Pictures of God, Especially Some On A Not So Good Day

This is the manuscript I wrote for my sermon for Sunday, October 9, on Matthew's Parable of the Wedding Banquet and the Underdressed Guest, but also touching on the other lessons for the day (Isaiah,  Psalm 23, and Phillipians 4.) The final product resembled this, but I cut parts of the opening.

On my computer, my screen saver is called “Best Pics.” It is a random slideshow of around 200 pictures that I have selected. Most of the pictures are from my time at Seminary, because I got a digital camera from the people I worked with as a going away gift. (Which says something – but that’s a different topic.) Now, I have a really good camera on my cell phone, so I can take picture almost anytime.

In the slideshow, there are pictures of me at various events and locations, and pictures that I took. I’ve scanned in some pictures that were taken by cameras with actual film.

Some people have their collection of pictures displayed on the walls and tables of their homes, or tucked away in photo albums. Mine is on my computer.

So there is a picture of me with my parents at my high school graduation, and one from when I graduated from Alma College. There are a few of the plays I was in high school and a couple from when our football team played some exhibition games in Finland. I have pictures of the fraternity house I lived in burning to the ground. There is a picture of my dad holding me as a baby.

From Gettysburg, I have a lot of pictures of the town and the monuments. I would often go for a walk in the morning and was able to take some, what I think, pretty good pictures. There are also a lot of pictures of birthday celebrations. The person whose birthday it was picked the restaurant, and everyone would go. So there are a lot of pictures at a Japanese steakhouse & sushi restaurant. I have a lot of pictures of people sticking their tongues out – must be something the pipeliners, those who went to seminary right out of college were doing.

Some pictures I downloaded off of Facebook after being tagged – identified in a picture someone else took and posted.  A few picture are self-inflicted; I took them while holding the camera away and trying to get myself and someone else in the picture. (Like this.) Those usually didn’t turn out.

There are some from my graduation from Gettysburg, some from my ordination, some of the boxes as I was loading and unloading to move out here, and some of my installation. I realize I don’t have too many from my time out here.

But pictures, snapshots tell us a lot about a person. They show where they have been, what they did, who they were with. Not all pictures are accurate. Photoshopping (not that I have done that) can do amazing things. They can be posed or spontaneous. They can catch your good side or your bad side.

Today, the nice people who created the Revised Common Lectionary have given us four pictures of God. And they are four very different perspectives.

The prophet Isaiah, using an old camera, maybe one of the ones that you held down around your belly button and everything was upside down, shows us a picture of God victorious.

The fortified city of aliens lies in ruins. God has been a place for the poor and needy to come. Isaiah shows us the mountain upon which God will “swallow up death forever.” Then God “will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people” will be taken away forever.

That’s a nice picture. That one will have a prominent spot on the wall.

The apostle Paul takes a nice picture of God for the church in Philippi. Well, really, the picture isn’t so much of God, but of what God does. And can do. And has done. You know, it’s more like a picture of the refrigerator in God’s house. C’mon, give me a minute to explain.

You know how on your refrigerator you have a lot of stuff stuck to it? I’m not the only one, am I?

You have some pictures of friends on there – that’s Euodia and Syntyche, probably posed with Paul, while Clement takes the picture.

There is a to do list – Paul reminds them to turn that over to God. There are reminders: to Rejoice, actually, a couple of those, and to be gentle. Also, remember, the Lord is near.

And there are encouraging notes to keep doing what is good and what they have learned.

It’s a collection of reminders – a nice scrap booking display or collage.

Then there’s the prize portrait; the one given the most prominent place – the Twenty-third Psalm. I bet some of you actually have this up on a wall in your house, anyone? You may have stumbled when we read this together because you have the King James Version memorized. There is something comforting about “maketh,” “leadeth” and “preparest.”

It is a picture of a God that we can trust, a God that will take care of us. It is a photo of a God who will be there for us after a tough day with a plate of hot homemade chocolate chip cookies and a cold glass of milk – that will restoreth MY soul.

It is a portrait of a God who keeps us safe, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear NO evil, for thou art with me.”

It is an image who gives us what we need. In the middle of all of our problems; a table is prepared, we are anointed and our “cup runneth over.” We always have a home because we “will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

That is the picture we want to have of God; non-judgmental, caring, providing for us, protecting us. That’s the picture we treasure.

