I remember receiving an invitation to a banquet once. It came on fancy card stock and was beautifully engraved. I was invited to—get this—Ruth’s Chris steakhouse for a sumptuous meal of fillet mignon, cooked the way only Ruth’s Chris(ssss) can do it, with my choice of tasty side dishes… and two complimentary adult-beverages. The attire was business casual, and all I had to do to qualify for this wonderful free meal… was spend a few minutes after supper listening to a sales pitch for some lakefront property in South Carolina. Such a deal! I get these sorts of sales/fundraising invitations from time… perhaps you do as well. And sometimes the cause is a worthy one. The funny thing is, on those (rare) occasions when I’ve given in, and accepted a banquet invitation in support of one cause or another, I’m always reminded that the best dining on the planet is most often found at Chez Anderson, around my own supper table, where the food and company are always unparalleled. There’s no place like home, I guess.
And then there’s the banquet that Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.” (v. 2) This is a pretty loaded introduction, don’t you think? By this point in Jesus’ ministry, there were lots of folks wondering out loud if he was the foretold Messiah, sent by God to save his people from their enemies and bring fire and apocalypse to the unfaithful. But no one wanted to go off half-cocked. No one wanted to commit until they were sure that this carpenter’s son from Nazareth… (“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” John 1:45-47)… was the real deal. And so, they waited… listening… leaning in… hanging on Jesus’ every word… every nuance… waiting for some hint of what was to come. And the chief priests and Pharisees had an additional problem: not only did they not want to “back the wrong horse,” thus becoming apostate themselves, but they also had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo—you know, their privileged livelihoods and their places of honor in the Temple and synagogues—until the last possible moment before the Messianic apocalypse. And Jesus didn’t seem to be interested in currying their favor or cutting them any slack whatsoever. Ever since he had entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and cleansed the Temple a few days earlier (Matthew 21:1-17), Jesus had been preaching and teaching up a blue streak… about the fate of trees that fail to bear fruit (vv. 18-22)… about prostitutes and tax collectors going to heaven before “posers” and the pseudo-religious (vv. 28-32)… about “wicked tenants” who killed the son of the landowner in order to steal his inheritance… and the stone that the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone upon which the unrighteous will be crushed and broken to pieces (vv.33-46).
And for all their faults, the chief priests and Pharisees were smart enough to recognize that Jesus was talking about them. They were trees that had failed to bear fruit. They were the posers… they were the wicked tenants… and now, they were the ingrates who refused the king’s invitation to his son’s wedding banquet. And being called out in this fashion made them mad… killing mad. But perhaps some of them heard and took note of the fate of those who killed and mistreated the king’s messengers: they themselves were destroyed and their city burned. And of course, all that actually happened 30-some-odd years later in 70 AD… the Jews were driven out of Jerusalem and the Temple destroyed. As Jesus foretold, “Not one stone was left standing upon another; all was thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). Was it God’s vengeance that Jesus was talking about? I don’t think so. Even as Jesus predicted the fate of the city and its inhabitants, he mourned their loss: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he lamented, “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37). So, whenever I want to get all up-in-arms about the way the chief priests and Pharisees treated Jesus, I remember that Jesus loved them to the end and gave his life for them… as much as he did for me.
So now, we come to the end of the parable. We (you and I) are the people from the “main streets” of the city, folks on the “B-list” who received late invitations to the feast. And I think it’s important that we remember that we’re called to fill spaces left by “trees that bore no fruit… posers… wicked tenants… and ingrates.” On one hand, I’m glad to have been invited to the banquet… very glad. But I’m mindful of those who came before… the mistakes they made… and the price they paid. And lest you think I’m talking exclusively about the Jews of Jesus’ time… I’m not. I’m talking about folks, whoever they may be, and whenever they may have lived, who have failed to answer God’s call. These are the folks who looked at the banquet invitation and said, “No thanks.” Or came to make an appearance, and then quietly slipped out the back door. Or the ones who, like the man without the wedding coat, came to eat, drink and be merry, but who were indifferent to the purpose of the feast.
