Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
October 10, 1999
The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost

The Wedding Feast: Does God Discriminate?
The Rev. William A. Kolb

The First Reading: Psalm 23
Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14

The 23rd Psalm. The Lord is my Shepherd. Comforting words spoken, prayed, sung and meditated upon for thousands of years by billions of people, generation to generation. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.What on earth does that mean? Rather, what in heaven does it mean?

Do we "dwell in the house of the Lord" just when we are being "religious"? Or perhaps when we are actually in church or temple? Are we dwelling in the house of the Lord when we are doing good works for the less fortunate?

Are we dwelling in the house of the Lord when we are filling our mind with "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable," filling our thoughts with excellence and anything worthy of praise?

I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Forever – - not just when we are doing the right thing.

I am convinced that God wants us to grow, wants us to keep on keeping on trying to make this world a better place, no doubt about it, but I am also convinced that God’s house and God’s arms and God’s love surround us forever, every minute of every day, whether we are being religious or not, reverent or not, reliable or not. Even Christian or not. God does not love us because we are good or go to Church or were baptized or are Christian; God loves us because God is God and God’s nature is to love.

And so I have a hard time, a hard time with today’s Gospel reading from Matthew. According to many interpreters, the folks who refuse the invitation to the wedding feast represent Israel, or at least their leaders. These "invited ones" pay no attention whatsoever to the invitation. And so, according to Matthew, "...the king sent his troops, destroyed those murderers and destroyed their city."

I have a hard time with that. From its beginning Christianity has emphasized in many quarters that Jesus is not just a way to God, but that Jesus is the ONLY way to God. And I cannot reconcile that with all other data, from the many places in scripture where God’s all-inclusive love is declared, to wonderful experiences that I have had of open community and fellowship and friendship in the Episcopal Church, I cannot reconcile that exclusive and narrow teaching with the God of our fathers, the God of love and joy, the God of all wedding feasts and of the wedding feasts of people of all faiths. Christianity, I think, is being most Christian when it is not claiming exclusive ownership of the truth.

Donald Miller, a speaker at the recent Trinity Institute in New York is the author of the book, Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the new millennium. Miller says that the "one way" view, in which Jesus Christ is the only way to God, is harder and harder to maintain in our expanding global world. People are tired, he says, of legalistic views and positions. He also says that we live in a pluralistic world which makes it implausible to hold to a Christian-only view. Miller talks about the decline of mainline denominations and implications for the future, and says here, quote: "Christians think we have the only Truth. Not so. And in the new millennium, young people will not be drawn in by this kind of tribalism." He says that Christianity by nature is an exclusive, tribalistic faith but that Truth comes in many forms.

The Jesus Seminar is a distinguished group of biblical scholars embarked on a new assessment of the Gospels. In their book, The Five Gospels, the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar tell us that this morning’s Gospel reading is a drastic transformation of the version found in the Gospel of Luke. They believe that the version from Matthew, which we just heard, is a creation of Matthew and the early Church, even though it is derived from a parable which may in fact be attributable to Jesus.

In the earlier and probably more accurate Lukan parable about the feast, the wedding banquet is a less grand and more routine dinner, rather than a wedding banquet. Instead of the drastic punishments meted out to those who refuse dinner invitations in the version in Matthew, here the punishment is that the "no-shows" simply will not taste the delicious dinner. No talk of killing the offenders, no talk of burning their city. Nothing about a guest appearing without a wedding robe and being cast into the outer darkness of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

These scholars conclude their remarks with the opinion that the original parable, possibly a genuine Jesus story, has the prominent invited guests refusing for quite legitimate reasons, at which the host sends out for more socially marginal guests. It is a story of social justice and of God’s patience. Nothing about judgment and harshness.

I think that the folks pulled in off the street after the invited guests indicate their refusal, the newly invited guests are all sorts and conditions of people, the poor, the ragged, the dirty, people of both good lives and not-so-good lives. I think those folks represent what God’s kingdom and heavenly banquet are all about: all sorts and conditions. Jew and Greek, male and female, wise and innocent, Christian and Muslim.

The early Church, which did a lot of adding and reinterpreting of scripture before it was finally locked in and widely circulated, had a strong need to attract people to the new faith Christianity and away from other faiths, primarily Judaism. But I don’t think that God had or has that same need.

Christianity contains wondrous and powerful truths of God our Creator. Jesus Christ is our Saviour, the Saviour of all Christians. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus make sense of a life that is often chaotic and tragic.

But Christianity is a way, not the only way. It just doesn’t make sense or, more important, it doesn’t sound like the work of a loving God, any other way.

And so we come back to where we started: I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. You will, I will, we all will. In the dark times, in the times when we have dark thoughts, in all faiths and in those who have not yet found faith. God’s house is as big as the universe, and it includes everyone, not because everyone is good but because God is God and God knows no other way. Any use of the promise of God’s love and blessings to scare people into a particular faith or lifestyle is a misuse and distortion of God’s will.

Count on it: We all shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Amen.

Copyright 1999 Calvary Episcopal Church

The First Reading: Psalm 23
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long. (NRSV)

Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 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.' But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' 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.

"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless. 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.' For many are called, but few are chosen." (NRSV)

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