A Sermon Delivered by Keith A. Swatzel, II at Centenary United Methodist Church Metuchen, New Jersey October 12, 2008

What is Heaven like? I think everyone has a very unique vision of God’s kingdom. Maybe it’s a mountaintop retreat with a warm fireplace and a Sealy Posturepedic sleep system. It could be a field of strawberries next to a whip cream factory or a big dining room with a never-ending buffet prepared by Emeril Agassi. My grandpa would say Heaven is a t-bone steak covered in barbecue sauce with a Texas-sized helping of mashed potatoes and garlic buttered Texas toast. Whatever the vision, Heaven is pleasing and good. Traditionally, the streets are supposed to be paved with gold. No one cries. The lion lies with the lamb. Heaven is so wonderful because it is the Kingdom of God. Heaven is the perfect community, a city on a hill. The last thing I think of when I envision Heaven is the burning of a city or the binding of someone off the street. Yet Matthew 22 seems to paint this very uncomfortable and disturbing picture of the Kingdom of God. What do we do or not do with this parable? How do we use Matthew 22 to honor love made flesh through Jesus Christ?

The common reading of Matthew 22, the wedding banquet, is painfully familiar. God invites the Jews into covenant with God, but the Jews reject and kill the invitation. They crucify Jesus. As punishment for the crucifixion, God destroys Jerusalem and invites the Gentiles, the non-Jews, into a new covenant, the covenant the Jews rejected. We are warned that we must be prepared for the banquet or God will not choose us. This particular interpretation has lead to two unfortunate consequences, anti-Semitism and a sensationalist focus on the end of the world. Having just observed Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, it is all the more clear that if we read Jesus’ words as a condemnation of Jews, we are judging our own neighbors, our brothers and sisters. How many museums and memorials do we have to visit to learn that it is unacceptable and irresponsible to use God’s word to denigrate and discriminate against our neighbor? I think it is time we reclaim the love of God from this scripture and use it to bless our friends and our enemies.

Let us look upon this parable with new eyes, the eyes of the author of Matthew and the community of the time. Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels. There are 24 direct citations from the Hebrew Testament and over 70 indirect references to Hebrew Testament teachings. Matthew was written among a community of Christian Jews. The tension in Matthew is not between Christians and Jews, but between Christian Jews and Rabbinic Jews. Jesus’ teachings were seen as commandments by the Christian Jews, a new way of life in addition to the Hebrew testament. By contrast, Rabbinic Jews believed that Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew testament are the only commandments. The two groups both are Jewish and they both are searching for a way to remain Jewish and worship their God without the temple the Romans destroyed 20 years earlier. The Christian Jews still follow the Hebrew testament. In Matthew 5:19 Jesus commands us not to break the commandments. According to Matthew, the Christian covenant is not understood to replace the Jewish covenant. It is a continuation of the same story.

Now we shall focus on the parable itself. There are several unrealistic and unlikely aspects of the wedding banquet. The king invites certain persons to the banquet and then sends for them again later. Who sends out an invitation twice? However odd it may seem, ancient Jewish custom mandates that the host invite persons in advance and invite them again when the party is ready. This gives the guests ample time to prepare for the banquet. Then the guests all refuse the invitation? Who would say no to an invitation from a king? Given the time to prepare for the banquet it seems especially rude to reject such an invitation. Even more bizarre is the murder of the king’s servants. The guests turn down the invitation for normal reasons such as business and farming. This leads me to believe that murder is a normal practice for them as well. They are consistently evil. It is understandable that the king would seek to punish them, but why does he burn the entire city? Who will then attend the party? How many guests did the king invite? What does the food taste like at a feast covered in blood? Most scholars believe burning of the city was added to explain the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD. Incredibly, no one seems the slightest bit phased by the burning of the city because the wedding banquet is held right after the burning among the city ruins. It should provide the new couple with some interesting wedding memories. The banquet continues as scheduled, but the king invites people from the streets to attend. Usually a wedding is full of family and friends, not strangers. Also, why does the king inspect the guests and then bind someone for not being properly dressed? After all, he did invite everyone from the street. The repeatedly outrageous circumstances of the story remind us that it is a parable, not a literal event. What is Jesus teaching?

In the Bible, feasts are recurring events. The Israelites observe Passover to remember their covenant with God. Centuries later, as the Jewish exiles return from Babylon, Isaiah tells them to feast on rich food to celebrate their eternal covenant with God. In Proverbs 9, a feast is symbolic of living in God’s presence. However, in the gospels, a feast is a time of division. Who does Jesus sit with? It is usually a point of contention with Jesus’ enemies. He associates with prostitutes and tax collectors, the sick and the lame. Jesus eats with the untouchables of his day. He repeatedly invites others to join him at the table. A feast with Jesus is a universal invitation. Jesus threatens our comfort level.

Jesus lived in a time when the religious leaders failed to live a covenant life with God. Instead they sought security through money and power. The Priests controlling the temple were wealthy landowners and raised the animals that were sacrificed there. They also established the exchange rates for temple shekels used to purchase the animals. They made money off of God’s commandments and the backs of God’s people. The Priests worked with the Romans to keep the poor in their place and to ensure that they would stay at the top. While they spoke of God, they thought only of themselves. Jesus made them uncomfortable. Jesus was not from the big city of Jerusalem, but from the poor region of Galilee. Jesus did not use the law to exclude but to invite and to welcome. He saw a fatal flaw in the religious and political establishment and rather than join them, he joined the very people that they exploited. Jesus declares in his actions that if religion fails to produce kind and compassionate beings it’s a sham.

In the sixteenth century, a German monk saw the religious establishment of which he was a part as a sham. After over 1500 years, the church had abandoned its call to invite all to God’s kingdom. Cardinals and bishops squandered money and flaunted their sex. Priests used their pulpits to gain influence and power instead of sharing love and forgiveness. The church even began to sell forgiveness to the people in an effort to finance their luxurious lifestyles. The poor and the powerless were forgotten and unwelcome. Martin Luther cringed at the sight of such an outrageous abuse of trust. The religious establishment served only itself and when Luther called for change, the church became uncomfortable. Luther threatened the prestige of the priesthood by offering the idea that all believers are priests. Luther invited everyone to come take an active part in covenant with God. When religion is useless, it either changes or is destroyed.

It is so easy to miss the real point of this parable; it is not about being punished or destroyed. A wedding feast is a joyous time to connect family and friends, to celebrate the covenant between two people; in this case, between God and the church. God wants us to celebrate our covenant with Him. This parable is about the celebration we miss if we do not accept the invitation. God has made it so easy for us. God invites everyone to the feast. Everyone is welcome no matter the nationality, gender, social, or economic status. God wants us so bad that he’s going out into the streets to bring us in. Sometimes we refuse the invitation for good reason. We are busy. We are so busy making a living we fail to make a life. But what does it mean to make a life?

Proverbs 9 says that a feast is symbolic of living in God’s presence. The way we live before the feast is different than the way we live during the feast. Something changes. God invites us all in, the good and the bad. However, God also checks our garments. We are to seek a life fitting of the love God has given to us. How we dress spiritually directly reflects the affection and respect we have for our host. We must go to God with a humble spirit, prepared to be transformed. With our invitation comes a responsibility to participate in God’s purpose. As the servants go out to invite the guests from the streets, so we are called to go out and invite everyone to the banquet. To invite is to live. We do not have the right to judge or to punish. Only God the king may judge. Everyone is accountable to God our host to invite and to be transformed by His presence. How do we invite? Who do we invite?

At the beginning of the 1980s, El Salvador was a country in a state of civil war. Different groups vied for control of an impoverished nation in desperate need of help. Both sides sent death squads into the homes and neighborhoods of their opponents to silence them. Every day violence plagued Salvadoran cities and villages. In the midst of war and suffering, Oscar Romero served as Archbishop of San Salvador. He saw the plight of the poor and the vulnerable and he spoke to a weeping people. Bishop Romero actively denounced the methods of violence used by the military in the Salvadoran streets. He was accused of being a communist. On several occasions, paramilitary forces closed Salvadoran churches, accusing them of communist activity. Priests were tortured. Entire villages were massacred. Yet as Bishop Romero was threatened, he would not stop his advocacy for the voiceless and the powerless. He chose not to restrict God’s invitation to the few, but to extend it to the many. Romero pleaded with the army and the death squads. “ Hermanos, son de nuestro mismo pueblo, Brothers, you are of our people, you kill your peasant brothers and before an order to kill given by man, God’s law should prevail: you shall not kill. No soldier is obligated to obey an order contrary to God’s law.” Bishop Romero was assassinated the next day during mass. His open invitation, even to his enemies, made some uncomfortable.

This world expects hatred and violence. To most it seems unreasonable and illogical to think of the needs of others. Our economies and our societies are driven by a hunger for power and wealth. Yet, we are part of a very different world. We are part of the Kingdom of God. We belong to something bigger and better than this world can offer. Our hearts are marked with a covenant of love between us and our Creator. Every day we live in the presence of God and we are called to be radically different from the world around us. We are God’s servants. We invite. As God has shown us His gracious hospitality, we must offer it to others. We must ask ourselves, who do we leave out? Who are we not inviting to God’s feast? Who do we fear? Who do we not understand? Who does this country shun? Who does this church ignore? Who am I uncomfortable with? It is time to reform ourselves, to continually grow in God’s presence. It is time to be compassionate and forgiving. It is time to love and to trust. Let us now go out and invite with our hands, with our mouths, and with our hearts. The banquet is ready. The invitations are written. Who will deliver them? Who will go?