a Sermon for Proper 23A
Text: Matthew 22:1-14

Give it up for weddings

Raise your hand if you like weddings.  All those happy people, the good food, a pervasive spirit of hope.  Everybody dressed in their finest.  The two, whose binding together we gather to support and cheer have never looked so beautiful and powerful.  It warms even the coldest hearts.

You might not know this, but many of us clergy actually hate* weddings.  Not because we hate the idea of a wedding, or the liturgy itself.  It’s more like…we knew about Bridezillas long before there was a TV show.  We have a different experience than anyone else and it makes our understanding of the event different.

When Jesus teaches in parables, he is using images that people understand, knowing that different people will understand the same story differently.  For instance, you might want a unity candle “because your best friend did this one thing…” and I’ll say “that’s not really the symbolic act we want to elevate.”  Different understandings.

You and I no doubt hear this parable and imagine this wedding banquet in a beautiful hall in a gigantic castle, the whole room covered with glitter and flowers; table settings made of pure gold holding the rarest orchids; a dance floor with Moby DJing the perfect mix.  The world watched a royal wedding not so long ago that was watched, literally, by a billion people.  Incredible pageantry and pomp.  I am sure each of us has seen some really impressive weddings.

 

The people hearing Jesus haven’t.

Sorry, it isn’t about the wedding

Their view of a royal wedding is from out on the street.  So the whole thing about a royal wedding banquet is the very part of the parable those hearers wouldn’t understand.

What they understand are kings and slaves.  In 1st Century Jerusalem, during the Passover, with Pilate having come to the city, these people would be focused, not on the banquet, but on tyranny.  Their thoughts are on the ruthlessness of the king and his pettiness when confronted with a stranger who isn’t dressed properly.  Jesus has just given them this very visual parable in the Triumphal Entry.

And Jesus says this is what the kingdom of heaven is like?  A kingdom of evil servants and an angry, vengeful God?

No.  He says “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”  As in “compare these two” or perhaps “compare and contrast.”

Jesus often teaches in what artists might call negative space—not the space where the central object or color is, but where it is absent.  What if this is Jesus’s way of saying:

Your vision of kingdom is not God’s.

And your vision of a king is not a vision of God.

The Funhouse Mirror

What if Jesus is giving us the character sketch that is the funhouse mirror image of the real one: distorted, twisted, inaccurate?  Now what if that distortion is representative of the world around us?  What if all the mirrors we use simply reflect the ugliness of a distorted and twisted world; that we have trouble recognizing the holy when we see it?

This picture of the kingdom has a demanding and vengeful king, attended by many slaves who willfully do his horrible bidding.  He is ignored by his subjects and friends, so he has them slaughtered and their city burned.  He still wants all of these people to attend this wedding, perhaps to show off his wealth, so he rounds up everyone and makes them dress a certain way.

For me, I see a rich negative space of gratitude and humility.  A king (?) whose attendants aren’t slaves, but equals.  His friends are happy to be a part of his son’s wedding, so eager to take part that they begin celebrating days before.  The king, not checking up on what people are wearing, focuses instead on his son, making sure he is happy, certain that everyone there loves him.

Maybe that’s the contrast: we still don’t truly understand what kind of king Jesus is describing.

Seeing the banquet in our banquet

Of course there are other ways to view this gospel.  It certainly is told very differently in Luke.  But where Jesus is standing: outside the Temple, three days before his execution, and what he has been teaching: church leaders are hypocrites that should know better.  In that context, here near the end of Matthew, we are not only convicted for our kingdom that isn’t of heaven, but given a glimpse of what part we play in this.

If the kingdom of heaven is to be compared, it is on us to make our side of the mirror less distorted, less twisted and vindictive, less apathetic and indifferent, less bitter and resigned.  Because the other side…full of beauty, vision and mercy, commitment and passion, joy and hope is reflected in the person of Jesus.  These final teachings spoken to the Pharisees are an incredible testament to the power the kingdom possesses and why it is so much bigger than the earthly power we know.

This is our time.  This is our kingdom.  This is our banquet.

There is plenty of room at this table.

[*Note: I’ve only officiated awesome weddings.  Seriously.  But, weddings do make people a little crazy.]