sermon, Oct 10
During my time at St. James Cathedral, I learned that Wedding banquets are a very big deal.
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[Couple asked how long…
Wedding planner can only give you 30 minutes…
I was not able to reassure them…
They had already paid…]
While I wouldn’t recommend going well beyond your means for a wedding banquet, I understand that they are very important. The guest list really matters. It should feel like an honour to be invited when a couple puts so much into it.
Jesus uses this relatable experience from normal life to teach his listeners about the kingdom of heaven. More specifically, he is continuing to plead with his opponents in the temple. They have taken offence that he stepped onto their turf and was trying to tell them what they should do. He had dared to teach the religious professionals about God. And worst of all he is not intimidated by their attacks and schemes against him. He kept standing up and teaching anyone who would listen (and even those who refused to listen) about the kingdom of heaven.
The last few Sundays, we have heard alongside them a story about two sons - one who changed his mind and obeyed, and one who changed his mind and disobeyed.
We have heard a story about wicked tenant farmers who kill the landowner’s Son in hopes they will get his inheritance.
And today we are hearing a story about a wedding banquet where the guest list has to be revised at the last minute.
Each of these stories is meant to correct what Jesus’ hearers thought the kingdom of heaven was like, and we get to listen along with them and get our minds more in line with what the kingdom of heaven is really like too.
All these stories about the Chief Priests, and Scribes, and Pharisees are written in Scripture for our benefit. The fact is we all have a little bit of them in our own hearts. Their problem, as I said last week, is not that they were wrong about the kingdom of heaven - in a real sense we all are. Their problem is that when Jesus showed them the truth, they refused to change their minds. I pray that we would not be like them, but instead that our hearts will be softened by Jesus’ words and that we will be open to accepting his will and his kingdom for our own lives.
In the story, a king gives a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited. But when the slaves return, they have no one with them. The king assumes there must be a mistake: who would refuse an invitation to a wedding banquet for a king’s son? They must not be aware of what is in store for them. So he sends back other slaves to explain in more detail: Look, he says, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.
But they couldn’t care less about all the oxtail and beef curry the king had at his table. They turned down the invitation and went back to their lives - back to their fields or to their business. And some others abused or humiliated his messengers and even killed them so they wouldn’t invite them ever again.
This is shocking and confusing behaviour. Why would anyone respond this way to an invitation of such generosity and kindness?
Well, when Jesus tells stories like this, he means for us to understand that he is talking about people like us.
The slaves the king sent to invite his guests to the wedding banquet represent the prophets; This was the experience they had in the Old Testament: they were ignored, and treated harshly, and some of them were killed
We can say that the all writings of the prophets in the OT are an invitation to this wedding banquet that the guests keep rejecting over and over again. That is what the Old Testament is about: God inviting the people of Israel to enjoy what he had prepared for them, and them making light of the privilege and walking away to pursue other Gods or idols.
That was them, but this parable is also about us. We have our own experiences of rejecting the invitation of God to enjoy the wonderful things he has prepared for us. There are two ways we do this that come to mind.
Firstly, like the people in Jesus’ parable, we are often too busy trying to solve our own problems to allow God to bless us and to help us.
[Little old lady inviting the guy with the car battery to church]
I don’t know that man or what became of him, but in pastoral ministry I have seen a lot of people so busy struggling with the problems in their lives that they don’t have time to receive anything from God.
We are trying to ensure our own survival, and feel that if we take a moment away from worrying about our problems or trying in our own strength to solve them, our lives will fall apart.
I can assure you, your life will not fall apart if you take a moment away from all you are busily trying to do and pray to God.
The writer to the Hebrews says that it is Jesus who upholds all things by his powerful word.
If you really are worried about whether your life will hold together, take a moment to speak with the only one who is truly able to keep it together.
Come to church when you feel stressed and powerless in your life, and enjoy taking your place at God’s table, be reminded of who you are, and find in him the strength you need to carry on.
And secondly, some times we walk away from God and from the church because we make light of the invitation offered into fellowship with God.
We want a God who will just give us what we want, not the kind of God who is interested in a relationship with us.
And so, like Ancient Israel, we turn to idols - representations of what God can offer but without God. In their case it was the God of Nostalgia
In our first reading, Ancient Israel wanted a God of fertility so through the birth of children they could become strong and prosperous and safe in the wilderness (“Remember when Pharaoh and them were oppressing us, we just kept having babies and growing, then he was afraid of us - all we need is more of what we used to have”)
But they are forgetting that even with all those babies, they still had no chance of getting out of slavery. It was only when God showed up and decided that it was time for his people to get a taste of freedom, that without lifting a finger or needing to fight at all, they were able to get up and walk out of slavery after 400 years.
We can also get caught up with worshipping the God of Nostalgia - “remember what used to happen or what things used to be like?” We talk like this sometimes and act as though everything was better in the past. And though we know this isn’t true - the past had its problems too - it is most often easier to look back with nostalgia than to look forward with faith.
If we have taken it upon ourselves to find deliverance from our problems, then nostalgia makes us feel like maybe we are good enough. We are the same people, so why can’t we do the same things we used to do?
But if we turn from worshipping the God of Nostalgia and instead worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we know that if Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then he is more than capable of doing today what he has always done in the past. He is able to give us new experiences and create memories for us today here in our lives and in this church.
