Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Exodus 32:1-14 p 69
32When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”2Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”3So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.4He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.”6They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
7The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;8they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!<9The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.10Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”11But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?12Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’“14And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
Matthew 22:1-14 p 803
22Once more Jesus spoke to the scribes and the pharisees in parables, saying:2“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.4Again 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.’5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business,6while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.8Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy.9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’10Those slaves went out to the borders of the kingdom 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,12and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And the man was speechless.13Then 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.’14For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Perhaps you have received them: those “save the date” cards, sent months ahead of the actual wedding, so that you can mark your calendar, and make sure you reserve that day for the big wedding. But imagine that you received a save the date card for a royal wedding- perhaps the wedding this past summer of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Imagine your excitement at being invited! Imagine what the reception would be like: the fanciest foods, an open bar, perhaps a champagne fountain and a dessert table- and now imagine, after the food has been bought and carefully prepared, the catering hall reserved, the musicians hired, that you just decided to bag it. Stay home—and not even have a good excuse. “Why didn’t you come? I invited you especially?” the host asks- “oh, no reason really. Just didn’t feel like it”.

The kingdom of heaven is like a wedding banquet—where the guests don’t bother to show up. In Middle Eastern tradition, the event would have been planned, and the guests invited. And as the day drew near, the host, having counted the number of people attending, would slaughter the animals and prepare the festive meal—and look at the menu: oxen and fat calves— think prime rib and lobster, 7 course meals- lavish extravagance! And once the meal was ready, or close to being served, the servants would go house to house and summon the guests to the feast. “All is now ready- it’s time to feast! Please come!”

Except the invitees don’t go. Ken Bailey describes it this way: “Imagine you have invited friends over for dinner. And you have spent all day cooking and cleaning. They come, they are sitting in the living room, maybe having a beverage, talking, and you walk out of the kitchen to say ‘dinner is ready! Come to the table”! and they shrug, give some lame excuse, and then walk out the door…”

Not only do the invited guests in the parable not come, they give rude, half-hearted excuses- the text says “they made light of it”- “whatever”- and then they move from rudeness to violence—they seize the king’s slaves and kill them- all for inviting them to dinner!

They made light of it, the text tells us. - the word literally means: “they did not think about, and thus not respond appropriately to” the gift they had been given—an invitation to the bridal feast, given by the King. Feasting in the Kingdom of Heaven—and the guests just shrug their shoulders and say “whatever”. They do not understand the gift they have received, and so don’t bother to attend.

The king is enraged, and after punishing them and their city, sends more slaves out to find more guests. “Go out and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” So they go out, to the far reaches of the kingdom, and gather in all they find, both good and bad. The first guests were unworthy, and now there are guests, both good and bad, so that the wedding hall was filled.

The Gospel according to Matthew is believed to have been written in the context of a faith community that is struggling. They are Jews who have followed Christ—and they are being shunned by their families, kicked out of their synagogues, pushed out of their homes and jobs. They have received this gift—the Good News of God in Jesus Christ—and they can’t understand why their families, their friends, their loved ones, don’t see things the way they do. What would you do if given the greatest gift? Shrug your shoulders? Walk away?

But the Matthean community also struggled—as we do—as to what a life lived in accepting this gift looks like—what behavior are you going to have, haven been given this gift? How will your life be changed? In looking at you, in your behavior, your actions, your speech, how will I know the good news is good?

The first part of this parable makes sense. But it is the last part that I struggle with—a guest, called in from the street, on the spur of the moment, per the king’s orders, and gets yelled at: “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?”

What?? This guy was just out on the street, minding his own business, when the slaves come and take him to the banquet hall. Apparently there was no time to go home and wash up and change—if the man even had a fancy wedding robe. And then, to pour salt on the wound, the bouncers are called, the man is handcuffed, taken out, and thrown into the outer darkness.

But to the Matthean community, this is not just about the proper attire. It is about behavior. How are we to behave, in light of the great gift and invitation we have received? “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” Galatians says. “You have put on Christ, in Christ you have been baptized!” we sing at baptisms.

If we are invited to the feast, then we should behave as if at a feast. Behave as grateful people. “Rise to the occasion”.

“What we do matters because who we are matters” David Bartlett says of the Gospel of Matthew. The life we live counts for something. And the WAY we live counts for something. Our own Book of Order calls us to live lives that “are a demonstration of the Christian gospel in the church and in the world.” (BOO G-6.0106) Our good works do not save us—that is the action of Christ. But we respond with thanksgiving—we do not treat lightly the gift we have been given. “If our doing good is not good, and our doing bad not genuinely bad, if there is neither judgment nor condemnation, then grace itself is thin and wasted.” It is not cheap grace, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it. It is not wasted grace. It is costly grace. We cannot just shrug our shoulders and walk away.


When I was in Mexico, I went to the cathedral every morning, as a way to practice some Spanish. And every morning, the poor and the homeless would gather in and around the cathedral. I saw one man there every morning—dirt poor, sleeping on the sidewalks, with a little plastic bag of clothing and belongings carefully tied up beside him. Now, Mass was said in the cathedral every morning. But Sunday, of course, was the most crowded, the best attended. So on Sunday morning, going to Mass, I saw the same homeless man again. That morning, though, he was pulling a garment out of his tattered plastic bag of clothes. It was a white guayabara- the kind of formal shirt Mexican men wear for special occasions. This man, who had so little, was dressing up to go to Mass, to go to the feast. He knew what a gift he was receiving, and he was dressing and acting accordingly.

Now I am not suggesting we go back to the days of shirts and ties, dresses and heels for church attendance. But Christ calls us to live lives of such gratitude that it is visible—just like our clothing. Perhaps Colossians paints a picture of how this garment will look: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other…above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” That is a garment fit for a royal wedding.