Sisters and brothers in Christ, God’s grace and peace be with you.  Amen

Imagine being invited on stage to sing with the Beatles, REM, and Cold Play, and turning them down.  Imagine being called to suit up and play for a championship team, and deciding you didn’t really like the color of the uniforms.  Imagine being offered a limousine ride to front row seats at the Academy Awards but choosing to clean out your garage instead.  Refusing the Kingdom of Heaven is like being included in the biggest event of your generation, and deciding not to go.

The image of the Wedding Banquet is a favorite example in scripture.  In a culture in which a king would host a wedding banquet perhaps once or twice in his lifetime, in which he would send out invitations to only the most elite townspeople and neighboring royalty, would kill the fattest calves and pour the finest wine, weddings were the epitome of gracious abundance and overwhelming hospitality.  A wedding was a not-to-be-missed occasion.  Imagine Will & Kate on steroids.

In fact, in Jesus’ day, the wealthiest hosts would have wedding clothes sewn, not just for the wedding party, but for every one of the guests as well, so that when the guests arrived, they would each be given a new wedding garment to wear.  No one would think of not wearing the garment you had received, or of taking it off once you had tried it on.

In a setting in which most people would in fact never ever be welcomed in a king’s palace, never ever be sent an invitation to a gala event, never ever be handed a wedding garment to wear in honor of the hosts, the idea of people snubbing their nose at a wedding banquet invitation is simply ludicrous.

What a contrast that is to our general interpretation of life in the Kingdom, or of our experience of faith.  Normally, we don’t consider whether people desire to be included in God’s embrace.  We just presume they might visit church if they’re interested.  But imagine if we saw our participation in our faith community as if it were as marvelous as anything else we could ever participate in. Imagine sharing God’s love, or even an invitation to Gloria Dei, with others as eagerly as if we were offering a hand-addressed invitation to a once in a life-time, red-carpet event.

God’s grace is as irresistible as that.  And we are privileged to share it with a world desperate for a sign of love.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we always hear the parable as gracefully as that.  Instead we get caught by the violence and gnashing of teeth the story includes and can’t believe that this could be good news.

For centuries, this parable has been interpreted to imply that the original hearers of God’s word were being judged for ignoring and rejecting it.  They were going to be condemned and thrown into the utter darkness.  But those who believed and followed Jesus were the called and the chosen.  We would be included in God’s loving kingdom forever.

But be careful.  Matthew’s gospel isn’t condemning Jews in favor of Christians, and I think we give ourselves an easy way out when we presume that it is.  Matthew is talking to Christians who were unwilling to admit that God extends grace to people they believe unworthy, and we are all still guilty of that.                     

Jesus is relentless in reminding his audience that they don’t get to choose whom God invites, and in fact that God’s invitation will be extended not to people who feel they deserve it, but specifically to those who can’t hope to be included.  The king’s servants are sent out into the main streets, where the good and even the bad would be given party invitations.  Some scholars translate Jesus’ concluding words in the parable to be adjectives of quality rather than quantity;  not “many are called but few are chosen,” but rather the “mighty are called, but the humble are chosen.”

Matthew is reminding us that the kingdom is to be experienced as gift, as a free and joy-filled chance for all people to receive grace beyond anything we can deserve or earn.  It still doesn’t come to us because we are worthy.  We are invited to rejoice in the gift of God’s acceptance as if putting on a free wedding garment guests receive upon arrival.

It might help to remember that the gospel was compiled soon after the violent and horrendous destruction of Jerusalem.   The people who heard this story had just witnessed their own September 11, their own Hiroshima.  They wanted to believe that those who had inflicted this violence upon them would certainly be punished for it.  They also may have wondered how God could have allowed the horrors they had witnessed.  And secretly they may have worried that God could have had some reason for it.

Like the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, Matthew reminds the people of God that they have not been faithful to God’s inclusivity, and that God’s demand for justice and welcome won’t be denied.  God is insistent that no one is to be considered beneath our welcome, and God is jealous enough for that love to be extended through anger.

But even then, we need to be cautious about how far we take the allegory.  We’re right when we note that the violence described in Jesus’ story doesn’t sound anything like the values we hear about in the Beatitudes, or in Jesus’ own inclusion of tax collectors and beggars.  In fact, the violence of the king in the story toward those who resist his invitation sounds more like the tyrants who ruled the people of Jesus’ homeland, than of Jesus’ typical description of God.  This king is like the Herod who tried to kill all the children of Bethlehem, or his son who served the head of John the Baptist to his stepdaughter. Within just a few chapters of this parable, we will see Jesus suffering under the hands of this kind of vicious oppressor, and being crucified by this kind of violence.

Rather than guess that Jesus is warning us of a violent God’s judgment toward those who refuse the invitation, we might recognize Jesus using a familiar image which his listeners would have known too well.  Jesus seems to imply that if people couldn’t have been persuaded to join in the goodness of a wedding celebration because of their own desire to be included, then at least they wouldn’t have resisted the demands of a tyrant who would punish them for ignoring it.

This parable is a study in absurdity, compelling us to respond. Jesus is giving us two completely ridiculous options:  To resist wearing a free wedding garment in spite of being killed for taking it off is unreasonable, and to resist the chance of a lifetime because you had better things to do at home is also illogical.  No one, no one anywhere ever, would be fool enough to not want to experience the goodness of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus is implying that God’s grace is too good to be refused.  The same joy of God’s grace is apparent to Paul, who from prison, reminds the church in Philippi to celebrate any good they know in their experience of it, because they will know unsurpassed peace through that joy.  The same bounty of God’s kingdom is promised through the prophet Isaiah who sings of a rich feast that no hungry person could turn down.  The same goodness of God’s love is as apparent as that of a loving shepherd who leads his lambs through the valley of death with comfort and loving kindness.  The grace of God is unstoppable and irresistible, and God gives it freely to all people everywhere.

And, yes, Jesus is also reminding us that those of us invited into this realm can’t resist responding to it, either.  Like the whole gospel, this is in fact a stewardship text.  God has been overwhelmingly gracious to us.  All of creation, all that we have, all that we celebrate, all that is good, is God’s free and undeserved gift to us. 

How can we not respond?  How can we not share what has been lavished on us?  How can we not offer care to others?  How can we not serve?  Our response is unavoidable.  To refuse to respond would be ludicrous – as if we had been invited to sing on stage with our favorite performer, but had decided we were too busy or uninterested to attend.

The Kingdom of Heaven has been given to us.  We have been called and chosen to wear a garment of grace.  We have been invited and welcomed into a feast of love, and we have been honored by the graciousness of an irresistible host, to extend the invitation to everyone we meet.

How can we refuse?    Thanks be to God. 

Amen

Texts:  Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 23; Philippians 4:4-9; Matthew 22:1-14