"I Do and I Will”

A sermon by The Rev. Keenan Kelsey
Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA)
October 9, 2005

Text: Matthew 22:1-14

¹ Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ²‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. ⁴ Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” ⁵ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, ⁶ while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. ⁸ Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹ Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” ¹⁰ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. ¹¹ ‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, ¹² and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. ¹³ Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” ¹⁴ For many are called, but few are chosen.’

"I'm not invited to the party!" Those words pass from your lips in a scream of fourth-grade anguish. They're accompanied, of course, by a flood of tears. Your mother tries to console you, but you won't be consoled today. For you can see the mail carrier's back as he recedes into the distance. And you can see the stack of mail; a stack filled with things like catalogues and letters. Once you thought such things were wonderful. But they don't make it today. They don't make it because today's the day of the birthday party. The party, it seems, to which you're not invited.

It was weeks ago when you'd first heard about the party. You'd heard how one of the new girls who'd just moved to your school had planned to invite a few friends to a small birthday celebration. But then the plans for the small celebration grew and grew. Before long everyone you knew was talking about what looked like a birthday party to end all birthday parties. There were going to be clowns and acrobats, jugglers and dancing dogs. This was one party you definitely wanted to attend.

But when the invitations went out, you didn't get one. At first you'd thought your invitation had been lost in the mail. So everyday you kept searching through the mailbox hoping against hope that the missing invitation had arrived. But now, with the party's starting time only minutes away, you finally have to face facts. You're not going.

Tears of disappointment trickle down your cheeks as you tell your mother you're going to your room. You place your foot on the first step of the stairway to your bedroom, and then the doorbell rings. You slowly trudge to the doorway, throw open the door, and stand there staring while your mouth drops open with astonishment. For there on your front steps is the girl who's having the party.

You stand there staring for just a moment as you try to think of something to say. Then before your bewildered mind stops spinning the girl timidly speaks up. "I'm sorry I didn't invite you to my party," she quietly says "I thought I'd invite all the people who're popular at school. You know the ones who are cool, important. But none of them showed up. And when I went to their houses to ask them why they didn't come, they only laughed. Then they tore up their invitations and threw them in my face. I know I didn't invite you and I know you're probably mad at me. But will you come to my party?"

You stop for just a second to say goodbye to your mother as you skip out the door, for invited or not, nothing in the world could keep you indoors. You're not really sure what's happened that's allowed you to attend. You only know how much you rejoice. For you're going to the party after all!

In the time of Jesus, in ancient Palestine, a wedding was like your friend's birthday party -- a big deal. In fact, the event could last a week or longer. It began with a huge feast in the evening. Then came the wedding ceremony. Next, the couple was led in a torchlight parade through the entire village. Crowns were placed on their heads and a canopy was carried over them. The parade ended at their new home. But that's when the party began. For the next seven days, 24 hours per day, the wedding party and open house continued. Even in that poverty- stricken society, a wedding was a time for extravagant joy.

In our gospel story today, the king held a wedding for his son. According to custom, he alerted his court and colleagues. He laid out a huge feast with great care -- but when the day came, like those popular classmates, the first tier of guests decided they had better things to do. Not only did they refuse, they killed the messengers! I suspect that the listeners in Matthew's church would have understood this parable as explaining something about history. They would understand that the king is God and that the wedding banquet is the promised realm of God, ushered in by Jesus himself for this time and for evermore. The slaves who were sent out would be seen as the prophets whose messages had been so often been ignored or outright killed.. The destruction of those who killed the slaves and the destruction of their city was probably a way of talking about the destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem in the year 70.

And when the parable says the king would not be deterred, but sent more messengers with the new round of invitations -- The listeners would probably would have understood that the early Church reality as experienced by Matthew and his community was that Judaism and nascent Christianity were going their separate ways . Early Christians believed that Jesus had come as the Jewish Messiah. Yet Jews in the early Christian days -- especially after 70 -- refused to believe in him. Meanwhile Gentiles, people who had never been Jews, heard the message and came to Jesus as their savior, messiah. now the invitation went out to Gentiles as well, to good and the bad, the rich and the poor, the hungry and thirsty - those who understood that Jesus was the vehicle for God's nurture and love and care, anyone who believes that peace and justice might rain from heaven and we might be fed on God's goodness. The new reality, then, and the continuing reality today, is that everyone is invited and welcomed to the banquet, the party, the feast.

