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Ever since I got engaged it’s seemed as if wedding things are everywhere. I get questions from all sorts of people these days. Mostly from people I love and care about, but it’s strange how many mild acquaintances suddenly have such a strong interest in my life. Some of the best conversations I’ve had about wedding things have come from my family, specifically my father. He’s really excited about this wedding stuff. I’m wondering if my dad has been drawing inspiration from this scripture. Everything my dad has been saying has been a rough paraphrase of verse 9, “Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” I think if my dad could he would honestly invite everyone, and I mean everyone to my wedding. He’d invite everyone from our church, my first grade teacher, my fourth cousins, and anyone he found on the street. Meanwhile, my mom is somewhere talking practically about a manageable and more budget-friendly guest list. My dad’s excitement is about as close as you can get to the rampant enthusiasm and little bit of craziness we find in the middle of this parable. Invite everyone. Good and bad, all gathered together in this giant, extravagant banquet. It’s an easy story to get excited about. This is a great vision of what church can look like. As a welcoming congregation ourselves, we can take joy in this celebration where all are welcomed.
Except for this isn’t the whole story.
11 ‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless.13 Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.’
Party ruined. And all over a dress code violation. Seems like a pretty bad ending to a wedding. Instead of wedding planning, I talked about this passage with my fiancee Josh this week. And Josh really, really hated this ending. Part of it was because we he heard anything about the weeping and gnashing of teeth, he immediately connected it to how this is sometimes used as a teaching about heaven and hell. And like I’m sure many of you, he struggles with the idea of a God who would send anyone to hell.
If this is a story about how wearing the wrong thing leads to eternal damnation, then I agree I’d have a hard time defending it. But as I told you earlier, I don’t think this is just a story about your eternal fate. Maybe that’s one of the options. But if the kingdom of heaven is at hand, then this is also a story about who we are now.
This makes it a story about respect and responsibility. The man who came in without his wedding robe, whatever that might be, clearly was not demonstrating the respect necessary for the occasion. Scholarship tells us that the tradition was for the wedding host to offer this wedding robe to their guest. In the story, it tells us that the king referred to this man as friend. Presumably, this man knew better and still refused to be respectful. And so, that meant his welcome couldn’t be extended any longer.
This was still a hard sell to Josh. That is, until he remembered one of the things that he respects most in life: marching band. Until you have a conversation with him about this, you might think I’m exaggerating about how devoted he is to it. But Josh loves marching band. He was in marching band all through high school and has spent time as a percussion instructor.
Which is why he cringes every time he hears about my experience in marching band. You see, in my high school band we were there for fun. Our discipline was mediocre at best. This was compounded by the one year I acted as drum major and exercised little to no leadership skills. Josh’s view of band in contrast to this is one of respect. Marching band to him means rules and structure, and therefore an expectation of excellence. As you can imagine, Josh takes extraordinary pride in any marching band he has been a part of. I, on the other hand, although I had fun, have no pride in my band experience.
Josh’s revelation was that the kingdom of heaven was something like marching band to him. Something with standards. Something to be proud of. Something that you like so much that you don’t care if it makes you sound dorky when you talk about it, but you want to tell people about how great it is just the same.
This doesn’t make it any less distressing to hear about people thrown into the outer darkness. However, we don’t welcome people into a social club, but a church. We can’t be frightened that somehow, by inviting people to join us in the kingdom of heaven we need to smooth everything over and make it nice. There are plenty of nice things in the world. The hospitality that we extend should never hide the cost of discipleship.
I read this parable as a way to connect the hospitality we offer with the ownership, respect, and commitment God asks of us.
What does this mean for Christ Congregation?
I believe that we are working toward being a hospitable and welcoming space. I know I’ve been thinking about how to do that, as we seek to extend God’s welcome to the LGBTQ community and young adults in the area. There are plenty of people in these communities without a church home. There’s a wide variety of reasons for that. One of them is because we are the pizza youth group generation. Thom Rainer led a study in teen church dropouts. He reported, “A decade ago teens were coming to church youth group to play, coming for the entertainment, coming for the pizza. They're not even coming for the pizza anymore. They say, 'We don't see the church as relevant, as meeting our needs or where we need to be today.”
This isn’t too far off from my own experience. There was a part of my youth group upbringing was pizza and games. And that was nice. I like pizza. I like playing games with my friends. And that’s part of the kingdom of God, but that’s certainly not all God has to offer.
God isn’t nice. God is good. God is just. God is powerful. God is challenging. God summons us to a life that would not be possible on our own. We, in return, get to extend that invitation to others.
We can’t think about hospitality without considering this whole parable. The guy who wore the wrong thing didn’t end up in a good place. However, neither did the people who made light of the wedding banquet being offered. I think that’s what we do when we make church one more nice thing. I don’t think that people want one more nice thing either. It should give us the courage to offer an invitation without denying the cost. This kind of honesty and opportunity to serve is a more appealing invitation anyway. The pizza youth group generation is flocking to non-profits at a crazy rate. Because young adults are seeking for a cause to respect. When we offer hospitality, we can make sure to let others know that we are inviting them to something of value. It’s okay to let people know that being a part of the kingdom of God is to do justice and love kindness.
We’ve been invited. Go, extend the same hospitality and invitation to others.
Amen.
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