This is one of those parables that makes me nervous. Because clearly, there are some people in the parable you don’t want to be – and I don’t know if I’m one of them.
A king plans a wedding feast for his son – this is a big deal. It’s not just some pro forma thing, a head-of-state affair that he wants to finish it up and go watch TV. He’s really living for this. His heart is totally there. And so he invites the guests.
But then comes the first glitch of the story. You’d think people would want to show up, right? I think that’s the expectation we’re supposed to have – people want to go to a royal wedding. But we get that expectation interrupted – we get diverted off the main road. Because even after he’s sent out two rounds of messengers – sort of “would you like to come?” and then, “perhaps I wasn’t clear – do you want to come??” – nobody shows up. And worse, they actively show total disrespect for everything about this king, dissing his property and his slaves and everything else.
This hacks him off, and he basically destroys the people who rsvp’d no, thanks anyway. And then he goes back to the drawing board. Only this time, he abandons the old guest list – he has to, they’re dead, right? – and instead he takes a totally new approach. He calls in people off the street. And they get to be the honored guests. Again – it’s probably not what we’d expect from a king.
But then, as a last twist, some guy is just standing there, not wearing a wedding robe, and the king bounces him for not being dressed right. Which seems inconsistent with the entire story.
So then, what are we supposed to do with this? More to the point, how does it get personal?
Now, biblical scholars say it’s probable that the wedding-robe bit was added onto the wedding-invitation saga by the writer of Matthew. There’s a similar passage in Luke that doesn’t include the wedding robe. But still, that doesn’t change the fact that Matthew put the two together for a reason. There’s something he’s trying to do in telling us this extreme stuff that messes around with all our expectations.
I think that at least one clue lies in the wording Matthew uses. The guests are invited, but more than that, they are called. In English, the parable goes back and forth between those two verbs. In the original text, however, they are the same word – just different shades of meaning, and I think that’s really important. The verb kaleo means to call, to invite, and even to name, the point not being the name itself – Susan or Tim or Carol – but living out of that identity.
Sit on that for a minute – we live out what we are called. Granted, this is a lot of meaning packed into one little word. But it’s important to name because helps us solve the mystery of why the invitation was so important to the king in the first place that he would have acted so extreme.
The king invited guests, not because they were just the warm bodies he needed to make it look good, but because he desired each person. He called them because he wanted them. And here’s what makes sense of all the twists and turns.
Now, the A-list folk didn’t seem to care that they were wanted – that’s the painful irony in this. They were so used to feeling wanted, privileged, that they’d become numb to it. They’d gotten blasé about being invited to the party. An invitation from the king fell somewhere on their list below telling the maid to put out fresh flowers.
But even if they had become numb, the king hadn’t. The king felt this invitation in as urgent and fervent a way as he ever had. So in essence, the A-list people had become so numbed out that they couldn’t feel anymore how much the king wanted them. They’d lost the power of feeling wanted, and in losing that power, they lost the power to respond. Which is the only way they could have ended up betraying how deeply he cared for them.
That’s the A-list people, who were used to thinking of themselves as being at the party. So then the king comes to the B-list people, and that’s again where the English isn’t really helpful. It might sound like the king inviting people in off the street meant he didn’t really know or care who came. No. The Greek word implies that he cared about who they were. He named them, as his guests, and he wanted them to live into that gift. He wanted them to let themselves feel and believe in his desire for them.
And that’s what’s interesting about this guest list, Round 2 – this is the really cool part. Remember, these were not the ones used to getting royal invitations – not only were they not used to it, these were the people who never even imagined it. Who never imagined personally being part of the very best that there is, those who never imagined themselves worth it because the world had made it so clear that they weren’t.
These were people hanging out in the street, at the corner grocery run by somebody whose language they don’t speak; these were the ones mopping the hallways at night, mowing other people’s lawns because they don’t have lawns. They were used to looking at the good stuff from way far off and thinking, wow, must be nice.
And here they were, invited, not just inside the hall, but to the greatest event of all – a wedding banquet. And not to check other people’s coats or park their chariots, but to be the guests of honor. How cool is that?! And on top of that, they weren’t even asked to spiff up, to have the right amount of money, to learn the right language. Right from where they were, however they were, they were called. Sort of a Come As You Are party – remember those old parties from the 60s, when a host would call us and say, Come over to a party, just as you are right now. Sort of like Christ Church. I totally believe this place to be one giant Come As You Are party.
So we get all these people who got to come as they were and be honored guests. And if that were the end of the story, it would be nice neat theological ending. And, I guess, a good enough sermon, and that would be the end.
But, at least in Matthew, it’s not the end, yet. We still have another twist about this guy who gets kicked out for not having the right clothes on.
Now, the thing you gotta remember about parables is that the “morals” we take out of them usually make us uncomfortable. Parables don’t give us the neat little kind of “the early bird gets the worm” kind of morals. Jesus' parables give us morals that don’t let us be so sure of our own perfection.
