The Party

“The kingdom of heaven may be compare to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son."    -Matthew 22:2

Jesus told stories - parables of the kingdom, and by kingdom he was not describing an afterlife, but what God desires life in this world to be like. 

I was surfing around YouTube this week and came across a video presentation of children's conceptions of God as expressed in their art - in drawing or sketch.  Some of the many pictures of God the children created included:  God portrayed as a huge laboring sea turtle carrying the world on its back; God as a bright sun; God as bright light shining through a keyhole; God as a giant head with many eyes all around; God as a snake; God as a tarantula; God as a dragon in the sky; God as a dark wizard shooting lightning bolts at the world.  Each picture made me reflect on the child behind each artistic expression. What pain, what joy, what set of life circumstances had shaped their young conceptions of God - conceptions that usual become deeply embedded in the child psyche – conceptions that don’t easily change or transform. 

One of the images that the Hebrew tradition and Jesus used to express the mystery and majesty, the length, breadth, height and depth of the kingdom of God is God as the host of a great banquet; a great feast; a blowout of a party!  Lutherans, did you hear?  I said “party!”

Isaiah describes a fabulous occasion of God's kingdom at its fullest expression, "the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines... the shroud that is cast over all peoples will be removed... death will be swallowed up... the Lord God will wipe away tears of sorrow from all faces... a feast of rich food and… the best wines…."  It sounds like a pretty wild and crazy time to me.  Notice that God is the life of the party!

What would God and the kingdom of God look like in your picture?  Does God look more like a joyous, upbeat party thrower, or does God look more like a depressing, downbeat party pooper?   I believe our worship, our fellowship, our witness, our corporate character, the manner in which we treat one another, the way we relate to the least and the last, all reflect the image of the God with which we live.  If we have a tiny, small, narrow, parochial, exclusive conception of God then we will relate to the world in a corresponding way,  If we have a broad, inclusive, lavish, loving, compassionate picture of God, then we will relate to the world in a   corresponding way.   The next time you use religion to diminish somebody else, stand back for a moment and ask yourself, "Is the God of the universe really that small and petty?" 

Does our worship attitude reflect the kind of joy, delight, exultation and gladness that flows out of these joyous pictures of the Lord our God?  I pray increasingly so!

Does our fellowship attitude reflect the inclusive hospitality of God embedded in these joyous and inclusive biblical pictures?  I pray it will be more than ever!

"The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding (party) for his son."

As we listen to this story we may hear echoes of other stories Jesus told.  We remember the story about the shiftless, good-for-nothing, carousing young boy who squandered his father's inheritance, yielding to all of life's fleshy temptations, and then had the audacity to come home -- and he wasn't even grounded – and there were no lectures – and no punishments -- NOTHING BUT A PARTY -- thrown by the very same father who had been scorned and exploited by this very same rebellious son!

But Jesus’ story for today has a dark side.  The unhappy truth is that the world is full of fools who refuse to believe a good thing even when they hear it. Free grace, undying love, unconditional acceptance might as well be a rattlesnake by the way we sometimes respond. Like the invited guests in the parable we can think up a million excuses not to come and celebrate at the party of free grace, the banquet of inclusive and unconditional love!    One group apparently was so offended by the invitation they killed the messenger.   I would call that an emphatic “no.”

At this point the parable takes a dark and difficult twist: "The King was angry, and he sent soldiers and destroyed those murderers and burned their city."  

Now if you have trouble with the violence, remember this is a parable, and Jewish story-tellers, which is partly who Jesus was, make generous use of hyperbole.  If you don’t know what hyperbole is, it is excessive exaggeration to make a point.  So, don’t get too literal about the picture, but see the point behind the exaggeration.  And the point is, who in fact are the corpses lying around like so much firewood in this parable?  The point is they were the very people we would expect to be at a royal wedding banquet.  They were the nobility, the jet set, the stars of stage and screen. In religious terms they were the good, the righteous, and the religious in-crowd.

If we take note of the context in Matthew, we see that Jesus was telling this story precisely to the religious in-crowd of his day. He was confronting them with their rejection of the idea of a God of radical grace who wanted to give everyone a free ticket to the banquet!  But was he speaking only about them and to them? No way!

