Trinity 20, 2022
Rev. Thomas Van Hemert
Trinity 20
St. Matthew 22:1-14
October 9, 2022
In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The parable at first seems nice. “The Kingdom of Heaven,” says Jesus, “may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” There is to be food and drink, dancing, frivolity, and good times had by all at this feast. But it is not a nice parable.
The invitation had to go out on three separate occasions before the wedding hall was filled with guests. The King sent His servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again, He sent other servants, saying, “Tell those who are invited, see, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the feast.” But still, they would not come. They refused. They would not accept the invitation. Instead, they paid no heed and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed the messengers.
How does the King respond? He can only be provoked so much. He gets angry, and He sends His troops and destroys those murderers and burns their city. He utterly destroys those who refuse the invitation to the wedding feast.
All this is because many times throughout the course of this world, the invitation to come and worship God, to turn from the ways of the wicked and return to the Lord, to be welcome as a guest at the Feast of Victory went out. But with regularity, those who heard this message and received this invitation did not receive it with joy. They were content with what they had going on—their farms, businesses. They were content being stuck in their own sins. Who were these prophets and preachers to tell them to turn from their sinful ways and live? And so it is that they killed the Prophets whom God had sent to them. Thus, Jesus says while lamenting over Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Of course, as we all know, in the end, they even killed Jesus, the Prophet greater than Moses, who came in the name of the Lord. He came proclaiming the forgiveness of sins. But Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees and Scribes, Herod, the whole lot would not listen to Him. They preferred their own farms and businesses, their own religious system and way of life, rather than an eternal wedding feast where those who are hungry are fed and never hunger again.
But the death of His Christ does not stop God from sending out the invitation. Jesus rose again on the Third Day. The invitation still goes out. But now the invitation does not only go out to Jews of the house of Abraham, but to Gentiles, foreigners, and sinners. This very invitation goes out to the bad and the good, to you and to me, to us. Because the King now says, “Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find,” that is, “Go out into the world. And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was finally filled with guests. The parable seems to be getting nicer, for everyone is now invited. But it is not a nice parable.
The parable ends with a warning. When the King came in to look at the guests, He saw there was a man who had no wedding garment. And He said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?” The man without a wedding garment was speechless. Then the King said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called but few are chosen.
Those who do not have the wedding garment, that is, those who are not clothed with Christ’s righteousness and have made their robes white in the Blood of the Lamb through faith, have no share in the Kingdom of Heaven. They will go to a place worse than this living death we currently live in. They will be cast out of the King’s presence in a place prepared for Satan and his angels—a place where there is darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Now the man without a wedding garment was invited, obviously. He wouldn’t have shown up if he had not been invited. But once he arrived, he refused to put on the wedding garment. He didn’t want it or think he needed it. He insulted the King. He wanted to control God and be king in the King’s palace. He wanted to have a tiny God, a weak God that he could bend to his own will. Instead of a wedding feast with rich food and tasty wine, he attempted to turn the Kingdom of Heaven into a Burger King so that he could have things his own way. Many are called. Many are invited to the wedding feast. But few are chosen. Those who try to turn the Kingdom of Heaven or the Church into their own little playhouse, where they make the rules and where they play “King” and “God” will be cast out into the outer darkness and in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And we have, all of us, at times, behaved like the man without a wedding garment—trying to make the Church of God into our own little playhouse? But the Church is Christ’s Church. It is His bride. And what happens in the Church, the way we can tell that this is the Church, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, is by what the Church does. And according to God’s command, the Church is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth where the Gospel is preached in its truth and purity and the Sacraments are administered according to Christ’s command. The Gospel must be preached with true purity and orthodoxy, according to the Inspired Word of God. The Sacraments must and are administered, according to God’s command—dare we say, every week and at other times, whenever the saints of God desire them. Because that’s the command.
We who are invited—because we’re all invited—are invited and expected to partake of these things with regularity, not by begrudging these Means of Grace because we don’t think we need them or because we think receiving them often will make them “less special” or because we think they’ll take up too much of our precious time, or by saying that we’ll just go to the Sacrament of the Altar because everyone else is going up and we don’t want to stand out and have others wonder as to why we’re actually rejecting the invitation. We are expected to receive these Means of Grace regularly with rejoicing because the Word and Sacrament are marks of what the Church is and does. We are truly invited to partake in these things, even though we are numbered with the bad and the good in the parable. But these things that we receive—water, God’s Word, bread and wine, Body and Blood—these things change us. They change us in God’s eyes, from bad to the good. We are unworthy servants. But we are made and changed into worthy dinner guests in the Kingdom of Heaven because we have washed our robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. We have our wedding garments, even now.
The Church is where we have been invited to partake of a great feast. We don’t waltz into church as though we own the place and demand that the Church do things the way we want. Our Lord has invited us here, to this place, first as foremost importance, that we receive His gifts. And all other things we do, whether that be having a food pantry to serve the hungry in our congregation and community, whether that is supporting other missions, whether that is having other congregational events, in order to have further fellowship with one another, all that is secondary to what Christ has instituted for us. That is, receiving the Sacrament. Of course, we love doing these extra things and they flow from faith and are good works that are loved by God. But we must first recognize what the Church is and to where this invitation we have received is taking us. We have been invited to the great Wedding Feast in the Kingdom of Heaven and we receive a foretaste even now in the Divine Liturgy. That is what happens in the Kingdom of Heaven. That is what happens in the Church. We don’t get to do things our way. This is not a Burger King. We get, instead, to do things Christ’s way, which is better than we can fathom or know.
But what we can claim is this: we claim the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who gives us entrance and a seat at this great wedding feast of Himself and His Bride, the Church. He has placed the wedding garment on us. We don’t need to bring our own. How do we get in? We wear the wedding garment that has been given to us because we have died and risen again with Jesus and have been brought into this Kingdom of Heaven to be seated at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with all the angels and saints in festal gathering, and with our loved ones who have died in the faith.
You have been called through Baptism and you are chosen, because in Baptism, the wedding garment has been placed upon you. Many are called, but few are chosen. You are called. You are chosen.
In +Jesus’ name.