So, back to the robe. I think the “moral” here isn’t about being unkind to someone for wearing the wrong thing – this whole story is clearly about the opposite. But what we have to remember is that, in the early church when Matthew was writing, the whole image of a robe, of clothing, was very important for exactly that symbolism – taking off the old garments, putting on the new garments of Christ, the gleaming white robe of baptism. Actually changing clothes was part of early liturgy, as a physical way of living into a change that was happening inside.
So the point here is that all of us are A-list people, but – it’s not enough just to show up. We have to let ourselves be changed by it. We have to let that change go from the inside out. The guy got booted because he was inconsistent between accepting the invitation but not letting himself be affected by it – he wasn’t genuine.
Matthew, in his edgy, early-church way, is giving us a real challenge here, that probably doesn’t play so well in today’s “church as an optional commodity” kind of culture. To Matthew, when you get invited, you respond. Not just by showing up physically. But showing up with your heart, and bringing yourself to the other people there. And maybe most important, letting yourself be changed by what the evening brings. That’s what’s genuine.
The point not being that the guy should have looked any certain way. But the point being that that inner response in him would have let him be more whole. More complete, and probably a lot freer.
Invitation – and response. Or – remembering the Greek – call and response. There’s a reason that idea of call-and-response is so deeply embedded in our liturgy, in our music.
It’s the call of the holy, and the response of the human. Meaning, the complete humanity of each of us.
And that’s essentially our great Come As You Are party. But remember – to Matthew, invitation is just the beginning. It may be come as you are, but not Stay As You Are.
So – what do we do with that? Is that … another thing we have to worry about doing right? Or just, another thing we have to worry about doing?
Well, let’s see. Let me go back into the parable one last time, back to the party. As I stand there at this amazing event, with all of the people who were invited in from the street, and I was invited because I was standing there trying to figure out the new bus schedule – as I stand there, I realize something. I got a drink in my hand and I’m looking around at the beautiful candles and reflective mirrors, the people’s faces, the music and the abundance. And as I let it wash over me, all my panic about what I have to do to get in starts to drain away. Because I realize it’s already on offer for me.
I wasn’t invited here because I did something to deserve it. I wasn’t a friend of the bride or groom – I don’t even know them. And I wasn’t dragged here by a friend who was in the wedding party and had to wear a bad brides-maid’s dress. There’s no connection I have to this other than the fact that I was wanted.
That’s it – and that’s enough.
And just in realizing this, the “Not Staying as I Am” has already begun happening. I realize this change isn’t all up to me to make happen; it’s given to me … to experience. And to let myself receive.
So I start to breathe. And I realize that even though I’ve got a crystal wine glass in my hand, some other things are not in my hands – the fears I’d lugged into the party with me. The deep fears, the gap between where I was and where I thought I needed to be, the feeling that, like the other B-list people, there was no way I was worth this. And I realize all this stuff was left somewhere back near the door.
And it’s a little scary. It’s tender to say, I never thought I’d belong at a party like this. It’s tender to say, I’ve never been named in this way. As all of this builds inside of me, And even if I’m trying to act cool, I’m not cool. I’m not sanguine about it, I’m not blasé. I’m nuts about it, I’m over the moon. This is fantastic. And even if my clothing isn’t exactly glowing, my heart is.
And my wedding robe starts to show. And it has the colors of my joy, the shadows of my brokenness, the gold threads of my hope. And maybe my life looks the same, but here at the banquet, I’m know not the same, because the fact that I belong here has changed me, just by my letting it happen.
It’s even in the marriage prayers in the Prayer Book, among the most beautiful prayers that are in there. Just before the blessing of the marriage, we pray that the bonds of our common humanity – of all of us – are so changed that the way things look on earth is the way it looks in heaven. That’s what it is to be part of a wedding feast. And that’s why, to Matthew, the point isn’t just showing up. The point is becoming changed by this invitation that unites two people and all of humanity.
So – welcome to the wedding feast. Here and now – as you are. We’ve all been invited, the good and the bad, and I don’t mean the good and bad people, but the parts of us that seem good or bad, the stuff that we’re not sure is good or bad. Nothing falls outside of God, who is so crazy about us that God’s giving God’s own self as the food at this feast. As the Psalm says, God spreads a table for us; as Isaiah says, it’s stacked with rich food filled with marrow, and the finest wines, well-aged and strained clear.
If you feel like you’ve been invited before to the banquet, then let yourself feel like you’re hearing it for first time, the first time God rang your name out into the universe.
If you feel like you’ve never been invited – even if you’ve been in church a lot – then let yourself feel called. Listen for your name.
And as we come for the bread and wine, let our hearts will be the finest, the most glowing, alabaster, gold-threaded wedding robes, as if this were the only feast that the world has ever known.