham Palace wedding, but clothed simply (through the waters of our Baptism) with a different wedding garment:
the joy and wonder of Christ…

about to share in a glorious feast...

a feast in which our King, Christ our Lord not only invites us, but dwells richly with us.

a feast in which we are fed with nothing short of God’s very own life…

a feast from which we rise, transformed, bearing the image of the crucified and risen Christ…

a feast in which we are fed and from which we feed.



But you know, after all is said and done, I still squirm and become uneasy when I hear Jesus talking in parables about God’s Kingdom:

Especially when he puts “wedding garments” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” in the same sentence.


There is still a part of me that wants to say, “Jesus is just using harsh terms to get my attention”.

There is still a part of me that wants to lay down a Jesus disclaimer that somehow Jesus doesn’t really require every fiber of my being.

More times than not, I still want life on my terms: Not God’s.

More times than not, I want to be fed more than I want to feed.

More times than not, if I am really honest with myself, I want the image of Doug a whole lot more than the image of God.


For in God’s image, are certain expectations…

In God’s image, I have no choice but to feed, clothe and break down barriers…

In God’s image, I have no choice but to oppose systems that oppress and neglect the most vulnerable.

In God’s image, I have no choice but to be Christ to my neighbor…
Yes, every neighbor, even the ones who I would rather call “enemy”.

In God’s image, there is but one wedding garment to wear…

And that is the garment emerging from the waters of my baptism…

The garment that transforms and compels me to love God with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself.

Loving God….Loving neighbor.

These are the threads which when woven together comprise the wedding garment we wear this day to this feast.

No crazy hats…no glistening tiaras. No horse drawn carriages. Just love.