"Radical Stories, Radical Christianity:
The Wedding Banquet"
Matthew 22:1-14
February 4, 2007

Once more 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. He sent his slaves to call
those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he
sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my
dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready;
come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm,
another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed
them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and
burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited
were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the
wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they
found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But 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.’
For many are called, but few are chosen.”

This past week a news item caught my eye, telling of an incident that happened half
way around in the world in Australia.  It seems as if a local Baptist church in the city of
Sydney put some words on an outside sign, much like the one outside our church, that
has outraged, or at least disturbed, lots of people in the country, including the Prime
Minister of Australia, as well as the local Anglican bishop and conservative evangelicals
in the area.  And the words, the words were these: “Jesus loves Osama,” meaning the
terrorist Osama Bin Laden, and underneath that set of words on the billboard was the
following explanation: “Jesus said: Love your enemies and pray for those persecute
you.” This explanation by the Baptist church didn’t quell any of the outrage when a
picture of the sign appeared in a major Australian newspaper, and the Prime Minister
felt the need to comment on it, by saying: "I understand the Christian motivation of the
Baptist church.  But I hope they will understand that a lot of Australians, including many
Australian Christians, will think that the prayer priority of the church on this occasion
could have been elsewhere."  The Associated Press article also noted that “Anglican
Archbishop Peter Jensen said that the churches, which included a few more than just
this Baptist church, that had posted the sign were obviously trying to illustrate Christian
teaching that God loves everybody, no matter how evil their sins, but that he found the
sign ‘a bit misleading’ and ‘potentially offensive.’”  














You know, when I read this story, I must admit that I was kind of stunned at the reaction
of people to this simple message—actually, I was actually more stunned at the
reactions of the Christians in the story.  Bishop Jensen goes on to say, "There is a truth
in it, but, "what we've got to say is, `Jesus doesn't approve of Osama.' It makes it
sounds like, `Oh, Osama's doing the right thing."'  I just can’t imagine that Bishop
Jenson has to clarify for us the difference between Jesus loving Osama and Jesus
approving of Osama’s actions that have created death and mayhem!  Did anyone think
that these Baptists were supporting this guy by their choice to remind us that Christ’s
command to love those who hate us really does include some of the worst of the most
despicable characters?  And yet, I couldn’t shake the idea that this attempt to clarify the
difference between God’s love for us and God’s approval of our sometimes death-
dealing behaviors is rooted in something deeper, in something that we mistrust about
grace, something that makes us ultimately uncomfortable with this whole idea of God’s
love including our enemies—maybe the word is not mistrust, but maybe a better word to
describe our reaction is that its unfair and or maybe even  unreasonable, especially in
Christ’s request to love others as he loved them, all of them.  The Bishop, in his attempt
to make sure we didn’t confuse the two, I think he revealed something else in his words,
something Jesus keeps trying to chip away at in his telling of these stories, these
parables, that we’ve listening to the last month.

And this parable before us today is another powerful one and one of many he tells
about banquet tables—he loves to call us back to the table, just as he liked to have
meals with all sorts of people, sinners and saints, rich and poor.  In the ancient world,
whoever sat at your table, whoever got invited to sit and eat together, that was of
incredible importance, because it showed the world of what importance you were,
where you were in the social ladder of the day.  That table fellowship was also the thing
that got Jesus into trouble alot, because he always seemed to have a motley crew
eating with him, and people, the right kind of people, so to speak, grumbled that he had
the wrong kind of people at these tables with him.  So, it was important for Jesus to
address this issue of who was or was not welcomed at the table, at his table, and, by
extension, God’s table—who was God willing to associate with, so to speak?  

