“You Are Graciously Invited…"

A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

Sometime within the next few weeks, my daughter Elizabeth will be getting her driver’s license.  Please pray for us!

It doesn’t seem possible that my baby girl is sixteen and a half.  It seems like only yesterday that she was just a little girl.  And it was when she was a little girl, in nursery school, that I put on the most shameless, audacious display of chutzpah of my life.  Here’s what happened.

I got wind that one of her classmates was having a birthday party.  And while all of the other little girls in her class had been invited, Elizabeth had not been included.  It did not take long for Elizabeth to find out that there was going to be a party and that she had been left off the invitation list.  And when she did find out, her eyes filled with tears and her face crumpled into tears of hurt and disappointment. 

It is only natural for us parents to want to protect our children from pain and suffering.  And when I saw my little girl's face, dissolving into tears, my visceral maternal instincts came roaring out.  I became the most protective of mother bears, and my ferocity surprised even myself. 

I quickly concluded that there was only one thing to do:  I called the mother of the birthday girl and basically demanded that Elizabeth be included in the festivities.  The mom needed quite a bit of convincing but finally, begrudgingly, she agreed – I think more to get me off her case than anything else.  Not all invitations are graciously extended.  But a very happy Elizabeth went off to the party, believing that her invitation had simply been lost in the mail.  And the smile on her face was worth my lost pride and my audacious and shameless display of chutzpah and motherly protectiveness.

Not all invitations are graciously extended.  Nor is every invitation graciously received, either.  In a perfect world, of course, invitations are genuinely given and joyfully received.  But we do not live in such a place, and in this morning's scripture lesson, Jesus teaches the Pharisees (and us!) about the Kingdom of God, and the invitation that is graciously and joyfully extended to us…again, and again, and again.

In the parable of the wedding feast, the invitation into God's kingdom is told like a king inviting his rich subjects to a party.  But when the invitation is sent forth to come to the king's wedding celebration for his son, some make light of the invitation, refusing it to instead go about their business. 

New invitations are then extended, with an even worse response; not only do those invited refuse the invitation, they murder the messengers!  The king tries one more time.  This time, though, he extends his invitation not just to the rich, but to anybody who will come, inviting all whom the servants can find, “both good and bad" [v. 10].  Everybody is invited -- the rich and the poor, the mainline and the sideline; the uptown and the downtown.  And finally, the banquet hall is filled.

Now, on the surface, this parable seems pretty easy to understand.  The king represents God, the king's son is Jesus, and the banquet is symbolic of God's radically inclusive, all-embracing kingdom.  The comparison of the kingdom of God to a banquet or feast is an image seen throughout the Old and New Testaments[1], and it is a central metaphor in the parables of Jesus' teachings[2].  God's kingdom was demonstrated in the life and work of Jesus, and God's kingdom is alive in the hearts and lives and actions of those who truly follow Christ.

Jesus tells this parable to the Pharisees and the Scribes, the religious leaders who think they have all the answers.  They think they know who God counts in and who God counts out.  But through this story, Jesus is telling the Pharisees that they don’t have all the answers.

The message is this: God's kingdom is open and available to us all. 

And God brings us into his kingdom not through a summons, not through coercion, but through a gracious invitation.  Even though we might make up excuses for not attending the banquet, even though we might RSVP with our "regrets" or choose to ignore the invitation altogether, God patiently keeps on inviting us.

But wait a minute, what about the guy who gets kicked out of the banquet, the one without the wedding robe?  Why invite people to the banquet if you’re going to reject them for the feeble-sounding reason that they’re improperly dressed?

In this story, the wedding robe is a symbol for following Christ's model for living.  In the Old Testament, the metaphor of clean garments represents sinlessness and righteousness[3], and the Apostle Paul picks up this imagery in his epistles when he talks about clothing ourselves "in Christ"[4] and clothing ourselves with "compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience."[5]

This man in the parable is not ejected because he isn't in a suit; at an actual wedding celebration such as this, the host of the marriage feast would always have proper garments readily available for the guests to wear.  But by choosing not to follow Christ's model for living, by choosing not to clothe himself in the proper attire, the man has not accepted the spirit of the invitation. 

To wear a wedding garment is to know the significance of the occasion, it is to allow God's gracious invitation to change our lives and to live accordingly. 

Our gospel lesson concludes with a final pronouncement: "For many are called, but few are chosen."  A better translation might be, "Many are called, but few are called out."  The word for "church" in Greek, the original language of the NT, is ecclesia, or literally, the "called out ones."  The message is that it’s not enough to call oneself a Christian, or to come to church, or to sing the hymns.  God is incredibly generous in inviting all sorts of people into God's kingdom.  But that generosity does not mean that it is enough for us to show up at the party. 

Once we accept the invitation into God's kingdom, we must put on the right robe.  We must clothe ourselves in love and compassion, and in living a faithful life.  God has made full provision for a wedding garment for us all, clothing us with Christ in our baptism and wrapping us in his righteousness.  But only those who actually put on the robe will enter into the joy of the Lord.  For each of us to get into the spirit of God's banquet means to accept the gift of God's unconditional love and then to pass it on.  It is our faith and the practice of true faith that changes us, transforms us, and allows us to taste God's heavenly banquet.

Not all invitations are so graciously extended.  When it came time for my daughter Elizabeth to make out the invitation list for her own birthday party, I thought for sure that she would leave off the girl who had left her out.  To my surprise, the girl's name was on the list.  And I will share with you that I was none too happy about it, until I realized with a start that while I would have liked Elizabeth to treat her classmate as she had been treated herself, Elizabeth was truly doing unto others as she would have them do unto her.  And a little child shall lead us.

Not all invitations are so graciously extended as God's to us, nor are they graciously received.  And indeed, it can be hard to live a righteous life.  The bottom line is that God invites us to the wedding feast.  All of us.  All the time.

So c’mon, we’ve all been invited to a banquet.  Let’s go put on our party clothes!  Amen.