Not going to lie, my first read through of this one I thought, geez, why wasn’t Amanda’s wedding this weekend! Not that Gloria got a pass last week, that was a doozey as well. But at least last week’s parable didn’t end with Matthew’s trademark “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Fun fact: If you’re ever trying to guess which Gospel a verse came from, if the verse involves “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” it’s Matthew.
But traditionally Matthean or not, it’s a tough phrase to deal with. Especially as Lutherans, we, well I can’t speak for all of you but I, struggle with the judgmental God this parable seems to portray. It may have something to do with how much I dislike shopping, but I’m not always sure what to make of a Jesus who is so particular about clothing.
But Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber talks about how we tend to read parables as prescriptive, if this then that. But parables are more often descriptive, they describe the kingdom of heaven. So what if this parable isn’t about how Jesus is judging your outfit? What Jesus was just telling us how things are?
This parable is the last in a series of parables Jesus told in response to the Pharisees questioning his authority to teach in the temple. This one, last week’s parable on the wicked tenants, and the one the week before about the two sons, are all meant to build on each other. Jesus told them to the Pharisees after he asked them what they thought about John the Baptist and they refused to take a side. So when we hear this parable, we have to resist the habit we’d developed over the summer of putting on our disciple hat to hear it, instead we have to put on our Pharisee hat. This parable is meant to challenge the parts of us who are insiders, who gain power from our association with Christianity, and who use that power to exclude others.
Dr. Eugene Boring pointed out that Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven not to the king, but to the situation of the king who threw a wedding banquet to which no one came. He kept sending slaves to bring in the guests, but still they refused. And not only did they refuse, but they killed the messengers. Eventually the king got fed up, sent his troops out, and destroyed the cities. So what’s the message here? If the parable is prescriptive, the message seems pretty clear. You better come to the party God is throwing, or God will destroy your city. But what if the parable is not prescriptive? What if, as Pastor Bolz Weber thinks, it is descriptive? What is the Old Testament but a story in which Israel turns away from God, God sends a prophet to call them back, they ignore and/or kill the prophet, and then they get conquered. But even as the prophet is warning them of the danger, the prophet also promises God’s presence with them, and even after they are conquered, the prophet promises God is still with them, and eventually, God leads them back from slavery to freedom. And then the story repeats itself. Like last week’s parable, we once again have two sets of slaves who are allegories of the prophets.
I want to be a little careful here, because I’m not saying that God destroyed the people because they didn’t listen to the prophets. It’s like the story of the man sitting on his roof as the flood waters rose and every time someone offered to help him out, he said, no, God’s going to save me. Eventually he drown, and when he went to heaven he asked God, why didn’t you save me. To which God replied, I tried. Who do you think all those people offering to help were? The history of redemption following the destruction doesn’t line up to be a sign of God’s wrath. But if this parable is descriptive, it is a pretty good summary of the events of the Old Testament.
Then the parable goes on. Because the king still had the problem of not having any guests for his party. So he sent his slaves back out to gather up anyone they could find. And soon the hall was filled with guests, both the good and the bad. But when the king entered the hall, he found a guest who was not wearing a wedding robe. And the king was so enraged by the guest’s failure to live up to the dress code, that he had his attendants bind the man and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Before we get too far into this, let’s notice a few things. First, when a king threw a banquet, he often provided the wedding robes for his guests. Part of the purpose of a wedding banquet was for the groom to prove how wealthy and powerful he was, and what better way to do that than to literally dress all your guests. So while an extreme response, it was not unreasonable for the king to expect the guests to be wearing the clothes he gave to them when they entered.
But second, and more important, in the early church, “putting on the robe” was a metaphor for becoming a follower of Jesus. It was a reference to the white robe that new converts would put on after their baptism. This man’s refusal to “put on the robe” at the banquet of the kingdom of heaven was not about God having a strict dress code. Rather it was about those who want all the benefits without having to pay any of the costs.
Because there is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, a cost to discipleship. There is not a cost to salvation. Salvation is free. It is a gift we receive from Christ by grace, there’s nothing we have to do to receive it and nothing we possible could do to earn it. But when we take that gift, it changes us. We become new people, and that change can be costly. The prophets of Israel paid the cost. Bonhoeffer paid it at the hands of the Nazis, King paid it in Memphis, and in maybe less dramatic ways, we pay it too. Being a disciple of Christ is life-giving, but it is not without cost. The promise is not that we will never suffer, but that our suffering is always followed by life.
And maybe this is my snarky millennial side coming out, but I got to thinking about the state of American Christianity. In mainline churches, it sometimes feels like we are pining for an earlier era. When churches were the social gathering space, when the pews were packed, and confirmation classes were huge. Now bear with me. Many of you got your grounding in faith in that environment, and it is a ground that has stood you well long into the future. Who we are is built on the faith poured into you in that period. But it is also the case that the time we remember was a weird anomaly in church participation. We remember it as being “the way things always were,” because human memory only lasts back a couple of generations at best. It wasn’t the way things always were before that. In the 60s, Trinity was worshipping three-hundred on a Sunday. But in the early 1900s, the congregation that was founded by forty-two charter members was down to eight. The forty of us here today is not the smallest we’ve ever been, we just don’t have anyone around who remembers when we called a pastor to serve eight of us.
This is not unique to Trinity either, let’s be clear. This is basically the story of every mainline congregation in America. In the fifties and sixties, church membership grew exponentially. And sociologists posit communism was the cause of that growth. During the Cold War, when Joseph McCarthy was making a name for himself by accusing anyone and everyone of being a spy for the Russians, Americans, and especially high ranking Americans, flocked to churches to prove loyalty to America and distance from the atheist Communists. This is also when “In God We Trust” started showing up on our money, and when the phrase “under God” entered the pledge of allegiance. Before then, such phrases would have provoked memories of the state churches from which the colonists had originally fled. But in the fifties, Russia replaced the Church of England as the greatest threat to democracy, and our society responded accordingly.
And for many people, it worked. Many of you are a testament to the great faith formation a culture of church-goers can produce. But it didn’t work for everyone. My generation’s lack of church connection can also be traced back to a time when church was mostly about making sure you were seen in the right social circles, to get the right promotions and have the right credentials. Like the parable demonstrated, when you invite everyone to the party, some people show up just for the food.
And I am beginning to believe that this pendulum swing is actually good news for us. While it is tempting to look back at the past and lament, I think this parable should help us look forward with joy to the new future God is calling us into. Because the people who were only coming to the party to gain power, aren’t coming anymore. That was Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees, if you’re only coming to eat the free food, you’re taking up a space at the table. Come and be changed.
And if we look at back at the church’s history we notice a startling trend, and that is that we as the church are not at our best when we are the center of society. Constantine’s Rome, not our best moment. The Crusades, not our best moment. The medieval church, not our best moment. We as the church do our best work from the margins. The early Church under Roman persecution was known for its care for widows, orphans, and the marginalized. Luther was an upstart monk from rural Germany who argued God’s grace was not reserved for those who could afford it. Bonhoeffer’s underground church challenged Hitler and helped Jews escape to safety. The black church under Jim Crow fueled the Civil Rights Movement. We do our best work when we do it from the edges. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what’s happening now. Bishop Satterlee once said maybe it’s not that the church is dying, but that, like a boxer before a fight, it’s cutting excess weight and getting ready to move.
So put on your robes, dear people of God. Don the robe of Christ, and enter into the work. Many are called, but few are chosen, and we know from the promises made in our baptism that we have been chosen. We stand at the edge of a new Reformation, and I cannot wait to see how God, through us, is going to change the world. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment