Sermon preached October 12, 2014 by The Rev. Janet Zimmerman, PhD
Most of us can remember where we were on September 11. Some of us may have been in New York City on that horrible day when men flew planes into the World Trade Center to strike terror into the heart of our people in the United States. I was on an exercise bicycle and just happened to look up to see what looked like the second plane fly into the building. No one knew what was happening, but we all knew that our world was going to be different. There was almost an immediate call for releasing retaliation against those who had committed this atrocity. Most of the response was around revenge. A friend’s husband saw what was happening in Austin Texas. From his military background he knew that it was not an accident. We did not have details until later that evening. But he knew that there was a mosque near his house and moving in what only be explained as guidance by grace, he called a few friends and decided to go and keep watch over this mosque– fearing that there may be reprisal attacks. Once violence gets rolling it picks up speed and flattens many innocent victims along the way. Violence quickly loses contact with justice. He did not know the people in the mosque. Until this moment it had not seemed to affect him. But he went anyway putting himself between the potential for violence and the innocent people in this house of worship.
We have today a parable from Matthew’s gospel that is a challenging one. It deals with an escalation of violence that is disturbing. In the Gospel according to Luke we find a parable about a great banquet. In this parable a man rather than a king, throws a great dinner—nothing is spared—the best wine, the best food, sumptuous décor, nothing left out. But the original guests are too busy to come. They have some good reasons for not showing up. But good or bad reasons still create an empty hall for supper and when you are looking to entertain on a grand scale—an empty hall is a scandal.
So in Luke’s gospel the man offering the great dinner sends his slaves out to the edge of the kingdom to bring in everyone he meets—so that the hall is full and the great supper can commence. This seems to clearly call our attention to how the kingdom of God works—all are invited—and it falls on us to accept this abundant offer.
But today’s gospel from Matthew is very different. It is raw and violent and I struggled to find God in this parable. This story is powerful. Jesus told this story in a time of great violence in Judea and the impending danger he faced in Jerusalem. He is only days away from his own arrest and crucifixion. I am grateful to Lee Cheek for sending me a commentary that opened this story to a new light.
It is a parable. Parables are complex. The more you listen to them, the more you read and study, the more you pray about them the more entrances you happen upon. There is no one way to understand a parable. Jesus’ explanation to his disciples are lost to us. So we are left to struggle with them in our lives and in how we use them to see God working in our world. And actually rather than you working on the meaning of a parable—parables work out meaning in you.
Jesus tells this parable that we hear in Matthew’s Gospel in response to the chief priests and elders’ question, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” As you may remember, this question is posed when Jesus returns to the Temple on the day after he has drives out the salespeople and the moneychangers.
The religious leaders are outraged. This rabbi has come to their temple, challenged the rules in a very public way, and stirred up the people. They begin planning to arrest him. They look for opportunities to force Jesus to convict himself by his own words. In response to their question about authority, Jesus tells parables that cause their world view to be upended.
There would have been at least three groups of people listening to the exchange between Jesus and the religious rulers. There would have been the religious authorities who represented the ruling powers. These powers were afraid that Jesus would lead a rebellion. There would probably also have been another group listening that hoped that Jesus would start a rebellion that they would eagerly join.
And then there would be the disciples of Jesus who were not immune to the pull of either of the other two groups. To these three groups Jesus tells the story of the Wedding Banquet.
The parable begins with a king who wishes to throw a sumptuous banquet to honor the wedding of his son. The invitations have gone out and the preparations have been made. All that is needed now is for the guests to arrive. The slaves are sent to bring in the people who would have been at the top of the A list of guests. But one by one they dismiss the slaves preferring to attend to their own plans. One group for some reason not only refuses to attend, they abuse and kill the slaves.
This results in the king becoming “enraged” either because he has been shamed or because he has lost his slaves or a combination of both—and he sets his army upon the recalcitrant guests. We are told he orders them murdered and the city set on fire. Are we ready to party yet?
So the wedding feast is prepared and yet there are no guests. The king sends his slaves out in to the streets and tells them to round up everyone they see both “good and bad” so the hall will be filled. But the king is not finished yet. He may still be stinging from the rejection of his previous failure to bring in his guests. But the scene is full of tension. The people gathered have little in common with each other except that they were compelled to attend this feast. The city can be considered to be in flames around them. And, unlike the Feeding of the Five Thousand where everyone set down together to be fed—these guests were not included on the original list. They are there only because the others rejected the first offer.
