26 October 2008

Proper 25

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

I usually begin a homily on one of the parables, such as the ne in today’s gospel, with some sort of retelling of the story, sometimes in contemporary idiom, sometimes embellished with details to bring out the meaning of the story in sharper relief. But not today. I will try to have a few pithy things to say about the story a bit later on, but I want to begin by telling you something about how the New Testament is studied by scholars, and why scholarly study of scripture is an essential part of our tradition.

I can almost hear the yawns and see the eyes glazing over. When most people talk about the delights of scholarly research, many others think of the delights of nap-taking. So, I will try to make it brief and painless, but I do think it is important to address in a somewhat scholarly way, a serious problem in today’s gospel passage.

The problem is, not to put too fine a point on the matter, that the story makes no sense at all. There was a king who gave a wedding party for his son, and those invited refused to come. The invited guests not only refused to come, but they even seized and killed the messengers. Now, that is what I call responding with regrets to an RSVP!!! And, so the king killed off some of those guests and sent out more emissaries into the streets to bring in just everyone, good, bad, and indifferent. So far, so good, perhaps an odd way to run one’s social life, but there it is. But then, after the banquet hall is filled with the good, the bad, and ugly, the king comes into survey and scene and spots one man who is not wearing a tuxedo — one of the late recruits from the streets. So he goes up to the man and asks how he got in without being properly dressed. And the man is speechless. After all, wouldn’t you be? Do you carry black tie with all the accessories in your back pack at all times in expectation of the odd invitation to a formal affair on the way home? I doubt it. The story makes no sense.

Until you do some scholarly research. Scholars tell us that this is one of the occasions when the evangelists editing was less than elegant. The gospels, as most of you know, were not written down by someone who went around with Jesus taking notes. The evangelists each had their own theological perspectives, their own social situations and their own axes to grind and constructed the gospels with those points in mind. Sometimes the editing is good, other times it is not. This is one of the times when it is not. What we have here are two stories, the story about the man who filled up his empty tables with guests in from the streets, and then the second story, about the man who came to the party unprepared. Two separate events. We know that thee were separate stories because one of the appears separately in Luke’s gospel, and the other one appears separately in the Gospel of Thomas, one of the gospels that was not quite good enough to make it into the regular New Testament when the Bible was being formed.

It has never been clear to me why the church insisted on keeping these two stories fastened together, but here they are, taken as one piece, in today’s eucharistic readings. If I were compiling the lectionary, I would separatd them, and for the purpose of today’s homily, that is exactly what I propose to do.

I want to give you one thought from the first story and one from the second.

Notice what happens when the king issues his invitations. The people he first invited, judging from the reasons they gave for not showing up, were the beautiful people; the busy people; the good people. They were people of style. They all had the right clothes, and probably kept them in readiness for such an occasion. They each had a simple Dior gown or a Chanel suit or an Armani tuxedo into which they could slip on a moment’s notice. And, yet some of them are the winners in life’s game who turn out to be the losers in the kingdom of God. They were not doing bad things, which kept them from the party. They were busy taking care of their farms and their businesses, and those are good things. By the world’s standards. They did good things. By the world’s standards. So, the king, taken aback by their refusal to come, begins plan B. The wedding is ready, he said, but the guests were not worthy. That is, they insisted on being worthy by their own achievements, not by trusting Gd, not by having faith. So, the king sent out servants to the streets to bring in everyone, both the bad and the good. There might even have been a few of the over-achievers scooped up in this second round-up, if they thought about the invitation a second time. But he points to this: Both the good and the bad by the world’s standards were there at the party. That is important. Because, it is how the church is constituted. God does not invite the good and snub the bad, when it comes to having a party. Jesus is always saying just that point: The major hallmark of Jesus’ main parables is that good and bad are tossed in together for later sorting out. In the story of the Net, the kingdom gathers in fish of every kind. And in the Good Samaritan, Jesus goes out of his way to make winners out of the losers in life. Good and bad, winners and losers are in this together. There is judgment – but it comes later – and it is a faculty of God’s power, not our own.

We discern and make tentative decisions, God makes the final judgments. Until the final inbreaking of the kingdom of God, our discernments are tentative.

And then the second story. Remember it is detached from the first one, it is a story about someone who came to a wedding without proper clothing. Forget all that business about their being gathered at the last minute. Think of the story as being one in which people the king did not know well, all sorts of people, were invited to a party. With notice. With time to iron the dress and choose the right tie and perhaps find the cuff links with the matching shirt studs. We might call this the parable of the open door. Early on in our history, the Christian church decided that everyone was welcome. We were not to be a continuing sect of Judaism, one did not have to be kosher to be in this club. Anyone was welcome. But when you come in, prepare to be changed. As one theologian has put it, “The door is open, but the door is not open for a sinner to come and remain a sinner. The door is open for a sinner to come in and become a saint.”

There is a third point, I would make, in addition to the idea that the good and the bad exist side by side in the kingdom of God, and the idea that the door is open, but come in prepared to be changed. The third point comes from a somewhat whimsical, I think, approach to the discussion of proper attire. I had the experience of talking about a forthcoming social engagement with a friend recently. I asked her what people were to wear when they came to her party. Another person in the discussion spoke up and said, “Well, I’m sure so-and-so would want us to be comfortable, it is casual, isn’t it?” Well, boy did she get told. “No”, my friend said, “I don’t want people to be comfortable. I want people to make a fuss. I want you”, she said, turning t me, “to wear that charcoal grey suit and that pocket watch you inherited from your cousin. And get someone to pick ut a tie that goes with your shirt. This is a special occasion and I want special effort.”

Now, it is easy to misunderstand this final little point I want to make. Do not think that I am telling you that clothes make the person, or that human effort guarantees us a place in God’s kingdom. In fact, if you heard any of the rest of this sermon, you would know that Jesus never said that; he said quite the opposite. Salvation comes by accepting an invitation to a party. But if you have been invited to a party, come prepared to whoop it up, and put some special effort into yourself so that you look and act, and carry on as if you had been given a very special gift.

Because you have.

You have been invited to something better than the best dinner party you have ever been to, better than the most spectacular date you have ever had. And the good thing is that there never comes a time in this party when you sneak a look at your watch and wonder if you can get home before the eleven o’clock re-runs of Seinfeld. For that party goes on into eternity, and you will be whooping it up for a time longer that your little mind can imagine, because it is the celebration of eternity with one who loves you as you have never been loved before.

And that one is the one in three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.