And so Jesus tells them another story, a parable about a king who was throwing a
wedding party for his son, and who sent out his slaves to call on those who had been
invited and encourage them to come, but surprisingly, the invited guests are too busy
and they give a bunch of excuses, even after the second set of slaves is sent out to
encourage their attendance.  This sends the king into a rage, it causes him to become
outraged that his invited guests won’t come and he sends out his troops to kill them all,
and burn their cities—obviously, refusing the invitation to the party wasn’t a good idea
on their part!  Then the king tells his slaves to invite everyone to the party, good and
bad alike and thus the place became full of new and unexpected partygoers.  But when
the king arrives to the wedding banquet, he notices one man who comes unprepared to
the feast—he’s not even bothered to put on his wedding robe, his tux, for the event.  
This poor fellow is thrown out, bound and gagged, thrown outside the city, where there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, a favorite phrase of the author of Matthew.  
Jesus ends it with the line that he uses often in his parable telling: “many are called, but
few are chosen.”  

It’s a disturbing little parable, as most of them are, actually, if you bother to dig a little
deeper.  I mean, you have a king that seems to be offended pretty easily—refuse an
invitation to the party or show up inappropriately dressed, there is good chance you’ll
either be killed or sitting outside the city limits, crying and remorseful!  But before we go
there, I want us to go the banquet and think about what kind of party is being thrown
here—a wedding feast, a time when two people begin a new life together, a time when
two families become one, a time for incredible celebration, of joy and happiness.  There
is some reason that Jesus makes this a wedding banquet, rather than some other kind
of celebratory banquet—maybe this is all about the start of something new, something
new being offered to the people of the world.  

And yet, it is the insiders, the folks first invited to the feast that don’t get what is
happening here, they don’t get what they are being asked to do, which is to celebrate
with the king the birth of something new, a new marriage, a new beginning, for his
family.  In the first century, that might have been some of Jesus’ fellow Jews, but, of
course, these parables are never just about “them” back then—these parables are
about us as well.  There is a party going on, a new thing happening in this world, the
kingdom of God continually being born in and among us, and yet we so often act like
the king’s first set of guests: “hey, it’s not something to get all that excited about—I’ve
got better things to do.”  And they and we “insiders” sometimes don’t get the beauty of
what the church is celebrating when it gathers for worship and service, of what God is
doing now in this world.  In an almost a contrarian move, the king moves to invite
everyone, good and bad, to the feast, and they show up, knowing what a gift it was to
even be invited to the banquet.  They know they are the unexpected guests, and the
unwanted guests by those who are insiders, but the king invites them because they
know the importance of the “something new” that the king is celebrating at the wedding
feast.  They get the gift of what is means to be at this table, with the king, and they
know what it means to have table fellowship with this king—he has raised them up,
good and bad, beautiful and ugly, poor and rich, by his simple invitation to come and
celebrate the good thing that the King is celebrating here at his table.

Well, ALMOST everyone gets what it big deal it is to be invited to the wedding feast—
obviously the guy who showed up without the proper attire didn’t quite get what kind of
celebration he was being invited to, and I don’t think you can lay it at the feet of poverty
or something like that, since the text doesn’t hint at that.  The parable doesn’t even tell
us whether this was a good guy or a bad guy—it just says that he arrived unprepared
for the party: he didn’t take it seriously enough, for whatever reason, and it gets him in
a whole lot of trouble.  I keep thinking that maybe he didn’t quite believe that he had
been invited, that maybe this was some sort of joke, or a cruel farce of some sort.  
Certainly, he couldn’t be REALLY invited, so he shows up to a party that he doesn’t
believe REALLY has him on the guest list, and it angers the host so much that he
throws him outside the gate, into the outer darkness, to weep among the wolves.      

What an odd parable this is, but the only thing I can think of is that Jesus wanted to
keep reminding his disciples and us, that we really are the unexpected guests, the ones
that don’t usually get invited to these sorts of parties, but God has thrown a party that
celebrates the beginning of something new, and we’re invited, good people and bad
people, the Martin Luther Kings and Osama bin Ladens and everyone else in-between,
and the one thing that will get us thrown out of that party is forgetting that this really is a
celebration of something new that God is doing, and we ought act like people who are
going to a good time, and being unexpected guests, we ought to appreciate what a gift
it is be here, among these sinners and saints, people like this.  And that means we
honor the host by recognizing that a new thing is going on, the beginning of something
new, and that newness extends to us, and it transforms the way we treat each other,
which is just another way of saying how we treat God (Love God, love your neighbor—
they are same thing for Jesus) and we ought to act like good party guests.

Osama really is loved by Jesus, completely and totally, and he is at the feast, I believe,
but the danger for him and for us is when we think that not everyone should be at the
table, that only “good” people or “those” people, or people like me, should be at the
feast.  Osama does that, I think, in his ruthless desire to get Americans off the guest
list, or people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who want to scratch off people that
make love differently than they do, or people like us who want to cut Falwell or
Robertson off the guest list because they seem hell-bent on cutting down the guest list
to people who only believe and follow Christ the way they do.  But the guest list is not
our business, because we are not the ones throwing the party, and where we tend to
get into trouble is not treating this feast like an incredible party that includes the most
unlikely of guests, people like us, and Osama, and Jerry Falwell and Margo and Sherry
and Sven and everyone else here.  The guy without the wedding robe—he forgets
where he’s at, a wedding party with crazy guest list full of unexpected people. We too
forget where we are at, so often—and what we’re at is a new beginning to how things
are going to be, the kingdom of heaven, a new beginning that starts now, and that
includes the worthy and unworthy, the good and the bad, beautiful and the ugly.  
Grace is like that, it includes the ones we wouldn’t and that is why it offends our
sensibilities, and why it seemed to offend the Anglican bishop in Australia, because it
includes a guest list we secretly think should be pared down, or at the very least, we
have a compelling and sad need to clarify that even if Osama is on the guest list, we
and certainly God doesn’t approve of his actions, as if saying that he is loved means
automatically that his actions are loved—God knows that most of us couldn’t always
pass that test, if that was what was required to be loved God or each other.  Anyone
who has loved a child gone wrong, a spouse gone astray, or a friend who has betrayed
us, knows that you can love someone in all of their failings and wrongheadeness, just
like you can love yourself knowing the ways you have failed yourself and others and
God.  And it is interesting that the parable includes both the good and the bad at the
wedding feast, but I think more importantly, and more graceful for us, is that we are not
the king, we are not the decider, to mimic President Bush recent words, because its not
our guest list and we don’t decide who gets thrown out into the outer darkness.  What
we’re asked to do is celebrate the new thing being done by God at this party that God
is throwing for the universe,  a party full of unexpected guests, people like you and me
and maybe a lot of people we love and a few we don’t.  

In Flannery O’Conner’s short story titled REVELATION, she tells of a Southern woman
who is quite sure she knows who should be at the banquet—Mrs. Turpin is white,
privileged, wealthy, better than the white trash and blacks that she and her family
employs at her farm.  Near the end of the story, she received a revelation of how large
and unexpected the guest list really is, an epiphany that startles her as much as it
disturbs her.

“Until the sun slipped finally behind the tree line, Mrs. Turpin remained there with her
gaze bent to them as if she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge. At last
she lifted her head. There was only a purple streak in the sky, cutting through a field of
crimson and leading, like an extension of the highway, into the descending dusk. She
raised her hands from the side of the pen in a gesture hieratic and profound. A
visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge
extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde or
souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white-trash, clean
for the first time in their lives, and bands of black in white robes, and battalions of
freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the
end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those
who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit
to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind
the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and
common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see
by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. She
lowered her hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed
unblinkingly on what lay ahead. In a moment the vision faded but she remained where
she was, immobile.

At length she got down and turned off the faucet and made her slow way on the
darkening path to the house. In the woods around her the invisible cricket choruses
had struck up, but what she heard were the voices of the souls climbing upward into the
starry field and shouting hallelujah (508-509).

Amen and amen.