Many are called, but few are chosen. Sounds tantalizingly exclusive… doesn’t it? But here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure that there is no limit to the number of feasters that can be accommodated at God’s “Kingdom Banquet.” And I’m pretty sure that the guest list is open to all sorts and conditions of folks. It has less to do with their adherence to any particular faith tradition and more to do with their simple faithful-ness to the one who called them. That’s what God wants most, you know: to be at-one with us… in the most basic, fundamental sense. And that requires one thing only… one thing. Forget all of the “shoulds and oughts.” Forget behavioral and “purity” codes that were established for a particular purpose in antiquity, but which may have outlived their usefulness in the present day and time. Forget any feelings of spiritual or religious superiority you may harbor in the dark recesses of your heart. Forget everything… except the necessity of loving and being loved. God and neighbor. That’s all. If you do this, all the rest will take care of itself. But you’ve got to show up… to be chosen.
So, everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet. Christ Jesus is the bridegroom, born to reconcile and restore unity between God and the Church. The table is set, and all are invited. The kingdom of heaven awaits. Come hungry… and bring a friend! The End.
Buuuuuuuut… wait, wait, wait, Fr. K. !!!
What about the guy in the parable who was “bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness… where there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth,” all because he didn’t dress up? Yeah, maybe he came to the party to eat drink and be merry, and he might not have been completely on board with the purpose of the feast… but the way the king treated him was kind of harsh, don’t you think? You say God wants, most of all, to be at-one with us… and yet he seems pretty quick to condemn and punish someone who was, at worst, guilty of being a “party crasher.”
And that’s a tough one, to be sure. So, I’ll offer you some thoughts based on a close reading of Scripture. I may be out-on-a-limb here… so, first, my normal disclaimer: “If you never hear from me again, it’s because the “heresy police” came and took me away.” There. Now, some background: the parable of the wedding banquet only shows up in two of the gospels, those of Matthew (today’s reading) and Luke (14:15-24). And only Matthew includes the bit about the fellow without a wedding robe. I can’t help but wonder if, in this little stinger, Matthew is trying to tell his congregation—and us—something important about Jesus and the kingdom. You may remember Jesus addressed the man without the robe as, “Friend.” Sounds deceptively chummy, doesn’t it? And, sure enough, in the original Greek, the word ἑταῖρος (hetairos) comes from ἔτης (etēs),which means “friend” or “fellow.” But hetairos may also mean “different” or “other” (think hetero-sexual). And here’s where it gets interesting: this word, hetairos, only crops up four times in the New Testament. All four occurrences are in Matthew’s gospel (11:16, 20:13, 22:12 and 26:50)… and in all cases, it’s Jesus talking, and he’s not being chummy. He’s speaking to (or about) an “other.” In fact, in Matthew 26:50, Jesus is talking to Judas, who had just betrayed him: “Friend, do what you are here to do.” Given other references in the Gospel narrative to Satan having “entered into” Judas either just before the Last Supper (Luke 22:1-6) or during it (John 13:27), I wonder if the “other” Jesus was really addressing in his conversation with both Judas and the improperly attired wedding guest was his old, old, friend: Satan… the deceiver… the destroyer… the enslaver of worlds—Jesus’ adversary since the dawn of creation—the quintessential other. You might recall that it was Satan’s rebelliousness and tendency to breed sedition among the angels that caused his expulsion from heaven, “down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit” (Isaiah 14:15). Sheol… the Pit… the very thought makes me shiver. It’s likely a pretty dark place filled, I expect, with sounds aplenty of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And so, what if… Matthew’s description of Jesus’ banishment of the improperly attired wedding guest at the end of the parable… is nothing less than the King of Heaven pausing after the consummation of the wedding feast—the final reconciliation between God and the church—to finish a work begun at the dawn of creation: Satan’s final expulsion from the world, once and for all, and his return to his forever-home in Sheol? Satan was the ultimate party crasher, after all—just ask Adam and Eve.
What do you think?
