Have you ever seen the 1940 movie
“Philadelphia Story” with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart? It’s
set on the Main Line of Philadelphia, a place that remains high society today.
When Jamie and I moved to Ardmore, I found myself on the Main Line and I still
remember when I received an invitation to have dinner at the cricket club. I
accepted but, two days later, after we had spent the whole weekend unpacking
boxes, I called my hostess and apologetically gave my regrets. I was never
invited again.
In the parable Jesus tells today, the king
invited all the very important people to his son’s wedding banquet when they
start sending regrets. Maybe some were exhausted or distracted, while others
simply chose to be somewhere else. Whatever their reasons, they rejected the
king’s invitation and they didn’t come to the party. Still others, acted out,
killing the king’s men; they were punished and their city was burned to the
ground.
But just as we have seen with recent
hurricanes and fires, there are people who stay behind, even in harrowing
conditions: the least of these, the poor and infirm, who cannot leave; the
elderly; people who for one reason or another do not have the means to find a
way out.
So, with everything ready, the king extended a
new invitation, instructing his slaves to invite everyone they could find. And
this time, the people came and filled the hall.
Our
King, our Holy God and Lord, invites us to a banquet, a feast where every need
is provided, and awaits our response.
Can you recognize yourself in the first group
of guests — the ones who rejected the invitation? God invites us to this table
and tells us to eat and drink and join in communion with our brothers and
sisters but we put something else first, or turn away, distracted from what God
wants for us, obsessed with what we want or imagine we need, or looking for
entertainment and activity that doesn’t demand a relationship.
Or perhaps you recognize what it feels like to
be in that second group of guests. These are the ones who have been forgotten or alone, who have felt hopeless or
despairing, who have been weak from fear or illness. The ones who have responded with joy to the invitation to be
part of this raucous grace-filled life where we are clothed in baptism in
Christ, loved and forgiven.
But the story doesn’t end there, does it?
In the parable, the king sees his guests and
one stands out because that one is not dressed in the wedding garments.
This isn’t about someone showing up in the
wrong party clothes. The parable is naming a willfulness, a refusal to respond
fully to the invitation that has been given. Instead the man appears just as he
was before; only his location has changed. Oblivious to the abundant grace he
has been given, he insists on his own way and when the king sees it, the man is
cast out.
The king’s language recalls Paul’s words in
Romans about “putting on Christ.” (Romans 13)
“Gospel living begins with the invitation” to participate in what God is
already doing in our lives, but gospel living looks like transformation. In
Paul’s words in Colossians, it is clothing ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness,
patience and most of all, with
love. (Colossians 3:10,12, 14)
But what does that look like today? What does
it mean for us to be clothed in Christ as we respond to the grace we have
already been given?
I think it looks like gospel singers who went
to a Red Cross shelter in Texas to respond to the despair and hopelessness felt
by people who had lost everything and bring consolation and joy to them in
difficult circumstances. It looks like volunteer pilots in Florida who delivered supplies to outlying
areas until the big trucks could get there. In Puerto Rico, where crops were
flattened, roads destroyed and electricity is still out for 82% of residents, it looks like Lutheran Disaster Response coordinating the delivery of critical
items including dry food, generators, and solar-powered phones.
And I think it gives us a vision for what it
looks like here at Ascension and in Shelby, too.
It is remembering that God seeks us out and
invites us into relationship again and again; God’s love for us is greater than
God’s disappointment at our rejection and God’s judgment against our sin.
It is remembering that God’s table is open to
anybody and everybody, and in faith, we are clothed in Christ and given new
life; we no longer live to ourselves and our wants, but to God.
It is remembering that discipleship, or
following Jesus, is an active pursuit. God is on the move in the world and
inviting us to participate with God in showing love and mercy to the world.
At a meeting of ministry leaders earlier in
the week, a theologian named Anna Madsen reminded us that we aren’t
“Jesus-ians” but “Christ-ians” and that “Christ” wasn’t Jesus’ last name, but
the word that identifies him as the Christ, the Messiah, the one who was persecuted and hung on the cross but defeated death. She says, “God [is] most revealed in Jesus raised.”[i]
It can be hard to see how the cross is good
news; likewise, this parable has some harsh words in it and if God’s justice
looked like burning down the cities of all those who reject divine grace or
murdered his beloved people, I’m not sure where there would be good news. But
there is.
The Good News is that God’s justice empowers
God’s people to put an end to injustice.
God seeks us out again and again and invites
us into life with God, and instills in us compassion for our neighbor, that we
might participate in efforts to draw our community together and feed the hungry
together;
God loves us so much that we would love our
neighbor and celebrate when he or she discovers the freedom of knowing who they
are created to be as beloved children of God, whether they are straight, gay,
lesbian, transgender or queer; and,
God empowers us by the Spirit to listen to our
neighbor and hear where God is calling us to respond with our hands and feet,
even when that takes us out of our comfortable pews and familiar fellowship
hall.
God saves us by grace through faith. Living
out the Gospel – the Good News of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen – requires
us to be different from who we
were before.
Let us pray…[ii]
Holy Lord,
Thank you for your abundant grace that
welcomes every one of us into your Kingdom;
Forgive us when we say “Yes” to your call but refuse to robe ourselves in righteousness;
Anoint us with the transforming power of your
Holy Spirit to go into the world as disciples of the Risen Christ.
Amen.
[i] http://omgcenter.com/2013/04/18/i-refuse-to-cede-to-death-the-win/,
accessed 10/13/2017
[ii] Adapted
from Laughing Bird Liturgy
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