Then there is Matthew 22. This isn’t a picture of God that we really like. This isn’t God’s ‘best side.’ It’s a bad hair day. This is the picture that threats are made over – if you show that picture to anyone …

I have one of those. It’s from just before my aunt’s wedding in the late ‘70’s. My dad gave my aunt away, so he is has a white tuxedo coat on, and a shirt with powder blue ruffles, my mom has on a nice white dress while sporting a very nice beehive hairdo. Then there is me – dark blue leisure suit jacket, with a light blue shirt with a HUGE collar, pewter zodiac medallion and a pair of blue plaid polyester bell-bottoms. Not just regular bell-bottoms, but the elephant bell bottoms that covered acres of space. Not my favorite picture.

That leads me to today’s Gospel lesson. Picking up from where we have been the past two week, Jesus is having a ‘conversation’ with the chief priests and elders. They challenged his authority, now he is returning the favor. He tells them a series of parables. Two weeks ago, he accused them of being hypocrites by the parable of the two sons. Last week, he called them bad leaders in the parable of the evil tenants.

But today’s lesson, what is known as the parable of the wedding banquet isn’t about them. It is about what the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, is like. Actually, the way Jesus speaks, it is what the kingdom has become like. He uses the past tense and passive voice. (This is a picture of me as a language nerd.) The kingdom, which we have heard repeatedly in Matthew’s Gospel, has come near, and has been changed, has become something different. It was changed by an outside force. We will come back to that.

The king is having a wedding banquet for his son. This is often connected to the description of the wedding between Christ and the Church in Revelation 19. As is the custom of the Ancient Near East, invitations have been sent far in advance – Save the date. The RSVP’s have been returned promptly. Now as the day draws near, the king sends out servants to remind the people invited to come.

Now, it is easy to see through the allusions that the king represents God, the Father; and the invited ones are the leaders of the Chosen People, Israel. They are the chief priests and elders; the ones that have asked Jesus where his authority comes from. The servants who are first sent out are the prophets.

But the prophets are ignored. More servants are sent out. (By the way, have I shared with you that the word ‘apostles’ means the sent out ones?  Now, I have.) This group of sent out ones bring the message that the food is on the table, and the food is good. This second invitation is an act of extraordinary generosity and hospitality.

Now, up to this point, this is a pretty good picture of the king/God. He is very hospitable and welcoming. This one may go near the Psalm 23 picture.

But those who have been invited can’t be bothered to come. They make light of the event, or go about their daily business. The king has invited them to a banquet; they said they would come, but now they cannot be bothered. Some of the guests go even farther. They “mistreat” the messengers, and kill some of them.

This is not just being impolite. This is insurrection. They are killing the king’s representatives.

But when the king hears how his messengers have been treated, he gets angry. Really angry. He sends his troops to kill those who mistreated the ones he sent out, and to burn their city.

This is widely seen as a description of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Roman troops. The early Christian church believed that the destruction of Jerusalem, including the leveling of the Temple Mount was divine retribution for the actions of the chief priests and elders in the arrest and assassination of Jesus.

The belief that God would use “alien” armies to punish the Chosen People was long held. The invasions and conquering of ancient Israel and Judea by Assyria, Babylon and Persia were seen as God’s tough love. So for the early Christian Church to view the destruction of Jerusalem in that light makes sense. And since Matthew’s Gospel was written to a mixed community of Jews who came to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, as well as Gentile believers, it makes sense that the vengeance of the king would be included. Luke’s Gospel has a similar parable, but the host is a rich man, not a king, whose servant is ignored, not mistreated and killed, and therefore the violence is not met out.

So this picture isn’t THAT bad. We’ve all had our ‘cranky’ moments. And God, I mean the king, is acting out in retaliation. While he was insulted by the guests blowing off the banquet, it was that his servants were mistreated and killed that set him off. Some Old Testament wrath of God was enacted on those who deserved it. This picture can along with the Isaiah pictures.

But the banquet must go on. So the king sends out more servants. This time they are to go to the intersections and main streets of the kingdom. They are to “invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” And they do so, “both good and bad.”

