2026 10 11 Pentecost 20A Proper 23A
Exodus 32:1-14 Psalm 106:1-6, 20-24 Philippians 4
Matthew 22:1-14
What do you do when things
don’t seem to be happening? Do you take
matters into your own hands? Most of us
do. Or if there is a delay in the
actualization of an event, do you just go back to the usual way of life? Most of us do. But the
readings today remind us to keep waiting for God and don’t give up. Most importantly, even though God seems to
delay, keep expecting him…. Don’t give up.
And then, in the Gospel reading, we have this interesting part of the
story about clothing.
If you go to visit the Vatican
in Rome, you will notice many people selling things to those lined up. They sell large light weight scarves, long
enough to wrap around your waist and have it cover your knees. Or you can wrap it around you as a shawl in
case your shoulders are exposed. You cannot
enter if your knees or shoulders are exposed.
Growing up in this warm and
casual town, I missed these rules. I went
to a catholic school and was taught by nuns whose last school was in New
Guinea. They told us that God accepts
you no matter how you look or what you wear.
They impressed upon us that it was important to go to church, and if
that meant going as you were, that was fine.
And oftentimes I did go straight from a basketball game to church – in
our basketball uniform – which is of a style that no one wears now. The bottoms were called bummers and every
girl at that time, playing basketball in Mackay, wore bummers. I wore mine to church thinking nothing of it… perhaps naively.
So perhaps it is no wonder
that something that has always intrigued me, is that line in our Gospel reading
about the man who was not wearing wedding clothes. Does God care really care what we wear? Oh, my goodness, this makes me laugh! I’m thinking of all the judgments I’ve heard
over the years and some of the outfits I’ve seen on the street – and the
arguments I’ve had with people over the years about this issue.
It is a reminder to us that
we need to understand that the original writers and readers of this Gospel belonged
to a different time and culture. The
word of God stays the same, but to understand what is being communicated, we
need to explore the culture and context and discover what the original listeners
understood about the story.
The first thing to
understand is that it was customary to have two invitations to the wedding; the
first was kind of like a “heads up. Soon
we’ll be sending for you.” and the second one was to say, “The feast is
ready. Come now”. Here we have a King who invites people to the
wedding feast, but the invitation is ignored.
The King then sends out the second invitation, but this one is also
ignored. While some of those invited made
light of the situation, others were actually hostile and mistreated or killed
the messengers.
Let’s just stop right there.
Since forever, God’s prophets have been treated
with contempt. Some have been mistreated,
abused and killed. These are the
prophets who came before Jesus and those who came after also. The saints and the martyrs… and many whose
names we don’t know. Today, is the same.
It surprised me recently to
read comments on social media that condemned Mother Theresa. Once upon a time, she seemed like the universal
saint that everyone from everywhere respected.
She was the lady from a comfortable background who gave that comfort up
so that she could care for the poor in India.
But people now twist and condemn her actions and spread vicious lies about
her motives – Things that can’t really be refuted because a motive is a thing
unknown.
Might I suggest the same is
happening with some modern people. Those
who stand up publicly to proclaim God’s standard. Joanna Howe who reminds us that life begins
in the womb, every word she says if it can be twisted, it is. Attacks on her husband and attacks on their relationship. We really need to pray for these people. They are doing the job that we are called to
do. Last week we saw that we,
Christians, are the tenants of God’s vineyard.
We are to be faithful in producing fruit in the world. That means that WE are called to be the body
of Christ in our world, producing fruit for God the King.
The King in our reading,
sent troops and destroyed the city. This
is not a King who doesn’t care what happens to his messengers, and commentaries
on this verse suggest that Matthew's audience would immediately connect that destruction
to the literal destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Rome in AD 70. To re-iterate last week’s message where we
had the giving of the ten commandments; disaster always follows when the
community fail to follow God’s law.
Our first reading tells us
how this happens…. It happens when we take matters into our own hands. We therefore make God into an image of our
own making… and liking.
Last week we talked about
this idea of “You do you and I’ll do me” – living by our own truth… it is
called relativism and we all tend to do it.
Throwing gold into a fire and making a calf might seem weird and
extreme, but that community we genuinely trying to worship God, and didn’t
realize their error. We all tend to make God into an image that is OUR image. We hear it all the time; people say, “I live
by God’s law, but I don’t believe you have to go to church to be a Christian”. Do they actually know what God’s law
is? They know about treating others as
you’d like to be treated…. But that isn’t the first and greatest command. When we are not immersed in, and studying God’s
word, and meeting together etc.. we can all
get things wrong also.
ALL are invited to the
wedding feast. The spiritual meaning is
that we are all invited to the Heavenly banquet. Many are called but few are chosen. In the Greek original language of this verse
the word for called Kletos and the word for chosen is eklektos. So the word play implies a sifting and
refining between the two groups. We are
all refined by immersing ourselves in the word of God and by becoming well
acquainted with it.
Immersing ourselves means
being covered by it… Immersing is what baptism
means. In baptism we are immersed in
water – symbolically. The Spiritual
reality is that we are being reborn as a child of God. Our old nature is said to die with Christ, and
we emerge from the water reborn as an eternal child of God, raised with Christ. Traditionally we wear a white outfit because
we are said to now be clothed in Christ, and when God the father looks at us,
he sees the sacrifice and perfection of Jesus – the only person who could ever
perfectly keep God’s law.
And here is the key to that
mysterious verse about the wedding attire. The king invited ALL to the feast. They came in from everywhere and in the
context of Jesus’ listeners he was telling them that they, the chosen people
were rejecting him, but all others were now invited … and they were coming from
everywhere. This is us… the non-Jewish
believers. But know this for sure, we
come to God and receive eternal life ONLY through Jesus…. There is no other
way. God does say, “Come one and come
all and come as you are”…. But you must put on the wedding garment.
In that culture, it was acknowledged
that people might come to the wedding without fine clothes and from various
stations. The host of the wedding
provided the wedding robe so that all - the rich, the poor, the influential and
the retiring… ALL were seen as equal.
The only exception was the Bride and Groom.
God absolutely loves us all
and has a special care for those gone astray.
He deliberately seeks them to call them back, but today we need to also
understand that God has rules. Heaven is
not a place that we create according to our own design. It is the kingdom of God, and to enter we
must submit to the King. We come to God
through the sacrifice of Christ – the only way to the father. We are clothed in him… that is the wedding
robe we all must wear if we want to be in the Kingdom of God. What incredibly great news is the Gospel! We come as we are to God’s banquet, and God
himself makes us acceptable by providing the robe. But God always respects our free will. If we don’t want to wear the robe that is
okay, but we cannot enter the Kingdom. Will
we accept God as our Lord and King and wear that robe?
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