Who are the corpses in the parable?  They are all of us, or any of us who live thinking that it's really our good works, decent lives, moral decisions and hard work that earn us a place at the great banquet table of God. Who are the corpses? They are all of us or any of us who are offended by the excessive grace that flows freely in the kingdom of God, and are more impressed with our own efforts.     

So the king had to go to plan "B" and what a plan that was!   "Then he said to his servants... (If these turkeys don't know a good deal when they see it) Go therefore into the streets... and invite to the marriage feast as many as you can find... (so the) servants went out into the streets... and gathered... both good and bad..."  And there’s the kicker!  If you didn't think God’s kingdom was about grace, now you know for sure that it is - good and bad at the same party!  Somebody asked me recently to define grace.  Well, there it is; plain as the nose on your face – good and bad invited and included at the same party – both getting in on the same terms – by the grace of the host. 

I will pause right here and make the audacious suggestion that “banquet” or “party” just could be, in part, a metaphor for congregation.  Imagine that?  Good and bad rubbing up against each other in the same congregation; dining at the same table; drinking from the same cup; sharing the same loaf of bread; drying each other's tears!   It’s downright scandalous!

We have an amazing God who doesn't invite the good and snub the bad. It's we who do that!  It's we who categorize, judge, pigeonhole and decide who is worthy or not worthy to walk in the door of this church, or the door of your life, or the door of your neighborhood, or who is worthy of mercy, or who deserves forgiveness.

God invites and includes all, good and bad: the working poor; the walking wounded; the bag ladies and derelicts drinking Muscatel in dark doorways; all of them just said yes and joined the party.  "The wedding hall," says Jesus "was filled with guests;" filled with those the righteous and religious in-crowd never expected to see there!   Well, they didn't see them there because they weren't there! They were offended by the idea of grace and that apparently anyone could come to this party. They weren't there because of their own choice. They had other priorities, other values, other more important things to do.  So, for all practical purposes the parable declares they were dead – dead in their own self-aggrandizement.

A friend of mine was telling me about his congregation that had a reputation of having one of the best after worship fellowship hours going.  At the conclusion of the service people stream over to the fellowship hall to enjoy beautifully provided refreshments: an elegant spread of home-baked cookies, open-faced sandwiches, fresh fruit, pizza and more.  Everyone comes, even some who did not attend the service, and, even a few street-people.

This latter group, my friend explains, became a source of considerable consternation for some of the church members who felt rather strongly that this hour should not be a feeding station for the street people. To make a long tragic story short, it created a conflict in the congregation.  So, they discontinued the lavish fellowship time!  It’s a sad and unfortunate real life picture of the death of grace!

Jesus' story concludes with one final ironic twist. The king spots a man who was not wearing the appropriate wedding attire. The king asks, "Friend how did you get in here without a robe?"

In biblical times there was appropriate attire for a royal wedding - a special robe. In addition, this garment was provided, free of charge at the door, for the guest who did not have one.  The idea was to preserve the decorum that went with these kinds of celebrations.

That very thing happened to Marcia and me on a little lesser scale a few years ago. We were invited to a party that we understood was to be very informal.   So we came in our shorts, T-shirts and sneakers - only to discover everybody there was dressed up; men in coats and ties; women in nice dresses!  Believe me, it was a weird feeling! The hostess glared at us as she answered the door – so did the other guests.

Jesus’ parable implies that they were handing out appropriate wedding attire at the door, free of charge!  The man, evidently committed to doing his own thing, ignored the directive and crashed the party!  So, (here comes the hyperbole) he was bound and gagged and thrown into the night.   Again, just in case we missed it the first time, the point is driven home hyperbolically that the only way we are made acceptable to be at the party of God is by the garments of grace that God's gives us free of charge.  If we try to crash God’s party and insert and insist on our own self-righteous and self-serving narrow agendas we, for all practical purposes, have exclude ourselves.

This is a scandalous and outrageous parable that challenges any parochial picture of God that might be used to justify rendering anyone a second class citizen, or worse, in the kingdom of God.   

It is also a mandate for those who name themselves followers and disciples of the story-teller – a mandate of discipleship to shape our communities, beginning with this one right here, around the amazing grace of God – the giver of banquets – the thrower of awesome parties – who wants the banquet hall filled with the whole world.  I hope you don’t have something more important to do!