Proper 23A | St. James’, Bradley Beach

Matthew 22:1-14

There is one person, not a Biblical character but an everyday, walking around person, who has made an appearance in more of my sermons than any other. He was a resident of Blacksburg, Virginia, where I served as the Episcopal Chaplain at Virginia Tech for 10 years. Now, I use the term “resident” loosely, because, you see, this person was actually homeless. His name was Teddy Henderson, but most people just called him Teddy. In fact, it wasn’t until he died that I and many others actually learned his last name.

The evening when I was being installed as the new chaplain at Virginia Tech, a service with our bishop in attendance, Teddy “crashed” the party. On that night, I’m not sure Teddy came to join us in worship or to wish me well in my ministry. Teddy had come for the dinner afterward.

When I arrived in the parish hall, there stood Teddy with a big plate of food. I’ll admit I was uncomfortable. I was new to town, and here was one of “those guys” I often saw loitering on main street. The bishop was here! What might happen? Was he dangerous? Mentally ill? Might he get violent? Will he cause a scene? I just wanted him to eat and go away.

But then I saw one of my student leaders speaking with Teddy! Uh oh! And then something even more unexpected happened – she invited Teddy to sit with her and some of the other Canterbury students at on of the tables. This was not my idea of how to attract new students.

But Teddy taught me a lesson that night, one that I have never forgotten.

“The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”

This king sends his servants to call everyone who had been invited to come to the banquet. But these A-list guests make light of the invitation, ignore it, or in some cases abuse and kill the kings servants. That should sound familiar. We heard a very similar gospel lesson last week.

But then we hear these shocking details – in his rage, the king sends troops to destroy the guests and burn their city. Wow! Is this king overreacting or what? But then we hear a happier note – the king still intends to give the banquet, but now the servants go into the streets to invite everyone they find – the good and the bad. This king is determined to have a party, no matter what! This is a happy scene – the unworthy are suddenly invited to the banquet and thereby made worthy.

But then it seems, when all is happy and the banquet is going well, this king seems to lose his mind again! The happy ending vanishes. The king discovers that one guest is not wearing the proper wedding garment, and the king orders him not just to be thrown out of the banquet, but tied up and cast basically into hell! Wow!

Jesus then ends this parable with these familiar, ominous words – many are called but few are chosen.

Now, I hope most of you know enough about Jesus’ ministry that the point of this parable was not to scold people who came to synagogue wearing sweat pants instead of their best tunic, just as the previous parables about the landowner and the tenants weren’t about resolving real estate disputes.

The king in these parables is, of course, God. The tenants are the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day. These are the Pharisees and Sadducees and the scribes and lawyers we hear mentioned all throughout the gospels. The servants who act as messengers are the prophets, including John the Baptist and even Jesus himself. In this parable, perhaps more than in any other, the king is furious and bent on revenge. He is enraged at the way the original guests rejected his invitation, abused and even killed his messengers. He is so outraged that he has their city burned. 

Details like that should remind us about the context of when this gospel was written. Most scholars agree that Matthew was first orally transmitted and then finally written down sometime after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Roman armies burned the Temple and much of the city in the year 70. The destruction of the Temple would have been a painful if fairly recent memory for most of Matthew’s original audience.

The writer of Matthew is making a rather strong indictment of the religious leadership of Jesus’ day, and his own for that matter. They had rejected God’s servants, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple was seen as a judgment on them. The writer of Matthew puts the words in Jesus’ mouth as a prophecy, yes. But by the time this gospel was written, Jerusalem was a smoking ruin, and the population had been scattered.

So it’s not hard to see the parallels – the original guests, the establishment, reject the king’s invitation, and they are judged. Jesus had come to call God’s people to repentance, to come back to God, but the religious leaders in Jerusalem rejected Jesus and, by doing so, rejected God, and now they have been judged. The king’s invitation then passes on to unlikely, everyday people – “the good and the bad,” as the parable says. They are invited to the wedding banquet, and they come. These could be seen as those Jews who had been treated as outcasts by the religious establishment, prostitutes and tax collectors, lepers and widows. They could even be seen as Gentiles who by the time this Gospel was written down were discovering this new faith of the followers of Jesus. They all come to the party.

But what about this one unfortunate guest? Is there a parallel? Who is he?

Weddings are major events in most every culture, with each having its own peculiar customs and morays. The wedding culture of Jesus’ day was demanding as well. If an important person were having a marriage in their family, the whole community would have known about it. Preparations could take weeks. In the case of this parable, it was the king throwing the party. The expectations were at their highest. When the time came, everyone was ready. 

Everyone was ready, that is, except this one miserable guest who shows up not wearing a wedding garment. We’ve heard parables like this before – the foolish virgins who let their lamps go out and aren’t prepared when the bridegroom arrives late at night. These foolish virgins are locked out and can’t get into the wedding banquet at all, because they were not prepared. Not a happy ending.

So it is with this unfortunate guest – he comes unprepared, and the king knows it. He even has nothing to say when the king confronts him. Weddings are a time for celebration, and the king wants everyone to celebrate with him at the wedding of his son. The king is the king – he is free to do what he wants. It’s the king’s party, and his rules are the only ones that count. We’ve already seen what his temper is like, so is it a surprise that he loses it when he comes across this guest who has managed to get into the banquet, wearing attire that suggests he’d rather be someplace else?

No doubt, once upon a time, this parable was used to condemn people who would show up to church wearing jeans or shorts. My father was the pastor, so there was NO way I could ever get out the door on a Sunday morning without a tie. But, as I’ve already said, this is not about getting dressed up for church. The wedding garment is symbolic. For me, this parable is more about how we prepare our hearts for worship. Do we come to God prepared, with a sense of expectation, with hearts and minds and hands opened, ready for what God wants to give us? Or do we come with our minds already made up and hearts closed?

When we come to worship, it says something about who we are – we are needy people. We should come here hungry. We want something from God, and often from each other. I think we’ve learned in recent months one of the most important things being at church gives us, something we can’t get watching on Zoom at home. We need community. We are hungry for that connection, even if we can only elbow-bump. Let’s not pretend otherwise. We need to be with God’s people.

When Teddy came to church that night long ago, many, including me, dismissed him, “Eh, it was only to get a free meal.” But isn’t that why we should come ourselves? If Teddy came there hungry and let it show, I think he was the best dressed person in the room. Was Teddy worthy? Perhaps not in the world’s eyes, but to God, Teddy was the exact kind of person that should have walked through that door. No matter how he appeared on the outside, Teddy wasn’t a beggar at the feast – he was an honored guest! It is those who come to God with pride and self-satisfaction first that need to go and change their clothes.

While it certainly is bad news for the establishment of Jerusalem, I think this parable should also remind us that God sees our hearts. God knows if we are truly prepared for worship, true worship. God has invited us, the unworthy, to the wedding banquet. So, let us prepare our hungry hearts to receive, and let us put on a wedding garment of celebration. Amen.