THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY after PENTECOST

October 9, 2011

Text: Matthew 22:1-14

Pastor Dale G. Bauer

Somewhere I got this little book titled Politically Correct Parables by a guy named Martin Walker. It’s the only book of his I have read. He makes fun of the way we redo God in our own image, in this case taking parables and telling them in a politically correct way. Sometimes when you read Scripture with a new translation or paraphrase, you see things you might not have seen before. Let’s take the parable of the
Marriage Feast and have some fun with it.

A monarch, who happened to be male through no choice of his own, gave a wedding banquet in his son’s honor.
When everything was ready, the monarch sent his enslaved persons to call those who had been invited. In those days, it took days to prepare the food. Therefore, the guests would be invited long before the banquet date and then be summoned when the dinner was ready to be served.

The guests refused to come. The monarch, being a persistent fellow, sent out another cadre of enslaved persons with
these instructions: “Tell those guests: Look, I have sunk a lot of money into this dinner. I have cut short the life of many botanical companions to adorn the tables and have murdered numerous non-human animals for this feast. My chef has scorched their corpses to perfection.

How big is our God? God is much bigger, I’m afraid, than we think. God is much bigger than we can even imagine. But we seem to reduce God to our terms and our abilities. It goes back a long way. One of the psalms makes fun of the way we reduce God from bigness to smallness. It says we make gods that have mouths but do not speak; we make gods that have eyes but do not see; we make gods that have ears but do not hear. And it ends with the suggestion that we makes gods just like ourselves.

So over the pages of human history, we’ve made God into many things. We have made God into a god that blesses everything that we do. We’ve made God white, black, and red. We’ve made God into a beady-eyed judge who is just waiting for us to get out of line so he can
squash us. We’ve made God into an indulgent father, who looks the other way when we sin.

How big is God? Agathon, a teacher who lived in the Egyptian desert in the fifth century, was close to death; his friends asked him if he was ready to meet his maker, since his entire life had been virtuous, devoted to keeping the laws of God. Agathon answered that he
wouldn’t know until he met God. He said, “Truly the judgment of God is not that of man.”

How big is God? Well, when he throws a party and no one shows up, he doesn’t give up. Or, in the words of our revised parable:

Rather than letting everything go to waste, he called his remaining enslaved persons together and said, “Everything is ready, but those invited had a change of plans and are unable to attend. Therefore, go into the streets of the city and invite everyone to the wedding banquet. (p. 75)

God is so big that he invites everyone. All you have to do is show up. That’s how big and generous God is. No insiders or outsiders. Beauty doesn’t matter. Brains don’t matter. And bucks don’t matter.

Now some will not respond even to this invitation. Imagine that. Like grace, the party is free. Why people do not respond to the grace of God I do not understand.

However, when the monarch made his grand entrance, he noticed a male person who was not attired properly for a wedding. This irked the monarch, who had provided wedding robes free of charge to the guests.

“Friend,” he said in an unfriendly way, “How did you get in here without a wedding robe?” The person replied, “I would have worn the robe you provided except that I have a moral problem with stealing wool from voiceless victims in order to make clothing.”

How big is God? So big that we don’t want to confuse God’s invitation with indulgence. God is so big that he chooses who can stay. He may be big, but he’s no fool. Any relationship—but especially our relationship with God—is a two-way street. When God’s bigness and love clothes us in white—a wedding robe, so to speak—and we show up just like we were, unrepentant and living like we always have, God is not impressed. He decides we cannot stay.

You see, God’s love, God’s bigness, creates a response on our part. We change. Our lives change. Our behavior changes. A first-century teacher, Rabbi Eliezier, once said, “Repent one day before your death.” And his peers asked him how can a person know the day of his death. He answered that since we can never know the time of our death, it is all the more necessary that we repent today. That is, put on the white robe every day, because we don’t want to be caught without the righteousness of Christ when he comes.

I’ve told you this story before. Some things deserve repeating. Tony Campolla is a writer, speaker, and pastor. He tells of a visit to downtown Chicago, Illinois. He found that he had trouble sleeping at night. So during the wee hours of the morning, he’d leave his hotel to visit a little diner. He’d get something to eat, or just sit. At the end of the long counter, he noticed some women would gather each night. It didn’t take him long to figure out that they belonged to the oldest profession. They were prostitutes. Streetwalkers. Call them what you want. One night he overheard part of their conversation. One of the women was not far off from her birthday. After the women left, Tony asked the owner of the diner, who obviously knew the women well, if her group of friends would remember and celebrate her birthday. The owner said that street life was hard and that that the birthday would come and go unnoticed. So Tony Campollo decided to throw her a
birthday party. He got a cake and candles—and even decorations. The night of the prostitute’s birthday he brought the cake, candles, and
decorations. And had a birthday party. The woman was surprised and in tears asked him who he was. He told her he was a pastor of church. And she demanded to know what kind of church that was. And he said that it was a church with a God who gave parties for
prostitutes.

That’s how big God is. He’s so big he invites everyone into his kingdom, even though everyone will not respond. And he is so big, he chooses who can stay.

Amen.