Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | October 15, 2023

Matthew 22:1-14

One Sunday morning I arrived at church. People were starting to show up. Sitting in the sanctuary was a girl of about six years old. Her mother had been dropping her off to attend Sunday School. For the purposes of our story we’ll call her Lisa.

Lisa was school friends with Jenny whose mother was a member of that church. Jenny and her mom arrived, and Jenny went and sat beside Lisa. Within a minute or so Jenny’s mom strode into the sanctuary, grabbed Jenny by the arm and as she jerked her daughter out of the pew by the arm, she said in a stage whisper that could be heard throughout the building, “I told you not to sit with her!”

Little Lisa was left sitting there all alone. I asked Jenny’s mother what that was all about. She said, “She got a note from school last week that she had head lice and I didn’t want Jenny to get it!” Jenny avoided head lice, at least from her friend Lisa because that was the last time we ever saw Lisa at church.

As followers of Jesus we want to invite people in. Church says it’s a friendly and welcoming place, but once people show up they can be reminded of how they don’t measure up. Whether it’s a case of creepy crawlies or some proverbial cootie, people are told in so many ways, “God loves you, but these are the reasons you can’t come here.” And that can be a very long list.

When Jesus described the realm of God, the life that God makes possible and the ethos of life that God intends, he used a number of different illustrations. Most of them painted a picture of love and generosity. In the text we read this morning, he said it was like a king who invited people to his son’s wedding banquet.

The Christian community to which Matthew was writing were trying to show how they were different from the Jewish community. There was conflict and antagonism between the Christians and the Jews. In the year 70 AD the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. Christians interpreted this as a sign of God’s displeasure with the Jews for rejecting Jesus.

Jesus at one time described God’s intention for humankind as comparable to a king inviting people to a great feast. His followers spun that through the lens of current events to say, “This is what happens when you reject the invite.”

Our challenge with these stories is to see the context for what it is and try to get at the spirit of the story. It’s not easy because we have our own culture and context and current events that we have to deal with. We see the world through the lens of our own time and place.

But the spirit of the story reminds us that even so, God is about the work of transforming our lives. Jesus told stories about people in real life situations. Most of them were told to folks who lived around the margins of society. People who lived hand to mouth; they were people not often welcome in polite society.

A rich ruler sent out an invitation. It would land on the doorstep of the upper crust. These were the people who could be expected to be seen at the wedding feast for a prince of the realm. The rich and powerful; the people who owed their livelihood to the king’s good will.

The RSVP’s started to roll in. They all said, “Sorry, we can’t be there.”

The king sent messengers to say, “You need to be there.” The invitees all said, “Who wants to go to your stupid party? Get lost, why don’t you?”

The king sent his servants out again and they said, “He really, really wants you to be there. Look, it’s a great feast. All you can eat. Music, dancing and party favors. Come to the celebration!”

They sent the messengers back in body bags.

The people hearing Jesus tell this story might say, “That’s the rich and powerful for you. They don’t have to be nice to the king. If the king invited me to a big feed, I can guarantee you I would be there.”

Jesus said, “Well that’s just what happened. The king said if the original guests don’t want to come to the banquet, then go out and ask anyone and everyone. The feast is too good to waste. Find the people who will appreciate it.”

And so the servants went out and found enough people to fill up the banquet hall. All kinds of people, good and bad. When they showed up at the palace, they all received a silk robe to wear. You can spill all the food and drink on that you want, it doesn’t matter.

The king came into the banquet and he saw that everyone was having a great time. The feast did not go to waste. Maybe he thought he should have invited these people in the first place. He was looking out over the hundreds, if not thousands of guests and he noticed one guy sitting at the table, enjoying the food and drink, having a great time, yet he was not wearing the special wedding robe that the king handed out to all the guests when they came in the door.

The people listening to Jesus tell the story might be thinking at that point, “Uh oh.” Because they knew, that if the king invited them to a feast, and provided a special robe to wear, so that they could spill all the food and drink they wanted on it and take it home as a souvenir, that if they didn’t wear it, it would be an insult.

It would be an insult to a king who said, “Come on in and be my friend. We’ll all put on these robes so that everybody is the same. The poor folks in rags would not be embarrassed and the better off folks in their clean and tidy garb would not need to look down their noses. Everyone would be on the same level playing field.

But one guy, for whatever reason said, “I don’t need that and I’m not going to wear it.” He might have said, “I’ve got a new suit and I want to show it off.” He might have said, “I don’t want to spill anything on it,” or, “I’d look silly in that stupid robe.”

The king didn’t question his motives; he just had him thrown out. No robe, no banquet. What was he talking about? I think Jesus was talking about attitude. In order to participate in the life God makes possible, the realm of heaven, we have to have the heart for it. Paul described it thus: Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing and commendable, think about these things.

Being a follower of Jesus is not meant to be a burden; whether that be the burden of belonging to an exclusive club, the burden of rules and regulations or a burden of having to save people from a fiery eternity. It’s God’s job to save souls; it’s our purpose to love God and enjoy the life God gives us.

It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Enjoy the celebration!”

One thing you notice about children when they come to church is, left to their own devices, they start running around the place. Of course, parents and grandparents as the case may be will say, “No running in church.” I sometimes wonder if Jesus is standing in the background saying, “Come on kids, let’s have some fun!”

There is a time and place for celebration. Sometimes the banquet is a celebration of life and we are mindful of the solemnity of the occasion. Sometimes the banquet is a celebration of life and we are reminded of the joy of the occasion.

When I was in grade school, we had classroom parties. The big ones were for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day. Halloween 1963 I was in the 4^th grade. That year the school said we could have a party, but no costumes. They were concerned that someone wearing a Halloween mask to school might get hit by a car. 

I was disappointed because wearing a costume was what the party was all about. I thought there has to be a way around this. How does one wear a Halloween costume, that’s not a costume? I came up with a plan.

The day of the Halloween party I went home for lunch. I told my mother what I had in mind and she agreed to help me out. When I went back to school after lunch and walked into the classroom, Mr. Bartley did a double take that might have sprained his neck. “John Mann!” he yelled, “I thought it was made perfectly clear that there would be no costumes!”

And I said, “But Mr. Bartley sir, I am not wearing a costume. And, I am not John Mann; I am John Mann’s twin sister Mary. John had a stomachache and so I’m taking his place.”

My mother had gotten out one of my sister’s old dresses, applied some lipstick, eye shadow and rouge, and fluffed up my hair a bit and I went to school that afternoon in the character of my fictional twin sister. I was not wearing a costume. I was dressed exactly as half the children in the class. Mr. Bartley was none too pleased. The other kids thought it was a hoot. The party was a Halloween to remember.

Join the celebration!

Maybe that means laying aside the cynicism of our age that says Christianity is a fool’s game. But it could also be that playing the fool was exactly what Jesus did and in the end, he fooled them all. He took the fall and God raised him up. If we have anything to celebrate in this life God gives us – that should be it. Amen.