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What’s Going On Here?
A sermon by Dr. Jim
Somerville
Pastor, Richmond’s First Baptist Church
Richmond, Virginia
October 12, 2008
The Twenty Second Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 22:1-14
In twenty two years of
pastoral ministry I’ve done a lot of weddings. I’ve done a simple ceremony in
someone’s family room followed by cake and punch in the kitchen. I’ve done a
Nigerian wedding with two dozen attendants and a reception at an art museum.
I’ve done weddings on the beach, weddings in the mountains, and weddings in lots
of places in-between but I have never done a wedding like the one in Matthew 22,
or been to a reception like the one that followed. Honestly, what starts out
like a fairy tale, with a good king who wants to throw a party in honor of his
son’s wedding, ends up like a Shakespearian tragedy, with bodies all over the
stage, with weeping and gnashing of teeth. “Good Lord!” you say, “What’s going
on here?”
Which is just the right
question to ask.
This is one of the most
difficult parables in the Bible. I still can’t read it without wondering why
the king decides to go to war with his enemies right in the middle of the
banquet or why that poor fellow who showed up without a wedding garment ends up
in the outer darkness, weeping and gnashing his teeth. Instead of ignoring
those difficulties and skipping ahead to the point of the parable, I’d like to
spend some time taking it apart, looking at each piece, and asking: “What’s
going on here narratively?” (inside the story),
What’s going on here historically?” (outside the story), and “What’s going on
here ecclesiastically?” (inside the church). Maybe by the end of the sermon we
will not only have a better understanding of the point, but also an
understanding of how we got there and why it matters that we did it the way we
did. Starting at the beginning, then, let’s ask:
I. What’s going on here,
narratively?
If you turn back to
chapter 21 in the Gospel of Matthew you will see that Jesus has ridden into the
city of Jerusalem on a donkey, marched into the Temple and turned over the
tables of the moneychangers, and then confronted the religious authorities in
what turns out to be an extended verbal attack. In the Parable of the Two Sons
he tells them that tax collectors and prostitutes will go into the Kingdom of
God ahead of them. In the Parable of the Wicked Tenants he tells them that
God’s Kingdom will be taken away from them and given to a people who will
produce its fruit. That’s when they begin to take offense at him, the chief
priests, the elders, the scribes, and the Pharisees. They start looking for
ways to have him arrested, to shut him up forever. But Jesus isn’t finished
yet. The Greek text says that he “answered” their evil plot with the Parable of
the Wedding Feast: in other words, he launched a parabolic counterattack.
“A king wanted to throw a
party for his son’s wedding,” he said. “When everything was ready he told his
servants to go out and call those who had been invited to come, but they would
not. So he sent more servants, saying, ‘Look, I have prepared my dinner, my
oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to
the wedding banquet.’ But did they come?” he asked, looking his enemies in the
eye. “They did not. One went to his farm, another went to his business, and
others seized those servants, mistreated them, and killed them. So, what did
the king do? He became enraged, and sent his army to destroy those murderers
and burn their city.”
Again, what started out as
a nice little story has gone badly wrong. The response of the invited guests,
the response of the king, seems to be way out of proportion to the initial
stimulus. It makes you think there’s something else going on here, something
deeper, and wider, than this particular party. It makes you want to ask:
II.
What’s going
on here historically?
Luke includes this parable
in his Gospel, too, but in his version there is no mention of soldiers
“destroying those murderers” or “burning their city.” It’s just a king who
wants to throw a party to which no one wants to come. He ends up sending his
servants to the highways and hedges to bring in “the poor, the crippled, the
blind, and the lame,” so that the banquet hall may be filled. It’s a story
about God’s gracious, all-inclusive invitation. But in Matthew’s version it
becomes a kind of allegory in which the recent, tragic history of Israel is
re-told. This isn’t just any king he is talking about, but God! These are not
just any wedding guests he is talking about, but God’s chosen people. These are
not just any servants he is talking about, but the prophets, who begged God’s
people to come to his feast. And what did the people say? They did not “wish”
to come. So God sent more prophets, but they were seized, mistreated, and
killed, and in response, Jesus says, still looking at the religious authorities,
this “king” mustered an army and destroyed those murderers.
Now, obviously, he didn’t
do all this while the food was still in the warming oven. The parable, at this
point, reflects an actual, historical event. Between 66 and 70 AD the Roman
army marched into Israel, laid siege to the city of Jerusalem, and ultimately
burned it to the ground. It all happened some twenty years before the
publication of Matthew’s Gospel so that, even though Jesus’ hearers—in 33
AD—could have only imagined such a thing, Matthew’s readers—in the late
80’s—would have remembered it. So, when they read this story about a
king who sent his army to destroy those who wouldn’t come to the party and burn
their city they might have said, “Ah! He’s talking about the fall of
Jerusalem!” And they would have sat up a little straighter, recognizing that
when Jesus says judgment is coming, he means it.
But then the story moves
on.
When the smoke has cleared
the king sends out other servants to invite anyone who will to come to his
party. And come they do, both good and bad, which is not an incidental point in
the story. It is Robert Farrar Capon who says that “evil is not a problem for
the Kingdom: it has already been aced out by the power of Jesus’ death and
resurrection.”[i]
So, the good, the bad, the upstanding citizens and the dregs of society, all
come streaming in until the banquet hall—at last—is filled. And you get the
idea that Jesus is not talking about the nation of Israel anymore, but about the
church. Or perhaps it is Matthew who is talking about the church. Either way,
we need to continue our investigation by asking:
III. What’s going on
here, ecclesiastically?
