Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, October 13th,
Year of Our + Lord 2013
Trinity and St. John Lutheran Churches, Sidney
and Fairview, Montana
Wedding Garments – Matthew 22:1-14, Isaiah
55:1-9
Nothing seizes one’s attention as fiercely
as the proximity of death. I had a plan
for today’s sermon, an outline and a sure direction, and was in fact just
sitting down to write it when my brother Bill called to tell me our brother
Karl had died. The very unexpected
death of my oldest brother Karl seized my thoughts. Amidst the shock and sadness another thought
forced its way upon me. While making
phone calls and shedding tears, I realized, as God would have it, there was a
different sermon I needed to write, the sermon that flows from the interaction
of my brother’s death, and today’s parable.
For death is also in close proximity for
Jesus, as He tells this parable, just a few days before He would go to the
Cross. And it seems, at least in my
reading, that our Lord’s attention is very tightly focused. It is Monday of Holy Week. Just the previous day Jesus rode into
Jerusalem on a donkey, hailed as the new King David by the crowds. Jesus rounds off His Palm Sunday with a
little Temple cleansing, and some very pointed parables, told against the chief
priests and Pharisees. Now it is Monday,
and these Jewish leaders are plotting how to arrest and kill Him without
causing a riot. At various times in His
ministry Jesus taught about many different aspects of life, about family, and
reconciliation in the Church, about charity and good works, and humility. But at this moment, His death bearing down,
Jesus focuses. In His telling of the
parable of the wedding banquet, Jesus focuses on the most fundamental question
– who will spend eternity feasting in
the grace and glory of God’s eternal wedding banquet, and who will be cast out,
into the outer darkness, that place of weeping, and gnashing of teeth?’
There are many players in this drama, but
the focus, as is normal in the kingdom of heaven parables, is on the actions,
directions and words of God. The King,
the Father of the Son, prepares the banquet, slaughtering His oxen and fattened
calves, or, if you prefer, sacrificing them, another meaning for the Greek word
thuo.
Everything is ready: the servants have already delivered the invitations
to the guests, the sacrifices are complete, the King even goes so far as to
re-send the servants, to seemingly beg the invited guests to come to the best
party in town. But they are
rebuffed. For the invited guests are
busy, distracted by work, by business, too busy to be bothered with the feast.
Jesus in these kingdom of heaven parables
compresses all of salvation history into a few words, so we should not be
surprised to see ourselves in them. The
immediate referent of Jesus’ description of the invited guests who refuse the
King’s hospitality is certainly the people of Israel, who again and again spurned
the Lord, His ways, and His prophets.
But we too, Christians living two millennia later, all too often behave
the same way. Can any of us truly say we
have never ignored the invitations of our Lord to sit and dine and celebrate
with Him, ignoring Him because we have “more important” things to do? When Christians make a habit of declining the
feasts of the Lord that He provides in this life, then the coming of death is
much more troubling. We may know he is
baptized, and how he used to confess and exercise his faith, but we haven’t
seen him in Church lately. Such drifting
away is a troubling thing to consider, when death comes. Christians care about one another, and so
when a brother or sister in Christ drifts away, we hurt too.
I struggled with something like this
yesterday. Not that I know my brother
Karl wasn’t attending a Christian Church, but rather I simply don’t know if he
was or wasn’t. Karl was a bit of a
hermit, rarely communicating with his brothers and sister. I’m not much better. If I weren’t married to Shelee, I’d be pretty
hermit-like, too. Karl and I got along
fine, we just didn’t communicate much.
Karl was baptized, confirmed, and through
the years, actively wrestled with faith.
But I don’t know what had been happening lately, an uncertainty which
made yesterday even harder. Don’t be a hermit. Paul tells us we should, as much as it lies
with us, be at peace with everyone. I
think for brothers to be at peace implies more communication than Karl and I
could muster, so that knowledge and familiarity can drive out uncertainty,
which is the enemy of peace. I’m left
with uncertainty because of our lack of communication, but that of course does
not shorten God’s arm. My knowledge of
Karl’s faith is not the deciding thing, thanks be to God.
But, as with the invited guests in Jesus’
parable, sometimes people do leave the Church, and there’s no uncertainty. That is an eternally frightening thing. The Jews who killed the Lord’s prophets, and
the priests and Pharisees who plotted Jesus death both come to mind. They were called, invited guests to the
Lord’s feasts, but they wanted their own glory, they preferred their own
banquets. Big mistake. For there is only one everlasting feast, only
one way to live happily ever after, and that is by taking a seat at the
heavenly feast of God.
And, as Jesus goes on to tell us, everyone
is invited. The feast is prepared, the
sacrifices have been made, and the King sends out His servants to bring in
everyone, bad or good, no matter, go get ‘em, fill my table. What, you don’t think your worthy to attend
such a fine celebration? You’re low
class, lacking the proper clothes? Well,
that’s exactly right. But come
anyway. Come, everyone who thirsts, come
to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and
milk without money and without price.
