Participate In The Party

 

The actions of the king in today's parable leave us scratching our heads. What good news is here for us?

At almost every wedding I have been to something goes wrong. Maybe, it’s the sweet flower girl dumping the whole basket out halfway down the aisle. Perhaps, it’s the unexpected rain shower that completely drenches the entire ceremony. Or, it could even be the groom saying the bride’s name is Rachel instead of Emily, as famously depicted in the show Friends. However, I have never been to a wedding that has quite so many wrong turns as the one in today’s Gospel lesson.

If you think this story is ridiculous and are concerned about the events that take place around this wedding ceremony, you are right! I mean this story is upsetting. Sure, we can laugh off the invited guests dismissing the first invitation—who hasn’t missed a wedding because of work or a football game? We can smirk as the father of the groom sends a second message, this time with the delicious menu detailed—food will surely get them to show up! However, when the invitees murdered the messengers, we surely move from charmingly intrigued to wholly disgusted. I know I am perplexed by this—does this sort of thing happen at other weddings for royalty?

Looking at the 2018 Royal Wedding between Meghan Markle and Prince Harry—the one at which our own Presiding Bishop absolutely nailed the homily—what happened when guests didn’t show? It is hard to say if any invited guests were no shows. According to one report[1] there were 20 celebrities who were either snubbed or didn’t bother to turn up, but they didn’t murder the curriers who brought their invites. So, shooting the messenger is not normal for royal weddings!

And while Queen Elizabeth may have her problems with no-longer-Prince Harry who has abdicated his royal responsibilities, I do not believe she has besieged even his estate, which is unlike the king from today’s story. So, what is happening in today’s Gospel lesson—this is weird behavior, even for a parable.

Parables are meant to show us what the Reign of God looks like, but certainly this story goes off the rails of what Jesus’ Kingdom is like, right? Those invited to the prince’s wedding killed the messenger. The king responded by murdering his own subjects and burning down his own city. How did the stakes get raised so high, so fast—from polite invitation to scorched earth in just 3 verses? If this violence were not weird enough, the wedding is still going to happen.

Imagine this for just a second. You are the caterer for a royal wedding. Suddenly, the wedding planner approaches you to say, “Can you make sure the mini-quiches don’t chaff? The wedding guests are going to be awhile, the Father of the Groom has gone to burn down a city, and he invited a bunch of strangers to the reception.” WHAT? Think about the poor bride and the in-over-his-head wedding celebrant who is trying to manage all these personalities. So, if you haven’t picked up on it already, this story is intentionally over-the-top. It isn’t simply about the Reign of God in general—it’s an allegory for the in-breaking Way of Christ in late 1^st Century Palestine.

This is not a story about someone’s wedding. We can let go of our own projections of how terrifying this would be if it happened at a loved one’s ceremony. This isn’t meant to be a realistic story—it’s an intentionally audacious allegory crucial to understanding Matthew’s community that was a part of the Early Church.

Now, I’ll be honest in these disrupted times that we are living through I was not happy to pull this Gospel when I saw the preaching schedule. It is really disturbing to read something really disturbing when we are already really disturbed, but maybe—just maybe—knowing that this is an unrealistic tale—even for a parable—will allow us to see this story with new eyes. So, with these new eyes I have three questions: 1. Why is this such a violent and high stakes story? 2. What does this allegory tell us about the Early Church? and 3. Is there any truth or Good News here for us?

First, why so violent and high stakes? This story is so aggressive because when Matthew shared it his community was engaged in an all-out struggle for existence. This was not a battle pitting Christians against Jews. It was an intermural conflict within Judaism.[2] The Early Church thought of themselves, especially within Matthew’s community, as faithful Jews who were responding to God’s call for them. The story was so violent because this community was facing existential threat. So, this helps us understand the allegory a bit better, which gets us to the second question.

What does this allegory tell us about the Early Church? In the late 1^st Century this story would have resonated with its one to one comparisons being made. Matthew’s Community would have seen themselves as the faithful ones who came to the party after the original invitees turned down their opportunity. Their Jewish brothers and sisters who ignored the Messiah’s coming in the person of Jesus were depicted as the ones who ignored the wedding feast. The burning city would have called to mind Jerusalem, which was besieged in the year 70. Matthew’s community may have even seen this attack on the Holy City as God’s judgment because the religious leaders had ignored the prophets and these new bearers of God’s good news in Christ.

If this is where the allegory stopped though, it would be horrific, as it would have only focused on the wrongs of others, specifically the synagogue down the street. Sadly, this story has been manifested to harbor Antisemitism and violence against our Jewish friends for far, far too long, but Matthew was not Antisemitic. His community was at least partially Jewish, and in the end this allegory is critical of his own community.

