R.S.V.P.

I go walking early in the morning. And this week I caught myself paying close attention to the homes of those with lawn signs of candidates that I do not plan to vote for. I even caught myself shaking my fist at one such home!

Isn’t that sad? Isn’t that tragic? And yet, isn’t that also so human?

You don’t need me to tell you we live in contentious times. And whatever opinion you hold these days—the election; Covid; masks and social distancing—the likelihood is you’re absolutely certain of the rightness of your opinion! And I bet that, like me, you’re also ready to shake a metaphorical fist at anyone who doesn’t agree with you!

How sad. But, also, how human.

I mention this because these same attitudes and feelings seemed to have seeped into the way Matthew relates today’s parable from Jesus.

You see, Luke tells almost the exact same story. But, in Luke’s telling, gone is all the bloodshed, and anger, and violence! In Luke, the parable is simply a story about a host throwing a huge wedding banquet and, when the time comes to attend, invitee after invitee makes excuses and fails to come. 

In frustration—and, yes, in anger—the host then extends the invitation to absolutely anyone and everyone.

Hooray! Now that’s a parable that I like and can agree with!

So, what’s up with Matthew’s version of what appears to be this very same parable? Why the violence? Why add that, because people were making excuses not to attend, “The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city”?

Well, without making excuses for Matthew, let me just say that he—like we—lived in contentious times. And like me shaking my fist at neighbors who don’t see things the way I do, Matthew just could not understand—and could not tolerate—those who disagreed with him. Especially about Jesus!

I was originally going to call this message, A History Lesson. Because I think that’s what Matthew’s version of this parable was originally doing. Matthew is using Jesus’ parable to tell people in his day the history of what has been happening to them.

What history? Namely, that some of them who were raised Jewish were now being kicked out of their synagogues for believing in the Jewish messiah Jesus! And that the Jewish leaders that put Jesus to death had not changed or reformed their minds about Jesus, despite the fact that followers of Jesus claimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead and was now sitting on the right hand of God in power!

So. Matthew subtly shapes a parable of Jesus’ to help people in his day understand what has been happening to them! 

So what about the people who had kicked them out of the synagogues, or the leaders who still refused to acknowledge Jesus as messiah? They were like those in the parable who refused their host’s invitation to a sumptuous wedding banquet! Jesus had invited them to join him in bringing all people together to celebrate the coming of God’s kingdom and of God with us. But they refused that invitation.

So far, so good. In fact, that’s not a bad way to understand their history! But, unfortunately, Matthew doesn’t stop there.

In the year 63 AD the Roman army invaded Jerusalem and destroyed, once and for all, God’s holy temple. For two years before that, Jewish rebels had done—or almost done—what no other conquered people had done. They had defeated and kicked out the Romans! 

As a result of that, many people thought—and their rebel leaders told them—that, in these rebel leaders, God’s messiah had truly come! And the proof was, they had kicked the Romans out!

God’s messiah was no namby-pamby Prince of Peace as that Jesus of Nazareth had claimed. The real messiah was a warrior—a military leader—that God sent to set them free by defeating the Romans! And thus, God’s messiah most certainly was not that suffering servant Jesus of Nazareth whom the Romans had put to death!

In these contentious times, then—after the rebels themselves had been defeated and the Romans had returned and utterly destroyed God Temple—Matthew shared elements in Jesus’ parable that are not found in the way that Luke tells it.

It’s not the Romans who defeat the rebels and destroy the Temple. It’s God! In the words of the parable in Matthew, “The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’” 

Here, I think, Matthew goes too far! I think it’s often better to be silent than to rush in with our “certainties” about God is—or is not—doing in our world. Does God cause earthquakes or the fires devastating our West Coast? Is Covid God’s judgment on us?

As I say, tempting though it may be to offer our opinions on current events, sometimes the wisest course is silence. And I think Matthew went too far!

Whenever I prepare a sermon I always ask myself what God might be saying to us through scripture. Because, you see, that’s not only what I believe about scripture—that God can use it to speak a message to us, here and now—I’ve seen that happen, week in and week out!

So what might God need or want to say to us today, through this scripture? What part of this story is our story?

In both Matthew’s and Luke’s telling of this parable, when those originally invited to the banquet refuse or decline to come, instructions are given to go out into the streets and invite everybody and anybody to attend.

Hooray! As we’ve been saying repeatedly recently, God wants to be in a relationship lika dis with everybody! He wants absolutely everyone to come a celebratory wedding banquet with him at the end of time.

Hooray! But Matthew does add this important detail. And I think it’s something God wants us to hear today and act upon!

Someone shows up to the wedding feast without wearing a wedding robe. And, as a result, they are thrown out.

While gallons of ink have been spilled trying to make sense of this, the simplest answer is often the best. Someone showed up to a wedding having done nothing to be a part of a wedding! No preparations. No effort. They just show up and think that’s all there is to it!

To be a Christian is to accept that we have been invited into a close and intimate relationship with God. And our whole lives are expected to reflect it! How we act, how we speak, what matters to us and what doesn’t, all of this is meant to reflect our joyful acceptance of God’s invitation to be with him.

So what is God saying to us today? R.S.V.P.! Respond to God’s loving invitation by living a life reflective of God and of God’s love and amazing grace.

Respond! In Jesus' name. Amen.