Henrietta United
Rev. Martha
Koenig Stone
Colossians 3:12-17
Put
on Christ
The wedding preparations were made, the invitations had been sent out,
and the night of the rehearsal had arrived.
Each of the 7 nephews had a special job to do: some would light the candles, some would
usher, and the oldest would read the scripture lesson. The only thing left to do was to have the
families meet each other and run through the service.
The bride and groom waited anxiously at the church as the families began
to arrive. Each person received a warm
greeting—Mother-in-law, Father-in-law, cousins, brothers & sisters. Everyone was buzzing with excitement. Even the youngest ones were dressed in
special clothes for this special occasion, anticipating a delicious dinner
after the rehearsal was done.
And then someone noticed a man in a hooded sweatshirt with extremely long
hair, leaning over one of the pews. “Who
is that?” The bride peered across the
sanctuary. Was it a street person, who
had come it to take some shelter from the winter night? The bride looked again…
It was my oldest nephew, Daniel, my godchild, the one who was supposed to
read the scripture for the service. I
hurried over to say hello. I hadn’t seen
him in over a year, ever since he had gone off to college. As he stood up, I saw the rest of his
attire: green plaid pants with a
mismatched plaid jacket in blues and reds; a wide tie with a brown and gold
diamond pattern, and old-fashioned canvas sneakers, slightly torn and ratty. I gave him a hug, and he hugged me back, and
then he said, “How do you like my wedding suit?”
I think of that night every time I read this parable of the wedding
feast. It’s one of a series if stories
Jesus tells, each one more violent than the one the next, a series of
disturbing stories that challenge our sense of fairness. The punishments seem unreasonably harsh, especially
if they’re read with an eye toward eternity.
What’s up with this parable? Are
we doomed forever to the “outer darkness” if we don’t behave just right? Do you have to wear designer tuxedos and
floral gowns in order to enter the kingdom of heaven? Do you go to hell for wearing the wrong
clothes to church? I hope not—otherwise
those of us who wore jeans today for Blue Jean Sunday would be shakin’ in our
boots right about now! And since that kind
of interpretation doesn’t fit with the rest of Jesus’ life and teachings, I
think something else must be going on here.
I think this story has something to say about the ways we approach
the life of faith, and what a difference it makes for us in this
world.
So I’d like to think along those lines with you this morning. The parable tells of a king who invites
guests to his son’s wedding. Some of the
king’s friends simply ignored the invitation.
Wrapped up in their own stuff, they chose a different activity for the
day—their farms, their businesses. They
had other things to do; they were just too preoccupied to take the time to
celebrate with the king and his guests. So
they just didn’t go to the wedding.
There’s a pretty clear message here—if you don’t even show up, you
really can’t participate. Not interested
in the
But there was a second kind of response as well—some of the people who
were invited were actively hostile toward the king. They seized and mistreated and killed the
king’s messengers. They chose violence
and destruction over respect and hospitality, and their violent ways were met
with more violence. Now, I admit that I
bristle at the king’s retribution, when he sends out troops to destroy their
city. I certainly don’t believe in a
retributive God, who punishes us, tit for tat. But we have all seen, over and over again, the
long-lasting consequences of hatred and brutality in this world. As long as we are determined to fight with
one another, our lives will be full of destruction and death. Jesus’ story reflects this reality.
But the story doesn’t stop there, because the king in the story really
wants people to come to his son’s wedding!
So he just keeps inviting people to the party. And he’s not very picky about who can
come—anyone off the street is welcome! So
eventually, the banquet hall is filled with folks who want to celebrate, both
good and bad, the text says! At this
point, you start to get the idea that all you have to do to participate in the
kingdom of heaven is to show up! Wouldn’t this be a good place to end the
story? Just come to Jesus and everything
will be okay. A happy ending, how nice!
So why doesn’t Jesus quip while he’s ahead? Why does he add in that last little bit about
the guy who didn’t have the right wedding robe?
This guy hadn’t killed anyone.
And he hadn’t blown off the invitation.
He answered the invitation and actually showed up at the wedding. Just what was it, then, that kept him
from enjoying the feast? I can’t help
feeling sorry for the guy! What if he
couldn’t afford a wedding robe? What if
he just didn’t know any better? What
if he, like my nephew, was a young man struggling to figure out how he fit into
the world and experimenting a bit?
And besides, what’s the big deal about the wedding garment, anyway? Why should wearing the wrong clothing condemn
someone to the “outer darkness”?
One way of thinking about this part of the story is to think about the
symbolism of clothing. In Jesus’ day, and
to a large extent in our day as well, what you wore said something about who
you were. Maybe you remember the story of the woman who had been
hemorrhaging for 12 years—she believed that if she touched even the hem of
Jesus’ cloak she would be healed. His
cloak was, in a way, a part of himself.
So a garment was a powerful symbol of the essence of a
person.
Maybe Jesus story is inviting us to think about our essence as human
beings, asking us to think about who we are.
Just who was that guest who came without a wedding robe? And what does he tell us about who we
are?
Scholars don’t know much about the custom of the time regarding wedding
clothing. But it seems to have been
expected that you would wear clean clothes rather than work clothes, as a sign
of respect. Perhaps the guest in Jesus’
story wasn’t just too poor or uninformed to wear a proper robe, but was actually
insulting the king by what he had chosen to wear. When
the king asked about it, the guest offered no excuse, but refused to speak. So the picture that begins to develop here is
one of defiance, disdain, disrespect. There was no way this guest could participate
in the celebration feast, because he had no respect for the host. His coming to the wedding was dishonest--he
hadn’t come to celebrate, he had come to sneer and mock. What chance did he have, then, of enjoying
the celebration and participating in the joy of the day?
The language of this parable is stark, to be sure. But what emerges for me from this story is a pretty
realistic picture of the many ways in which we cut ourselves off from the grace
and mercy and abundance of God. Imagine
going somewhere—say to a party or a family gathering—expecting to have a
terrible time. My kids do this all the
time. “Aw, Mom, do I haaave to go? It’s going to be so booooring!!!” they
say. But if you go somewhere already
feeling sullen and angry, and you’re sure that it won’t be any fun, and you
don’t talk to anyone, how likely are you to enjoy yourself? Turn in on yourself, and you miss the
challenge of relating to others. Lash
out at others, and you destroy relationships all around you.
In a sense, Jesus himself was caught up in this kind of a trap. The religious authorities asked him obscure
questions, trying to trick him, waiting for him to mess up. And his strident condemnation of them in
return made it more and more difficult to have any kind of civil conversation
with them.
On the other hand, if you were to come to a gathering or a conversation with
some openness and good will, if you came willing to take a chance that something
good might happen, it might make all the difference in the way you experienced
the event.
The banquet image in this story makes me think again of the recent disaster
in
When God invites us to feast at the banquet of life; how do we
respond? With greed? With disinterest? With violence? With cynicism? With fear?
Or do we answer with gratitude and intentionality and integrity and
peace and generosity? If we don’t take
that invitation seriously, then our participation in the banquet is in
jeopardy. I don’t believe in eternal
punishment, meted out by an angry god. But
if we practice hostility and violence instead of peacemaking and good will, if we
sneer at the host and the other guests, or ignore the invitation altogether, we
are sure to miss out on God’s party!
So, you may ask, where’s the good news in this story? After all, I want to come the wedding! I don’t want to be too busy, or too violent,
or too angry to participate. I’ll even
put on some clean clothes if I have to—just tell me when and where!
Well for me, the good news is that everyone is invited to the
banquet of life. Rich and poor, good and
bad, friends and strangers, even folks off the street—all are called to the
feast—and God’s invitation is endless! We don’t have to prove ourselves worthy before
being invited. We need only receive the
invitation with an open heart and mind—and then, jump in! And if you can’t make it today, you’re invited
again tomorrow. Just open your heart to
God’s invitation, and you are welcomed with open arms. Paul’s letter to the Colossians provides a
wonderful way to think about this: he writes that we are to clothe ourselves in
compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience and love. We have to strip off our old practices of
busy-ness and brutality and in-your-face defiance, and put on instead a new
identity as Christians, giving thanks to God in all that we do.
This can be a tall order! Old
habits die hard. It’s not as simple as
putting on a clean new wedding robe; we have to reach the persons underneath
the suits, and that sometimes takes hard work.
We are much more skilled at putting on thick skins so that we’re not
vulnerable to others who might hurt us. We
become adept at distancing ourselves from people who don’t look and act and
think the way we do. We’re pretty good
at name-calling and scape-goating—especially during election season! But Jesus’ invitation to the feast is an
invitation to work, to engage, to reflect, to learn, to interact, to listen. It’s an invitation to open our hearts to all
the other guests at the wedding—the good and the bad—and to share the feast of
life with them.
What would this look like in your life? Where is God challenging you to come and
celebrate with him? What habits or
preoccupations might you need to shed in order to put on Christ? The feast is ready, and you are invited!
But before I close, I must tell you the end of my own wedding story. After the rehearsal, we went out to
dinner. My nephew’s clothing was one of
the major topics of conversation that night.
His uncle (my brother), a lawyer, tried to explain the importance of
dressing properly and making a good impression.
His younger brother was thoroughly embarrassed and worried that if Daniel
dressed like a bum, people wouldn’t see what a great guy he is. Randy’s brothers and sisters, themselves young
adults like Daniel, were fascinated by the topic, and they asked him at length
about the styles of dress at his mid-western college.
Then, during dessert, I gave Daniel a present—a red tie to wear to the
wedding, so that he would match the other participants in the service. He joked about how he might braid the red tie
together with two other ties he had brought along. “Do I have to wear the red one?” he
asked. “You don’t have to do
anything,” I said, but you know what I want you to do. I want you to wear the red tie. But you’ll need to decide for yourself.”
The next day, Daniel arrived at the wedding in a nice blue suit, wearing
the tie I had given him. He still had
his long, shaggy hair, but he read the scripture beautifully. Afterwards, he told someone that he thought
he had a “cool” family. He had made
his choice. He had chosen to celebrate.
Thanks be to God, who sets a feast before us and invites us to receive abundant
life! Amen.