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Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost – October 11, 2020
Matthew 22:1-14
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Whenever this parable comes up again in the lectionary, it always takes me back to my wedding day. As Amy and I prepared for our big day, there was a question hanging over all our preparations. It wasn’t a serious question – it was more of a running family joke. The question was: “What would Uncle Dan wear to the wedding?” You see, Amy’s Uncle Dan hates wearing suits. He has been known to show up to family events looking like he just stumbled out of a deer stand, which, oftentimes, he had. Before the wedding he told everyone, “I’ll come, but I am NOT wearing a suit.”
Now Amy and I couldn’t have cared less about whether he wore a suit or not – but my father-in-law did. We had a formal wedding with a full communion liturgy held in Amy’s grandmother’s gothic Episcopal sanctuary, and my father-in-law didn’t want his kid brother showing up for this formal affair in camo. And so my father-in-law brought an extra suit, met his brother at the door of the church, and said, “Put it on.”
Uncle Dan relented and put on the suit. He literally put in on in the church bathroom! I’m not sure if my father-in-law threatened him with being bound hand and foot and thrown into the outer darkness, where there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth. We choose to believe he relented in order to respect the host. We choose to believe he put on that suit as a way of honoring the blessedness of the occasion. He’s smiling in all the pictures, so we’re sure he ended up having a good time at the wedding.
This morning we hear yet another parable of Jesus which functions as an allegory of what is happening now that he has arrived in Jerusalem. Just as the king in this story sent out invitations to come to the wedding banquet of his son, God had sent his people prophets to invite them to prepare for the wedding banquet of the Messiah. And one after another, those invitations were rejected. Now Jesus, the Son himself, had arrived, and his invitation was being spurned by the chief priests and the elders and the Pharisees. So just as the king in the parable invited in everyone, both good and bad, Jesus invited tax collectors and prostitutes and other notorious sinners, who eagerly accepted this invitation to the wedding banquet, so that the wedding hall was soon filled with guests.
But then there is a plot twist at the end of the parable. There was one man in attendance at the wedding banquet who wasn’t wearing the right clothes. He wasn’t wearing the wedding robe. It was expected that everyone would wear a wedding robe to a wedding in the ancient world. It was even a common practice to provide one for people who arrived without one, kind of like fancy restaurants with dress codes which will lend you a suit coat or a tie if you come without one. But this guy didn’t put on the wedding robe. This would have been a sign of great disrespect to the King. It was such a sign of disrespect, that he ends up getting kicked out.
What does this last plot twist mean? Jesus concludes the parable by saying, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Recall that the invitation went out to everyone, both good and bad. Many were called! All were welcome! Jesus’ ministry was offered to everyone, even tax collectors and prostitutes! But “few were chosen.” Very few actually believed in him. The chief priests and the elders and the Pharisees sure didn’t! They were all invited. They were all even hanging around on the periphery of the wedding banquet. But they were not dressed for the party.
To be dressed for the party is to receive Christ in faith. It is to trust that he is the Son of God, the Messiah, the savior. As St. Paul would later write, it is to be “clothed in Christ,” clothed in his forgiveness, clothed in his grace, clothed in the gift of his saving righteousness. It is to welcome this Son, this groom, into our lives through faith in him. It is to gladly show respect to the King who has invited us by putting on this garment of faith.
This faith is never just an intellectual exercise. Belief in Christ isn’t just something that resides in our heads. Faith goes on to shape our entire lives. It leads us to stop insisting on dressing ourselves, wearing what we want to wear. It leads us to give up our own desires and live in accordance with his holy will. It leads us to want to honor our Lord and King in every aspect of our lives.
I usually try to avoid lengthy quotes in sermons, but this quote from Martin Luther in one of his sermons on this parable is just too good to not share:
“…we easily understand what it means that this man was without wedding clothes, namely, that he was without the new finery with which we please God, which is faith in Christ, and thus also without true good works. He remains in the old rags and tatters of his own fleshly opinions and unbelief. His heart does not take comfort from the grace of Christ, nor does he improve his life, he seeks nothing more in the Gospel than what the flesh desires. The wedding clothes must be the new light of the heart which produces in the heart knowledge of the great grace of this Bridegroom and of his wedding, so that the heart clings to Christ completely and, steeped in this consolation and joy, lives with delight and love and does what it knows will please him, just as a bride does for her bridegroom.”
Dear friends, you have been invited to the wedding banquet. You haven’t earned this invitation by your behavior. This invitation is pure grace, pure gift. We all show up at this wedding banquet poorly dressed! We all show up in old rags and tatters! We all show up in camo! But our Lord Jesus stands at the door with a suit for each of us, a robe for each of us. Even this is a gift! There is no cost involved, at least no cost that Christ hasn’t already paid! Christ clothes us in his forgiveness, his grace, his righteousness. He makes us worthy by clothing us in himself.
What we’re being called to do today is to leave our old clothes behind and be dressed for the party. The old rags of our sin, the tatters of our unbelieving and disobedient hearts have no place in this wedding banquet! We’re being called to leave our old clothes at the door and put on the new clothes of faith. We are being called to let go of our stubborn insistence on dressing ourselves, doing things our own way, and instead live our lives in ways that please him. Jesus calls us to let him clothe us in a new life, a “new light of the heart,” at Luther puts it, so that we might honor him as we come on in to enjoy this wedding banquet which is the kingdom of heaven. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church