The wedding banquet of the gospel was every bit as exciting as the birthday party you had been taken to! But suppose for a moment, that your friend's mother appears just as the party clown is making you an outrageous balloon hat to match the balloon monkey you hold. She demands "What present have you brought for my daughter?" You stammer, "I don't have one - I wasn't expecting to come - I mean, she just came over and brought me here." The mother suddenly looms larger than life as she pulls you toward the door, and shoves you out into the now rainy afternoon. Thunder roars and lightening flashes around you, as you wonder what had just happened.

Suddenly you are no longer part of the celebration - although the music is still playing - you re an outcast. You are like the person in the gospel story who wore the wrong clothes. It seems outrageously unfair, especially with Matthew's harsh, violent language about weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Slowly you begin to wonder if something else was expected of you. You rushed to the party so fast, so eagerly. Perhaps, perhaps you missed something. It seems that you were supposed to bring a present, a gift, an offering. The guest in the parable was expected to change his clothes, to dress for a king's banquet. Perhaps the gift was something of yourself rather than something bought in a store. Perhaps the clothing was not actual cloth material, but garments of the mind and the heart and of the soul. Perhaps the parable means, the banquet requires something of us in return, just like the party might require something of you as well.

It appears that the gospel parable is first about accepting the abundance of God, the love and promise of Christ. Everyone is invited. The invitation is sheer grace, but the great enemy of faith to this day is preoccupation. God is simply crowded out. We do not disbelieve nor do we despise God. Not really. We simply have no time for God. We are not irreligious. We're just busy. And we are tired. Other matters are pressing. We have found other things to occupy our time and consume our energy.

But once we show up, we find ourselves faced with putting on the garment that God gives us to attend the banquet. Paul describes the garment as "putting on the mind of Christ."

Putting on Christ is risky. It means laying oneself open to being made new. It means extending one's hand in trust to be led where we might not have ever thought about going. It means taking an interest in God's children as far away as Iraq and Guatemala and as near as the tenderloin, or 24th Street. But most of all it means living in the promise that we will know God and that he will indeed change us. Many of us fear that attending the feast will make too many demands upon our time and treasure. It is true that accepting the invitation to God's banquet will change our sense of what is important. But also about responding to it, donning the garment of expectation, the garment of humble penitence, the garment of faith, the garment of reverence .Perhaps we are not just supposed to come to church, but to look at those words on Phoebe's weaving and be changed by the worship celebration.

Biblical scholar, Tom Long, tells us that "This parable urgently reminds us that being a part of the Christian community should make a discernible difference in who we are and how we live. In other words, there should be a sense of awe and responsiveness about belonging to the church, belonging to the community of Christ, being a child of the kingdom of heaven. What could you have done when your little friend's mother asked you for the gift? You could have gracefully and gratefully curtsied and offered the gifts of the spirit, the whole Armor of God: patience, kindness, forbearance, forgiveness, honesty, humility, and generosity. You could have offered a new kind of friendship and fellowship. You could have offered to take her out to find new friends, to help people feeling friendless, to invite more people in from the storms of life.

You could have said, I will give her a love that makes her smile when she is tired. I will show her a love that is like a puppy who licks your face even though you've left him alone all day.

We began with a wedding banquet, so I want to point out that a marriage ceremony has two elements to it. The first is an acknowledgement and celebration of love: a precious and joyful love which is a gift God works in human hearts. "Do you love this person?" we ask. Do you want to come to the banquet and celebrate?" "I do" is the answer. The second part of a marriage ceremony concerns the future. "I do" is a state of being. "I will" is a state of action. "Will you love, honor, cherish, this person all the days of your life? Will you acknowledge that this new relationship, is a relationship so intimate and personal that it will change your whole being?"

"I will" is the answer God is not looking for warm bodies. God is looking for wedding guests, who will rise to the occasion of honoring the Son, who answer God's call with "I do and I will." The irony is that we need bring no gift but our own love and willingness. We can do that in shorts and running shoes as well as in suits and high heels, because our wedding robes are not made out of denim or silk. They are sewn from the whole fabric of our lives, using patterns God has given us-- patterns of service, forgiveness, loving kindness, and peace.

MAY IT BE SO.