This King is so determined to have a full table at the wedding feast of
His Son that He sends messengers to bring in anyone and everyone they can find. The King even provides them with the necessary
wedding clothes.
God has to do this of course, if He truly
wants to have the wedding feast of His Son filled with guests. God has to provide the wedding clothes,
because no son of Adam has proper clothes for heaven. All have sinned, and fall short of the glory
of God. Our sinful nakedness is plain to
see before the judgment seat of heaven.
Not one of us deserves a seat at God’s eternal feast. But God has prepared His sacrifice, the death
that takes away our unworthiness. God
has given His very Son to take away our sins, paying the price in suffering we
deserve, on His Cross. The feast is
truly prepared, by the death and resurrection of Jesus. So, come, join the feast, marvel at the
wedding clothes God has prepared for you, and, wearing them, rejoice that you
have a seat at God’s eternal table.
How do you wear these wedding
garments? What are these wedding
garments? Good questions, especially
since the King will be making an inspection of His guests. ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a
wedding garment?’ We do not want to hear
those words. Anyone found trying to wear
his own clothes will be cast out. The
wedding garments are the righteousness of Christ, which He gives to you by
faith. Your sins make you dirty, unfit
for the Kingdom of heaven. But Christ’s
perfect righteousness, both His sinless life of service, and His sacrificial
death, are His gift to you, given to you first in your Baptism, a gift renewed
and restored whenever you hear the Word of forgiveness.
To try and enter the feast in your own
clothes is to trust in your own righteousness, to trust in your own goodness,
that you have somehow overcome your own sins and earned your seat at God’s
table. This is impossible. This is not tolerated by God, the King. Only clothed in the righteousness of Christ,
only by wearing the garments of baptismal faith, can you take the seat God
offers you.
This is the invitation that God sends His
servants out to deliver on the main roads, out in the world. Sadly, as with the original invited guests, so
also today: the invitation is often not
well received. No one wants to be told
their own goodness is worthless, that all their righteous deeds are as filthy
rags. But it is true, and only when we
despair of earning God’s favor are we ready to receive the death and
resurrection of Jesus as Good News.
Until we sinners know our need, the Cross is an insult and an
embarrassment. But once we know the
outer darkness our sinfulness has earned, then we are eager to wear the wedding
garments, the free gift of forgiveness.
So, to go out and seek more people for
God’s wedding feast must include thankless work of pointing out human sin. Not just to unbelievers, but also to
believers, for unbelief clings to us all in this life. Unbelief clings, but God’s wedding garments
cover all sin. So rejoice, and come to
the wedding feast.
Three final thoughts. First, that last line of the parable might be
troubling you: “For many are called, but
few are chosen.” Sounds scary. Sounds like uncertainty may be inescapable. But only if we ignore the rest of the
parable. The King, that is God, invites
all to the wedding feast, that is, to come into His heavenly kingdom. The “unchosen” one, the one who is cast out,
is the one who tried to take his seat, without wearing the gifted wedding
garments. You are baptized into
Christ. Cling to, believe in, celebrate
this mysterious, wonderful gift of righteousness given to you through the
washing of water and the Word, and then relax.
You are not nor will you be secretly “unchosen,” for God has baptized
you publicly. He won’t go back on His
Word, you can trust it – in your Baptism you were clothed in Christ. He is your wedding garment.
Second, you may be worried because you are
still a sinner, and all too regularly stain your baptismal garment. You should be worried. It is the great shame of Christians that we
are still such sinners. Repent. Amend your ways. But even more, come, come and wash your robes
in the blood of the Lamb, make them white as snow again, and again. Your faith makes you want to stop sinning,
and you should strive to live without sin.
But your remaining sinful nature means you will not conquer sin in this
life. However, by confessing your sins,
receiving the absolution, and kneeling to eat and drink the Body and Blood of
Christ, given and shed to forgive you, Christ make your robes white again, and
again, until that day when Jesus will separate you from sin forever.
Third, you may be doubting that simple
water, bread and wine can do such great things.
Sadly, there are many Christians who deny and argue endlessly that
anything real happens in Baptism and the Supper. Well, water, bread and wine do not do great
deeds. But God, by combining them with
His Word, can and does do whatever He promises.
Remember what He said through Isaiah:
My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not my ways. God is not bound by what makes sense to us,
but He has bound Himself to His Word.
And His Word most certainly
promises that Baptism is your death and resurrection with Jesus, that in
Baptism you received forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit, and that Baptism now
saves you. The Lord has also promised
that His Supper is a communion, a participation in His Body and Blood, given
and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.
The Lord’s Supper is like the rehearsal dinner for the heavenly wedding
banquet, but one at which the Host never tires of cleaning up your stained
wedding garments, once again. To keep
you in forgiveness is God’s great joy in this world. You too can rejoice, and rest, in this Good
News, until the day you die, and then live again, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment