Pentecost XIX - Matthew 22:1-14
Jesus’ Preoccupation Is Far Greater Than Our Own
+ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. +
In today’s Gospel reading, as we have the past several Sundays, we find Jesus preoccupied with the kingdom of heaven in His parables. Are you a decliner, or a recliner? Are you an ascender or a pretender? Jesus is asking you these questions this morning in His parable of the wedding feast.
In the parable, we see the king send out servants with personal invitations to his son’s wedding feast. The people so honored to be guests of the king have some pretty shocking reactions to the invitation! Have you ever received an invitation to an event that you knew you really ought to attend, but to which you just didn’t want to go? We make all sorts of excuses! Perhaps some of them are even true. “No, I’m sorry, I already have an invitation to another dinner that evening – it would be rude to cancel.” “I have to work late, no way out of it!” “Oh thank goodness! I’m scheduled to have a root canal that day, I can’t possibly attend!”
Yes, our excuses can be pretty lame. Even ridiculous sounding to our own ears. Look at the way the bearers of the wedding invitation are treated in the parable! The first group simply doesn’t come.
We are so busy today, pulled in many directions at once. We’re preoccupied with things we think we need rather than truly needful things that can heal us, body and soul. We juggle schedules and precious minutes for ourselves, our employers, our children, even our grandchildren. It is said that the most productive people manage their time in five-minute increments! Five minutes! God’s time-scale is quite a bit longer. We wonder when things will ever settle down. We long for something to grab hold of, a quiet eddy in the midst of a raging river of time trying to carry us all along. We become so wrapped up in the mundane (which can seem at the moment to be the most important things that there are!) that we fail to take advantage of the opportunity to rest we are provided. We don’t even recognize it for what it is – it just appears as another item on our already long list of preoccupations. Too often, it becomes the one for which excuses are made in order to scratch it off the list. Are we as preoccupied with spending time in the Word of God as we should? Are we preoccupied with receiving forgiveness of our sins? Isn’t it a good thing that Jesus is more preoccupied with offering us His salvation than we are with all the preoccupations of our own making! Isn’t it the very definition of merciful that Christ’s time-scale is measured in infinities and eternities than mere minutes?
This celebration to which we are invited is not just an opportunity for rest and restoration, but a feast! A wedding banquet! The king next sends more servants to invite others to the feast. He seeks us out – just like the laborers waiting around had to be invited to work in the vineyard! He says “look how sumptuously I have set my table – the best cuts of meat! The freshest bread! The finest wine! Everything is ready! Come on in!” Jesus tells us this next group is preoccupied with mundane things: taking care of the farm, business dealings. Everyday things far less grand than an invitation personally prepared and sent by the king! What preoccupies us when we receive the invitation to the wedding feast of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?1 Jesus tells us the ungrateful invitees go so far as to beat up and even kill the messengers of the king!
Well, we certainly don’t kill the messengers bringing us the good news of salvation in Christ, do we? Or, aren’t we really killing ourselves when we reject the invitation to rest and feast? That’s what will happen to those who decline the invitation. Is the fear of death enough to bring you into the banquet? Look at all the souls in the fires in California. Nearly one-hundred dead, and hundreds of others are simply… lost! But God knows where they are! All their distractions?! Gone in an instant. Just that quickly, none of those things matter. When we look at what we make a priority in our lives – not just on Sunday – but every moment of every day, we see that we are not fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things as the Catechism teaches us. When we fail to take the invitation to heart, we become a decliner. We say we don’t really believe that what God has for us is true. When we stand idly by as our neighbor – even our own family members – reject the invitation, we allow them to decline His most gracious invitation. If the invitation is rejected, the king will count us with the first group that refused – we are judged not worthy. Not because of our actions – but because of our refusal of the invitation of mercy.
And what could be more inviting than the feast He has prepared for us? Again, the king sends out messengers! This time he orders: “Everyone is invited!” The original word used in the parable is very interesting. It means “go out and continue to go out without ceasing”2 until the banquet hall is full! God not only prepares the feast but opens his banquet hall to everyone. The Lord truly wishes for everyone to recline at the table, not decline His gracious invitation. And before you can say “but I don’t have a thing to wear!” He provides you with the wedding garment. The Host is completely preoccupied with filling the seats at the table.
Do we take our place at the table, here, reclining and gratefully receiving that which is a foretaste of the wedding feast that never ends in heaven? Do we gratefully repent of our sins, receive forgiveness and the promise to ascend to our place at the eternal table? Things will not go well for those who decline the invitation. The decliners in the parable blew off the message – they had more important things to do! Or so they thought. Those who ignored the message and killed the messengers were killed themselves. Their cities were burned! Everything that had preoccupied them was destroyed. This is a message for our own time as well! Everything of this world that now preoccupies us will pass away. Just like the people affected by the fires, all of it gone in the blink of an eye. In an instant, you will be faced with the eternal consequence. There is no time to make a decision. Either you accept the invitation, or you reject it. God chose you! When you receive the invitation, don’t decline it! Accept it with joy!
When we finally enter the hall, are we ready to recline at table with Jesus, or are we just pretenders? In the parable, the king looked out among his assembled guests and noticed one who was not properly dressed. He was a pretender. The king even gave him the correct clothes to wear to the wedding, as was the custom in those times. Jesus is talking about clothing us in the garment of salvation, covering our sinful condition with the robe of His righteousness. The king in the parable saw that the pretender had rejected the wedding clothes, literally “having not been garmented.”3 The king was speechless because the pretender rejected the gift of salvation, thinking he could stand on his own before God. Like those who killed the messengers, things went poorly for him as well. Cast into the outer darkness where there are only tears and the grinding of teeth.
And still, the king continues to call for guests for his son’s wedding feast. He tells his servant to go down every side street and alley, collecting both the good and the bad, and inviting them in. He shrouds them in the gift of righteousness which they gladly accept.
Don’t refuse to be humbled by God’s mercy. C. S. Lewis once said: “A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”4 Don’t try to build your own kingdom. Don’t be a preoccupied pretender! We all say “But, wait! We’re all very busy here! We have things to do!” And yes, we are busy. Being busy with the preoccupations of this world shoves the forever kingdom of God aside because human hearts think the attention of this world are more worthy.
We are the ones down the side streets, down the dirty alleys of sin, clothed in rags. But the king extends his invitation to you. Over and over again. In spite of ourselves, he offers us the robe of righteousness and salvation. Jesus says “I have found you!” and we can begin to learn to be preoccupied with the kingdom of heaven. It is at the invitation of Christ that He absolves us of all our worldly preoccupations, and invites us to recline at table with Him in eternity.
It is only when we give up control and put our trust in Christ that we find to our amazement that the kingdom is already here, for us! Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, put it well: “We shall not find life by refusing to let go of our precious, protected selves.”5 Sit, rest. Eat and be refreshed and healed. Let your preoccupations go, and let Jesus keep the kingdom in perspective for you! It is yours because Jesus sought you out, and blanketed you with His salvation. Sing again loudly with Isaiah, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”6
+ In the Name of Jesus, Amen. +
Now may the peace which surpasses all human understanding keep your hearts and your minds
focused on Christ Jesus.
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+ Amen +
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κήρυξον τὸν λόγον
[1] John 1:29.
[2] Matthew 22:9 - πορεύεσθε; poreuesthe. from πορεύομαι (poreuomai: come, go, travel) verb, finite, 2nd person plural, present, imperative deponent. “Go out now, and continue going out without stopping!”
[3] Matthew 22:11 - ἐνδεδυμένον; endedymenon. from ἐνδύω (endyō – to clothe): verb, participle, accusative, singular perfect passive deponent. The receipt of the garment is a passive act, one is given the garment – he does not seek to obtain it for himself. Likewise, to refuse the garment is beyond scandalous!
[4] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/cslewis105357.html
[5] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rowanwilli219429.html
[6] Isaiah 61:10.