Now it gets interesting. The original invited guests “were not worthy.” That’s the chief priests and elders. They were invited to be a part of the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, and when the Messiah is right there in front of them, they ask him, “Who told you that you could do that stuff?”

They don’t recognize the Son of God because he isn’t what they were expecting the Messiah to be. As I’ve said before, they wanted Rambo in a robe and they got the Prince of Peace.

So now the sent out ones (apostles) invite EVERYONE to the feast. All are now welcome, whether they are good or bad. Whether they are Jew or Gentile, slave or free, man or woman, sinner or saint. All are invited into the kingdom of heaven.

Once again, this is a picture that can go right next to the shepherd of Psalm 23. God is even MORE generous. Everyone is welcome; everyone can partake of the feast.

Here is our happy ending. ‘And they all lived happily forever and ever. Amen.’ That’s a message that is easy to preach – you are all invited, you are all welcome. ‘Come on down!’

But wait, there is more. As the king comes into the banquet hall, he sees someone not dressed appropriately; he does not have on a wedding robe.

A wedding robe was a white tunic worn on special occasions, such as a wedding banquet. While it was not as nice as a leisure suit with plaid bell-bottoms, it was what was expected to be worn. To not wear a wedding robe would be an insult to the host. As we have learned, this host does not handle insults well.

The king comes up to the improperly attired guest and says, “Friend.” This term is only use one other time in Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus responds to Judas, who has just betrayed him with a kiss. It is a term used when you are addressing someone who you do not care to address by name. The king asks how the guest got in without a wedding robe.

Here is where I have struggled with this parable. How was the guest to know? Was he told when he was invited? Was he expected to just know? And since the king just had the city destroyed and burned, where was he to get such a robe? Some commentators and experts say that such robes would have been handed out as you came to the banquet. Others say that the gown represents a baptismal robe. Still others say that it symbolizes that our sins are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, another reference to Revelation. This is one of the times I wish the disciples would have asked Jesus to explain the parable.

I don’t understand how, if everyone is invited, good AND bad, how someone can be excluded, thrown out into “outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” because they didn’t dress up.

But if we look at what Jesus is trying to explain to the chief priests and elders, and to his disciples, and to us, it becomes clearer.

The original guests refused to obey the king’s invitation. They said they would, but did not – just like the second son. They were chosen, but then rejected, abused and ignored the ones sent by the king – like the wicked tenants. So the king sent out others to invite everyone, and they came to the banquet. These are the other tenants that the chief priests and elders said “will give him the produce at the harvest time.” These are the ones who said they would not go and work in the vineyard, but then did.

With an exception. Those who came to the banquet and accepted the invitation have been transformed. They are bearing good fruit. They are doing good works.

This is where my Lutheran background and instruction makes this difficult for me. We believe we are saved by faith, not works. We are afraid of anything that comes close to works righteousness – the belief that we can earn our salvation by doing the right thing or enough right things.

But producing good fruit is not works righteousness. Producing good fruit is righteous works. It is not done to earn salvation; it is done because salvation has been given. We cannot be good enough to earn grace. We can’t do enough good to win grace. Grace is a gift, not a reward.

Our good works, our good fruit, are a reaction and response to God’s grace, not actions or causes of that grace. We cannot redeem grace because we help and visit and provide and care and love others. Grace redeems us so that we can help and visit and provide and care and love others.

Grace is free, but it is not cheap. It is transformative, unless we resist. It requires us to repent, to radically reorient ourselves toward God and God’s will. Being forgiven, receiving God’s grace is not an invitation to sit on our butts doing nothing. God’s grace, literally a gift from God, is freeing. It frees us from bondage to sin to live in service to God and to others.

God wants us to come to the banquet, not as we were, but as we are, transformed by the invitation, changed by being unchained. We should be humbled, stunned by the invitation, honored to be included.

In the hymn we will sing in just a moment, a song of praise and thanksgiving, a celebration of the invitation to the banquet, to have supper with our Lord, we will close by singing, “Give us grace to live for others, serving all, both friends and strangers, seeking justice, love and mercy, ‘til you come in final glory.”

We are invited to be transformed. Blessed to be a blessing. To serve and not to be served. Changed so we can help change the world.

Get the picture? Amen.