R.S.V.P as Soon as Possible

Matthew 22: 1-14

I love to tease. I love to see humor in situations. I can be sarcastic and offensive. I think I apply those characteristics to my reading of scripture—just because of the way that I am wired. I don’t take the words literally, but I do try to take them seriously. I think that is Jesus’ way of getting us to look for deeper truths, of challenging us to look for something new, think something new, and ultimately become something new.

For example:

Have you ever received an invitation to a party that you really did not want to attend? What did you do about that? I bet you did not mistreat, abuse, or murder the mailman. And yet, that is what happens in this parable. So do you see what I am saying about taking something seriously and not literally?

Perhaps in this parable Jesus is trying to shock us into seeing that the kingdom of heaven is not business as usual according to our standards of judgment. What if God’s judgment of our lives is one of grace, acceptance---a judgment of inclusion?

Let’s see if we can dig a little deeper into this story:

When Jesus speaks these words it is the Wednesday of the last week of our Lord’s life and ministry. Friday he will be crucified. Sunday he will rise from the dead. For three years he has been teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. He has been offering himself and his kingdom to the people of Israel, his own people.

Three years have ended. The people have not understood his teachings. The leaders have rejected him and acted hostile toward him. This is Wednesday. Jesus has come to teach and preach again about the kingdom of God, the good news of salvation. He has come to call men and women unto himself.

He collects a tremendous crowd. People are listening and Jesus is the center of attention. The religious leaders feel threatened by this because he speaks of a true salvation that they do not understand in their self-righteous religion. Jesus is a threat to their system. They just don’t get the idea of God’s kingdom—a sphere ruled by God, yet ruled by a grave and salvation.

A wedding in those days was a big, long feast. It normally lasted for 7 days. People came to your house, and you fed them and cared for them for those 7 days. If you were a king, the celebration probably went on much longer.

At the very end of that period of time, the hand of the bride was given to the groom. It was one great, grand, glorious celebration. It was the highlight of life, just as weddings are special today and are highlights of family life.

This is the wedding feast and Jesus is saying that the kingdom of Heaven is the greatest celebration imaginable, thrown by the wealthiest person imaginable, for the most honored people imaginable. This was the blowout of all blowouts in that culture. It was the event of all events.

Some people had already gotten their invitations and the servants were sent out to call them in. Probably if they had gotten an invitation, they were walking around bragging how they had been invited to the wedding feast for the son of a king. They were honored guests just waiting for the servants to tell them it was ready to begin.

So it is mind boggling why they would not come. I am sure that as Jesus was telling this story there were some gasps from the crowd at this point in the story. This is unthinkable. The invited guests made light of the invitation. They treated it with indifference. They acted totally unconcerned. They went their own ways---they just walked away from it all. Why would they do such a thing? This story seems impossible to believe. How could these people who were invited to this great, grand, glorious wedding feast say “we are not coming”? We are going to our farm or over to the store. It doesn’t make sense. Such selfish preoccupation with their own enterprises. Such a forfeit of joy, of glory, of beauty and celebration. And what an insult to the king. An affront to his graciousness and preparation.

So in verses 9 and 10 we read that new guests were invited. These were different from the first honored guests; they were humanly good and humanly bad people. God is calling everyone. And the thing that makes these guests worthy is not their inherent goodness or badness---it is their willingness to accept the invitation.

And then finally there is the last scene in this parable where the intruder is exiled:

The invitation was rejected. First, the rejectors were punished. New guests were invited and now this intruder is expelled. It is important to note that only one guy was not properly garmented. We have to assume that everyone else had access to the proper garments…maybe they had time to go home and change, to don their best or maybe the king had supplied the garments. We are not sure about that but there was a proper way to be attired and one guy came in who was not properly dressed. And you know something? He was easy to spot. The king saw him right away. He can’t hide. So we know there will be no gate crashers in the kingdom. No party crashers. They will stand out.

The king questions him but he is speechless. He could have come up with some explanation, but he does not. The king looked at this man and saw no righteousness. No right thinking. No right living, no right speaking. He saw no holiness or godliness.

We see this theme repeated so often in the gospel of Matthew—we come to the feast with faith in our savior, our Lord Jesus. Christ invites us to the celebration of all celebrations, the great, grand, and glorious eternal feast that is all the best of life that could ever be imagined.

The key to our life in God is to show up, to be present. It means letting go of our agendas and distractions. It means bringing and offering all that we are and all that we have.

Too often we are convinced that we have better things to do and better places to be. We are like the first invited group. But there is no real life outside the banquet, outside the kingdom. To show up and be present is to be worthy before God. It is that simple and that difficult. We don’t earn or prove our worthiness as a prerequisite to entering the banquet. We show up and that is when our lives begin to change. Won’t you come?