Thursday, October 12, 2023

Are You Dressed Properly for the Wedding?

 



God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. … My sermon in entitled Challenge, Change and Choose, and my focus is our Gospel (Matthew 22:1-14). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

Everyone has wedding memories. Some are preserved in movies, scores of movies. Some good, others not. Father of the Bride, Runaway Bride and Bridesmaids. The Wedding Singer, The Wedding Planner and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Weddings are in The Godfather, The Deer Hunter and The Sound of Music.

No one has produced a movie with a wedding scene like the one in today’s parable. That is because the parable is not about a wedding. It is about the Kingdom of Heaven. Let us view the parable through three lenses: Challenge, Change and Choose.

First, Challenge. When I read Scripture, I want to know why. Why did Paul write this? Why did the prophet say that? The answer is often revealed in the greater context. Today’s passage is no different. Jesus did not speak this parable in a setting vacuum-sealed from sin. Jesus spoke his words in Jerusalem’s Temple before the crowds and his disciples to the chief priests and elders who questioned his authority to expel moneychangers and to heal the blind and lame just days before his passion.

Rightfully, the chief priests and elders challenged Jesus’ authority because they oversaw teaching and worship. They wanted to know where Jesus got His authority because they certainly did not authorize Him. In rabbinical style, Jesus responded with His own question: Did the baptism of John come from heaven or man?

Because Israel’s leaders and people did not respond to the Baptist’s call to repent, they admit ignorance and condemn themselves. They could not answer because of ignorance; Jesus chose not to answer because his teaching authority was superior to these incompetents. Jesus then pronounced judgment on Israel’s leaders and people; and He did so with parables.

Jesus spoke six parables. Today’s Parable of the Wedding Feast is the third in that series. Like the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, father and son appear vis-à-vis a hostile group, but now the father is a king, an obvious symbol for God. The Feast is the eschatological banquet – the banquet at the end of time – that God prepares for His Son.

The parable opens on a joyful note, but closes on a somber tone. The king sends two groups of slaves (prophets) with a request to attend the wedding feast. The first refusal is met with divine patience and a renewed attempt to win over the headstrong guests who insanely refuse a gift. The second time, while most of the invited guests (Jewish people) go away to their private concerns, some (the leaders) kill the slaves. The divine wrath is kindled, and the King destroys the village (Jerusalem) and its murderous leaders.

Since those originally invited showed by their deeds that they were not ready and worthy, the invitation is now spread to the roads going out of the King’s city (to the Gentiles). New slaves (early Christian missionaries) bring in everyone, good and bad alike, and the hall is filled. This would be the church as a worldwide mixture of good and evil people.

The whole narrative neatly outlines salvation history. What the murderers lost is handed over to others, who had no previous claim on it. And although there is no mention of the death of the Son, Matthew’s Church knows the Father honored him from the beginning.

Now, returning to chief priests’ challenge of Jesus, we see clearly how Matthew impressed on early Jewish Christians that Jesus transmitted His authority to the Church. This is why Matthew added a conclusion that shifted the emphasis from Christ to salvation and the Church. Now, the Church remains the subject to judgment as Jerusalem was.

The King entered the wedding hall to inspect the guests. The boor without the clean wedding garment was the baptized Christian who accepted the missionary call to believe but did not prepare himself for the banquet by repenting from his sinful life and living the fruits of the Gospel.

Speechless because he had no excuse for his sordid state, he was as unworthy as the originally invited guests, and suffered the same fate. Excluded from the banquet, they threw him into the darkness of lament and pain. (No soup for you!) The three parables are summed up in the words – The called are many, the chosen are few.

My second point, change. Early Christians referred to themselves as “the called.” They made no distinction between call and election. God’s call would naturally result in glorification. After all, Romans 8 reads, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Those whom he predestined he called, and those whom he called he justified, and those whom he justified he glorified.” First Peter reads, “As he who called you is holy, you also must be holy in all your conduct.”

Standing at the end of the 1st century, Matthew wisely distinguished between call and election. Verses 11-13 emphasize this is not simply a question of distinguishing between Jews and Gentiles, as verses 1-10 indicate. The church, a mixture of good and evil, was under judgment, and the judgment shows who was chosen for the feast and who belonged with the rejected outside. Matthew emphasized that responding to God’s call meant change. Matthew recorded Jesus’ first words as He preached: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Repent! Change! God called us to live holy lives, extraordinarily holy lives. This was Matthew’s message to his members and to us. The good news: God called me. The bad news: I deserve to be bound hand and foot, thrown into the dark where I hear only weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why? Because I have not changed. I have not changed.

A Buddhist monk goes up to a hot dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything.” The vendor hands him a hot dog with everything on it. The monk hands the vendor a twenty-dollar bill. The vendor sticks it in his pocket. The monk stands there waiting for change. After a minute, the vendor says, “Change comes from within.”

Folks, if you are waiting for change, the choice is yours because God gave you everything. God gave you a life with everything you need and eternal life to boot. …If your life does not suit you, ask the Holy Spirit to change your heart from within.

My third point, choose. To choose means I select someone or something as the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives. Its roots stretch back to the Latin word gustāre meaning to taste.

At our last District Pastors’ Conference, Pastor Wicher was congratulating those who had served the Synod by five-year increments. Ooohs and aaahs filled the auditorium when pastors serving for 40 and 50 years plus were introduced and asked to come to the front to receive a certificate. As one serving in the Synod for ten years, I was completely caught off guard when he called my name as one serving the Church for 35 years. The Synod recognizes the time I was ordained as a Catholic priest as service to the greater Christian Church. And when brother pastors inquired about my history, they always ask, “What led you to the Lutheran Church?” My answer: My wife.

Yes, my wife was instrumental in my embrace of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. More importantly, it was the teachings of the Synod that lead me here, primarily, its understanding and interpretation of Scripture, the Lord’s Supper and Christ’s true presence in, with and under the bread and wine. Equally important are the Synod’s teachings on marriage and when life begins and ends. Not all Christian denominations espouse what Scripture teaches regarding Word, Sacrament, marriage and life. I chose to embrace the Christian Faith in the Missouri Synod because I believe it to be proper, true and most appropriate.

Folks, each denomination has someone who wrote a book with a title that begins with “Why I am a ….” Tom Nettles, John Krumm, Garry Wills and Daniel Preus all wrote why they are Baptists, Episcopalians, Catholics and Lutherans.

My choice to become a pastor in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church was based not simply on taste. I could not resist but to choose the embrace of God – the embrace of love, mercy and forgiveness – and His invitation to enter His Kingdom. Hence, I prepare for the eschatological banquet, the heavenly banquet, the wedding banquet appropriately. I arrive sinful and beg God’s mercy before I approach the Table of the Lord – the table of His Word, the table of His Supper.

My friends, here is the best news you might hear all week. God invites you to embrace His Law and Gospel. I challenge you to change and choose to attend an unforgettable feast. To help you prepare, I close with this anonymous meditation.

 

When you get what you want in your struggle for self

And the world makes you king for a day,

Just go to the mirror and look at yourself,

And see what that man has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or wife,

Whose judgment upon you must pass;

The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the one staring back from the glass.

He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest.

For he's with you clear up to the end,

And you've passed the most dangerous, difficult test

If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years.

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be the heartaches and tears

If you've cheated the man in the glass. …

 

Friends, if you are attending the wedding feast of the Lord, meditate on that prayer; and as you approach His banquet table, may the peace of God that surpasses all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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