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The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
Lord, we pray thee that thy grace may always precede and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 23)
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The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Matthew 22:1-14
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Matthew 22:1-14
✛
Come to the Banquet; Dress for the Occasion
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In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
There is some rough stuff in today’s Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus tells the parable of the marriage of the king’s son. Before we get into this, it is important to see the context. Jesus is in Jerusalem following his entry on Palm Sunday. He confronts the religious leaders, the chief priests and Pharisees, who arrange his crucifixion. He has already told other parables against these leaders, including the parable of the wicked tenants in the Lord’s vineyard (Mt 21:33-46). In that parable Jesus said the kingdom of God would be taken away from those leaders and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of the kingdom.
So now we see why today’s parable is so rough. Israel was often compared by her prophets to a vineyard. And Israel also was often likened to a banquet for God’s people. Jesus sharpens this comparison by telling of a certain king who made a marriage banquet for his son. Jesus already had referred to himself as “the bridegroom” and to the people of God as “the bride,” so away we go. Invitations were twice sent to the obvious people, the leaders of Israel; first, a “save the date,” and then, “the banquet is ready, come.” But the invitees ignored the invitation, and when the king’s servants came to summon them, abused and killed them!
This is a parable of the kingdom of heaven, and it isn’t hard to see that the king is the Lord God, the son is Christ the Messiah, and the martyred servant/messengers are the prophets down through the ages up to and including Jesus’ own apostles. But the violence rebounds on the abusive invitees, so that king “sent forth his armies” and destroyed those murderers and their city. Over the ages, Scripture referred to the armies of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians as God’s servants who carried out his purpose against the infidelity of his own people. One might well include the Romans, who destroyed Jerusalem in the time of the early Church, 70 AD.
So the history of God’s people is encapsulated in Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet, as well as focused directly upon the people who condemned and killed Jesus himself and his disciples. Thus the invitation goes out to others, wherever they may be found, both the bad and the good. This history doesn’t stop with Saint Matthew’s time; it continues down through the ages of the Church. Christ continuously turns his church upside down and renews it. Leaders are overturned; portions of the church are destroyed, because of unfaithfulness. All sorts of new people come into the banquet. But just because they are new and have replaced others does not mean they are ensconced in the kingdom of heaven. There are invitations with responsibilities, not entitlements, in God’s kingdom. This brings us to the second part of today’s parable, which is aimed at the new guests – really, at all guests.
The king comes upon a guest who is not wearing a wedding garment, asks him how this is, and, when he receives no answer, has the garment-less guest tied and bound and cast into the outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth: “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Over the years I have heard protests on behalf of this guest. This isn’t fair! How could he have known he should have a wedding garment? But hang on. How did the other guests know to have a wedding garment? They, like the man expelled, received the same invitation. I believe we are meant to be provoked by this. We are meant to wonder what it means, and what the wedding garment was. Remember, this is a parable, fairly allegorical, of the kingdom of heaven, told in the presence of Jesus’ mortal enemies.
There is a very long tradition, going back at least Saint Augustine the fourth-fifth century theologian, which says that the garment symbolizes faith and its corresponding virtues. That may be, but the point in the parable seems simply made by the fact of the garment. In the words of one commentator, “Whatever the symbolic significance of the wedding garment was, the parable ends with the warning that admission into God’s banquet is no guarantee of staying there.”[1]
It seems obvious to me that what we are celebrating this morning, the Holy Eucharist, is a Sacrament that sets forth Christ’s parable of the king’s wedding feast for his son. In fact The Book of Common Prayer says that we who have been invited should beware, not to ignore or take lightly the invitation as did the first guests in the parable. Let me read a bit from the Exhortation:
“As the benefit is great, if with penitent hearts and living faith we receive the holy Sacrament, so is the danger great, if we receive it improperly, not recognizing the Lord’s Body, Judge yourselves, therefore, lest you be judged by the Lord. Examine your lives and conduct by the rule of God’s commandments, that you may perceive wherein you have offended in what you have done or left undone, whether in thought, word, or deed. And acknowledge your sins before Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life…being ready to forgive those who have offended you, in order that you yourselves may be forgiven. And then, being reconciled with one another, come to the banquet of that most heavenly food…”[2]
So now we see that the parable of the wedding banquet for the king’s son is before us in living color, in this liturgy here and now. Hear the invitation and all that it means: Draw near with faith, receive the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for you and his Blood which was shed for you, and feed on him in your heart, by faith, with thanksgiving.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
_______________
[1] Daniel Harrington, SJ, The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina series, p. 308.
[2] The Book of Common Prayer (1979), pp. 316-317.