Psalm 40 “He is able to put a new song in our mouths - a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord. (That is how we are going to fill up the pews). Happy are those who make the Lord their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us; none can compare with you.”
With a God like this on our side, there is no reason at any time to lose heart or to lose hope. He is more than powerful enough to revive us again.
So now the king has a problem: The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Do you know how expensive that much oxtail must have been? He couldn’t throw all that into the garbage.
The king’s solution to the problem - which says something to us about how to respond when the message we deliver from Jesus is rejected - is to go out there and find other people.
We are not meant to spend all our time begging and pleading with people who are not interested. We think that if we change the message, or start giving out free stuff, or make church about things that have nothing to do with God, then they will be interested. But this isn’t true and it doesn’t work.
God has prepared a banquet, he has prepared a feast, he has given his Son for the life of this world - that is the best thing we have to offer. If we feel that people don’t want that, all we can do is keep going out there inviting people until we find those who do want Jesus Christ.
We are to keep going out there until we find people who are interested in and longing for a life-changing encounter with the Son of God.
Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Good and bad means that as we go out into the streets to invite people into the kingdom, we are not to judge based on what our eyes see.
When we went out last Saturday into the community, to invite people to the God’s wedding banquet, some people looked at us and (for whatever reason) decided they didn’t want anything to do with us.
I think we can understand what they were thinking because we can also have that knee-jerk reaction when we see people. We look at people and are sure they don’t want to hear about Jesus or that they aren’t interested in our ministry - just by looking at them. But we don’t know what is in their hearts - and we shouldn’t judge them the way we have experienced others judging us by our appearance.
In the parable, the only people who were counted as unworthy of the invitation are those who refused it. It has nothing to do with where a person is in their lives. Αnyone who accepts an invitation to God’s banquet is worthy of a seat at the table.
The people who said yes to the invitation, as we see elsewhere in the ministry of Jesus, are not the kinds of people who would feel entitled to be invited to such a gathering. These are lowly, humble, out-of-the-way people.
The crowd that followed Jesus was full of weak, sinful, unpresentable, and morally unattractive people. The kind of people that you wouldn’t want other people to know you go to church with.
The difficult thing about this is: it is still God’s will that the church be made up of the neediest people this world has to offer.
Jesus said it is the sick who need a physician not the healthy, and that he has come to call sinners to repentance.
Which means that if God has his way with us, we will be called upon to minister to the sick, the lost, the needy, and the broken. Those are the people we can expect to fill out the spaces in our pews.
The proof that we are doing something right at St. Stephen’s is not the kind of people we attract, but the kind of people we form. Not what people look like or act like when they enter the door, but what they are like when they leave the assembly of God’s people.
What will they experience among us so that, like the unbeliever in 1 Corinthians 14, they fall down and worship, saying “God is really among you!”
Timothy Keller: God wants the world to overhear us worshiping him….We are called not simply to communicate the gospel to nonbelievers; we must intentionally celebrate the gospel before them.
Anthony Brown: You did not create me to worry, you did not create me to fear, you created me to worship
The people out there already know how to worry, they already know what it’s like for society to play up on their fears. What they need to see from us is not more of the same; they need us to show them how to worship.
We have the privilege of teaching people to do what they were created to do, and in the process to become who they are meant to be
Take a look at the empty seat closest to you - take a mental picture of it. I believe God is saving that seat for someone special whom you may not expect. Here is your homework: Each day this week, take a moment to pray for the person God intends to fill that seat, that by whatever means they will find their way to the place God wants them to be.
This is where the fellow who was not wearing a wedding robe comes in.
When the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless.
We welcome and embrace openly those who are sick or weak in body, mind, and/or soul not for the purpose of celebrating the condition of being sick.
What we celebrate is the opportunity to be healed and made whole.
Can you imagine going to the hospital, and you finally get to see a doctor after 8 or 9 hours, and they say to you, “Why would you want to get better when you can enjoy your life with all these other people who are just as sick as you?” That would be ridiculous: what unites people who go to hospital is they all share the desire to get healthier again;
And what unites us in church is our desire to be healed and made better by the physician of our souls, Jesus Christ.
There is a clear note of judgement sounded in this parable. Those who reject the invitation of God or who do not prepare themselves to enter his presence face punishment.
There are consequences of disobedience and for refusing the calling God has placed upon our lives. The Ancient Israelites experienced this as well. His invitation is offered graciously, but that is no reason to take it lightly.
There is an urgency in Jesus words today which calls for a response - for the right response - from us.
If you feel like the man without the wedding robe, don’t remain speechless as he did. He had nothing to say because he looked within himself. He is like a person who says, “God just give me some time so I can get my life together and then I will be holy” or “I still want to enjoy life, I’m not ready to give my life to Christ yet” or “I am still trying out different options to find the spirituality that works for me”
What he should have said (and what we should say) is this: “I don’t know how I got in here without a wedding robe, but I would like to know. I want to believe, please Lord help my unbelief; I want to follow, please Lord show me your ways so I won’t wander anymore; I want to serve you, please Lord heal my selfish heart.
If this is your prayer, please join me as I conclude with this prayer to claim or to reclaim your rightful place, given by God’s grace, at the wedding banquet of God. You may repeat after me silently or aloud:
Lord Jesus, clothe me with your righteousness, so that I may take my place at your banquet table. Heal me and make me holy. Cleanse me from all my sins. Make me worthy to accept your invitation and to enjoy all that you have prepared for those who love you. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Thank you!