As one scholar put it, Matthew was not “working out some rhetorical violence against opponents, and assuring his own community that they are on the right side of salvation history,”[3] for at the end of this story, the king strikes once more.

When the king spotted one of the guests pulled in from the street wearing plain clothes, the monarch lost it. He said, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” — “Who wears a t-shirt to a black-tie party?” Then, this guest gets tossed out by the bouncers, not out of the party, but out of the still burning city—where real bad stuff happens like sobbing over the state of your soul and worrying over your spiritual existence. If this is an allegory what does this stand for?

Proper clothing, wedding clothing equates to being ready to live by the community’s standards. You might ask, “If one were pulled off the street to attend a wedding would that one really have on wedding clothes? Who walks around in a tuxedo or a ball gown?” Again, this is not a realistic story, it is allegory. Matthew’s community demanded living by rigorous requirements, so through this story he was saying, “we cannot be self-satisfied.” Matthew here was willing to point out the plank in his group’s own eye, not just the sawdust residing in the eye of a neighboring group.

For Matthew’s community, the wild, unpredictable king has flung wide open his gates. Everybody—I mean everyone, good, bad, and indifferent—gets invited! What happens, though when you walk into the feast? Or, what Matthew was getting at—what happens after you joins this new way, do you get complacent? What about us? After we commit to following Christ, are we to fret over the king coming by? Are we to live by the old adage, “Hurry up, look busy, Jesus is coming?” I don’t think that’s the point here, but it begs the question, is there truth or Good News here for us?

In this world of the parable the guest from the street got thrown out not simply because of the lack of wedding robes. Sure, the whole story throws us off. It is violent and odd, but what may seem most off is this little detail. He got thrown out for wearing the wrong attire—this is not an episode of “What Not To Wear”!

Like Charles said last week, parables break down at some point and here is where this one breaks down. This guest gets tossed out for not wearing the right clothes, for not following the rules. Jesus was one who did not follow the rules. Jesus intentionally broke the rules around Sabbath, eating, and healing. He befriended the wrong people, touched the wrong people, and loved the wrong people. So, this detail about the rules and the robes causes this entire parable to shift, or rather it causes me to shift my thinking about what the truth is, what the good news here is for us.

This is not a story about rules. It is a parable about participation in a party. The one thrown out was thrown out for not joining the fun. This was not just some party, but the most festive feast of all time—the wedding, which through Christ forever unites earth and heaven, heaven and earth. Even the usually somber theologian Karl Barth put it this way, “In the last resort, it all boils down to the fact that the invitation is to a feast, and that he who does not obey and come accordingly, and therefore festively, declines and spurns the invitation no less than those who are unwilling to obey and appear at all.”[4] In other words, whether we ignore God’s countless invitations to join the party or we come to the feast without joy in our hearts it is the same—we are foregoing the life-altering love that God has for each of us.

Thus, the Good News for us is that the Reign of Christ is an already inaugurated, but still not fully realized feast that breaks through the bounds of time and space. We participate in it at this feast every week. However, if I have learned anything over the last seven months of upheaval and not having Communion weekly it is that I need the Holy Eucharist! We are made from the Communion of the Father, Son, and Spirit, so of course we crave it. What is more, even if I am joyful coming to the feast, I am even more joyful departing it. We are to take this party wherever we go. God’s feast is too big to be constrained to one day a week or fixed to one place.

 The Good News for us is that we are not to worry about whether we are wearing a tuxedo or a tuxedo t-shirt, an evening gown or a night gown. Rather we are to cloth ourselves in the majesty of God and the joy of this feast! We have been invited to the greatest party of all time! Allow the elation of this feast, which forever unites earth and heaven, heaven and earth, allow this to permeate into all of our lives. For this isn’t just some wedding, we are joining the greatest party that has ever happened. So, let us not just keep the feast, but take it with us always! Amen.

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[1] Megan Decker and Jennifer Algoo. “20 Celebrities Who Didn't Get Invited to the Royal Wedding.” https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/g20720710/who-didnt-go-to-meghan-markle-prince-harry-royal-wedding/ [written: May 20 2018, accessed: October 9, 2020].

[2] Lance Pape. Working Preacher. “Commentary on Matthew 22:1-14.” https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2204 [written: October 12, 2014; accessed: October 9, 2020].

[3] Lance Pape. Working Preacher. “Commentary on Matthew 22:1-14.” https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2204 [written: October 12, 2014; accessed: October 9, 2020].

[4] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), 588, quoted in Jarvis, Cynthia A., “Matthew 22:1-14: Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 2, Chapters 14-28, WJK, 2013, 186.