So, I have preached this parable before. I have preached it as it is written and as it is often most typically understood — as a kind of warning to accept the invitation to the ‘banquet’ and to be ready to attend at a moment's notice. That God is offering us a great opportunity, and we need to decide, and decide right...or else. In fact, even this week as I read it I was going down that path once more, trying to think of a nice story to go along with it.
Basically I was thinking about how I actually don't like parties and banquets. At Sewanee, we have a think called the DuBose Lecture Series. The lecture part is generally pretty good. But the banquet part is always awkward. The reason is that the tables always seat even numbers of people, like 8 chairs per round table. And I'm single, so when I go, I'm the guy who gets stuck with someone I usually don't know. All the couples at least have each other to talk to, and they know each other, so they can usually talk about home stuff if they have to. But I have to start at the beginning with small talk. Name. What you do for a living. Where you live. The awkward stuff. I really don't like these things, but meh, there are just some times when you feel compelled to go.
And then in this parable, we have a king giving a banquet for his son's wedding. And people are invited, but have other plans. And servants are sent to round them up, and some of the townsfolk kill them. And the town is burned, and other people are invited, and there's this dress code, and someone violates it and is banished. Frankly it's just a little bit weird and forced.
I mean, who turns down the invitation of the king? Even if one is not a particularly strong supporter of a particular ruler, don’t you think you would show up out of curiosity, or just to rub elbows with the wealthy and powerful? Fast forward a few thousand years and and I can certainly imagine how it might be difficult to turn down free tickets to the World Series, even if you don't particularly like baseball. The enthusiasm may not be there, but you would likely go just for the experience. And if the consequences of NOT going were as dire as they play out in the story Jesus tells today, you'd probably make double sure of showing up!
So this is the direction I was going. But something struck me last week. I started wondering if Jesus might not be wanting us to go in a different direction. I was wondering if maybe there's another way to understand this parable.
Because, frankly, the ‘king’ in this story today is not one that seems anything like the God I have been taught to worship, much less one I could give my allegiance to in this life. This king rules with threats and violence and vengeance.
The God I believe in does not rule in this way, and so I wonder why I so often fall into what, for centuries, has been perhaps the most obvious, straightforward understanding of Jesus’ words today.
So it got me to thinking, what if?
See, there are other ways to read this parable. It’s written just ambiguously enough to leave some room. Right at the beginning, Jesus says, “The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to this” not “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this.” Jesus doesn't say “the kingdom of heaven may be compared with” very often in his parables. He only does that if he's trying to set up a contrast. He only does that when he wants to say, take what we know to be true in our daily life and compare it with what God wants for us. So, it got me thinking, what if.
What if those invited did not come to the banquet as a sign of protest? What if they did not drop everything and go because the promises of the king were false, or because in this king’s reign there was no justice, or because the poor were left in their poverty with no recourse? What if they did not go to celebrate with the king because the king was no king worthy of the title? And while it is hard to justify mistreating and killing those slaves who had no other real choice but to deliver the message they were sent out to deliver, not everyone behaved in this way, and yet the king, in his vengeful ways not only punishes the ‘murderers,’ but everyone else who called that city home.
I wonder if the king was only trying to fill that banquet hall so as not to suffer shame in the eyes of friends and adversaries alike. I'm starting to believe that Jesus was, in fact, more like those who would never have been among the first invited to the wedding banquet of the king’s son, but would have found himself in the second batch of invitees, the D-list guests. And in fact, I wonder if maybe Jesus is telling us that HE is the one without the wedding robe — the one who could not, would not pretend to honor a tyrant king by putting on that wedding robe, a man who stood in silence before the king of this parable's world, just as he stood silent while he was tried and sentenced to death before Pilate. A man who, on our behalf, was thrown into the outer darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.
I have no way of knowing this for sure, of course. In fact, I know that most scholars through out history can make a solid argument that I am way off base in term’s of what Matthew is saying here. But I just can't help but think that maybe Jesus is telling us how easy it is to be misled by the trappings of earthly kingship and power, those trappings that rest on a basis of fear and violence. And maybe when Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to this particular banquet he is saying that his kingdom is found in the actions of those unnamed and courageous followers of Jesus, those of who refuse to bow to the powers that be when holy innocents suffer at the hands of kings who weild power with malice and destroy those who would not do their will? Maybe it's time to think about allegiance and who demands it. . . and who deserves it.
I don't know. But when days are dark maybe it's worth thinking about...if only a little.