I know that’s a big word,
but it’s the right word for this parable. It comes from the Greek word
ekklesia, which means “the called out.” In this parable some form of the
verb “to call” is used seven times. “Go call the called,” the king says. But
they won’t come. “Then go call anyone who will come,” the king says, and they
do, so that at last the banquet hall is filled with all those who receive God’s
gracious invitation and answer the call, both good and bad. The invitation is
all-inclusive but the response is all-important.
In Matthew’s time, those
who responded to God’s invitation would take as much as a year to learn what it
meant to be a Christian. And when the period of instruction was completed they
would come to be baptized, and this is how they would do it. They would remove
their clothing, which was a symbol of their old way of life. They would enter
the waters of baptism and profess their faith by saying, “Jesus is Lord.” They
would be dipped down under the water by a deacon or a minister, and when they
emerged, dripping wet, they would be given a new white robe to wear, a symbol of
their new life in Christ. This is what Paul is referring to when he says, in
Galatians 3:27: “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on
Christ.” The white robe they wore was the symbol of the new covenant into which
they had entered. It was, in a very real sense, their “wedding garment.” So,
while anyone could come into their building, and while everyone was welcome, no
one could come into that banquet hall called the church without first putting on
Christ. But in the story Jesus tells someone did, someone “crashed” God’s party
thinking he could enjoy all the blessings of the Kingdom without first making
Jesus his Lord.
Not so.
“Friend,” the king asks,
using a none-too friendly word, “how did you get in here?” The man can’t think
of a thing to say, and so the king has him thrown out the banquet hall and into
the outer darkness, where there will weeping and gnashing of teeth. It seems
harsh, but it isn’t hard for me to imagine a set of circumstances in which the
king’s response would make perfect sense.
The worst wedding I ever
did was for a middle-aged woman who wanted to marry a man some twenty years
younger. She had helped him through some hard times and he had become dependent
on her, stopping by her house when he needed some money, or a meal, or a place
to stay the night. Over the years she had fallen in love with him and he had,
in his own way, grown fond of her. It only made sense to her that they get
married. That way he would always have food on the table, and money in the
bank, and the love of a good woman. She was a good woman. She had been a
member of the church for years. But she had never been married and she wanted
this wedding so much I began to wonder if she wanted it too much. I wasn’t sure
that this young man’s intentions were entirely honorable.
So I scheduled the three
sessions of premarital counseling I require and once a month they would come by,
sit on the love seat in my study, and let me talk to them about marriage. She
was bright-eyed and eager, taking in every word and imagining how happy their
married life would be. He was a little more reticent, slumping against the arm
of the love seat and looking out the window. But when I asked him a direct
question he would answer and his answers, for the most part, seemed genuine.
And so it was that the two of them came to my study one Friday afternoon a few
months later to be married. The woman had brought her father along as a witness
and I asked the church secretary to come into my study as well. The bride was
wearing her best dress and carrying a bouquet of flowers. Her father had put on
a suit, although he didn’t seem comfortable in it. I noticed that he kept
swallowing hard, so that his Adam’s apple bobbed down below his too-tight collar
and struggled to come back up again. But the groom…well! He hadn’t even
bothered to put on his best pair of jeans. He stood there in a wrinkled shirt
shifting from one foot to another and giggling in all the wrong places.
When I asked him if it was
his intention to take this woman as his lawfully wedded wife, to live with her
in the covenant of faith, hope, and love, to listen to her inmost thoughts, to
be considerate and tender in his care of her, to stand by her faithfully in
sickness and in health, and, preferring her above all others, to accept full
responsibility for her every necessity as long as they both should live, I
looked at him like a judge might look at someone brought in on charges of spouse
abuse. And when he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure,” I said, “Really?
Really!?” But he swore that, yes, that was his intention, to love, honor,
and cherish, and she looked so giddy that I finally declared them husband and
wife and told him he could kiss the bride.
That’s when I knew I had
made a mistake.
She turned toward him,
closed her eyes, and puckered up and he gave her the quickest, driest peck on
the lips I had ever seen. I could see the hurt in her eyes, but what could I
do? The vows had been said. The papers had been signed. Three days later she
called me, sobbing, and said that her husband was with some hussy over at the
Holiday Inn. I was furious. I got in my car and drove over there, asked for my
“friend” at the front desk and was told (very cheerfully) that he was in Room
44. I walked around and banged on the door. When it opened a minute later
there he stood, a cigarette dangling from his lips, a beer bottle in one hand,
and in the background a woman hurriedly throwing on some clothes. “What’s going
on here!?” I roared, and he leaned against the door frame, took a drag from his
cigarette, and told me it was none of my business. “It is too my business,” I
said. “I did your wedding three days ago! I heard you say your vows!”
“I just did it because she wouldn’t let me alone,” he said, “and I had to get
high to do it! I didn’t mean a word I said.”
And if I had known where
the “outer darkness” was at that moment I would have dragged him there myself.
I would have tossed him out and slammed the door. The sound of his weeping, his
gnashing teeth, would have been music to my ears. I think that’s how God must
feel when people respond to his invitation carelessly, when they swagger down
the aisle of a church, or take their baptismal vows lightly. While it is a
party God wants to throw, we need to remember he isn’t throwing it for just
anybody, but for his Son. The only way to respond to such an invitation is to
take it seriously—to put off your old life, enter the baptistery, make Jesus
your Lord, put on the new life, and start living for Him. Because even though
“many are called,” as Jesus said,
Not everyone comes to the
party.
—Jim Somerville, © 2008
[i]
Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of Judgment, p. 123. This
series of commentaries on the parables (including Parables of Grace
and Parables of the Kingdom) is one of the best I have found.
Capon has a way of looking at these old stories that is fresh, playful,
and full of insight.
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