When the king enters the hall to survey his procured guests, he sees one who we are told is not wearing a wedding robe. He says to the man, “Buddy, how did you get in here?” We are told there is no response from either the ill clad guest or the king and the man is bound hand and foot and thrown into the “outer darkness where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Where do we see God in this parable? We may see the great banquet as the invitation God gives to us to receive his love, his grace, and his abundant blessings. Had the parable stopped after the guests refused—abundant life would be offered. But when the guest refuse the kings invitation the king retaliates against the violence of his guests. Do we see God here?
When the king sends his slaves to replace those who refused the initial invitation, he tells them to bring in both the “good and the bad.” Again we could rejoice in seeing the infinite inclusion of the kingdom—where people of all stripes are gathered together to feast at the banquet of God. We can imagine such a scene—royalty, poor people, people of every age, race, and nationality; men, women, boys, girls, people who are gender fluid; people who are gay, people who are straight, people from every political, religious, social spectrum sitting side by side sharing food, sharing the joy, listening to each other, caring for each other, embracing each other. But remember these gathered guests were not originally invited and one of them will be singled out to be bound hand and foot and thrown out into the outer darkness, because that one has not come properly attired.
This parable should disturb us. It portrays the devastating consequences of perpetuating or escalating the spiral of violence rather than choosing the way Jesus modeled of resisting evil with love. Jesus condemned violent retaliation consistently and clearly, even to the point of going to his death on the cross rather than striking out at his opponents. The God who Jesus proclaimed is hard to see as one who would kill and burn in response to his messengers being attacked.
So where do we see God in this parable? Where do we see the kingdom of heaven to which Jesus refers? I would like to suggest a possibility. In the guest who is thrown out into the darkness we see someone who has absorbed the violence and the retribution of the king. We see someone who has been cast out, reviled, sent away.
This is where Jesus would be—Jesus would be among those who were rejected—those who would be considered to have transgressed proper boundaries such as eating with sinners and tax collectors—and soon he would be sent to his death on the most shameful instrument of torture—a tree—a cross where he would hang drawing into himself the violence of the empire and the religious powers as a common criminal.
Jesus chooses not to fight back or run away from this horrible moment. He will go to his death in love and his last words will be words of forgiveness and reconciliation. He will not defend himself or charge his followers to attack those who arrest him.
By seeing Jesus as the one without the wedding garment we can hear his possible answer to the questions posed about authority. “By what authority are you doing these things?” This answer would have been very different from any answer they could have imagined. Jesus tells them that his authority is not to lead a rebellion to overthrow the powerful Romans. Jesus tells them that instead of a revolution, he will take the violence on himself and thus put an end to the violence that rules their lives. Rather than retribution and escalation, Jesus puts his body between violence and the world to bring it to its end.
Jesus’ answer to the priests’ question “who gave you this authority?” is one of the great insights and also one of the great paradoxes of the gospel. The answer is, “from you.” Because you persist in the violence that has been practiced since the “foundation of the world” and which you now intend for me, my authority comes by my taking on the violence, the sin, the suffering of others. My authority comes from being called to heal a broken world.
Jesus shows us the way to the kingdom of God. It is not through power or violence. It is not through retaliation. It is not through avenging wrongs or reclaiming false honor. It is by Jesus’ taking on hate and suffering and brutality and by absorbing this pain—turning it into love and life. God in Jesus has vanquished hate. God in Jesus has destroyed death.
Violence has certainly not ended in this between time. This reality is painfully clear every time we turn on the TV or computer, pick up the newspaper, or listen to the cries of our neighbors. But God continues to put love in the way of suffering. God continues to put grace in the way of retribution.
This Friday, we got a glimpse of the kingdom of God when a young child was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work for the dignity and future of all children. One child, one person, replacing violence with peace. Malala refused to allow violence to end hope, to end promise. She faced a violent world and responded with resilience, faith, and grace. She has not ended violence in her country of Pakistan, but she has refused to allow violence to have the last word.
We as a community of faith in Jesus Christ must seek to counter violence with love. Praising God we claim that we too share in God’s victory over hate and death. We do this when we seek to greet all our neighbors as Christ. We do this when we mentor a child who needs love and care. We do this when we care for our creation through our choices and our actions.
Jesus confronts us in today’s parable with some challenging questions. Where do you find God in this parable? Where do you find the kingdom of heaven? These are important questions today just as they were to the original hearers because Jesus’s parables always call us into new understanding and a deeper relationship with God.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, *
for his mercy endures for ever.Many of the ideas for this sermon come directly from a paper delivered by Marty Aiken entitled The Kingdom of Heaven Suffers Violence: Discerning the Suffering Servant in the Parable of the Wedding Banquet. It can be found on the website http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper23a.htm. I am also grateful to Mrs. Lee Cheek for sharing this resource with me.