Matthew 22 can feel like
looking at the backside of a quilt where the threads run in all different directions,
and it looks like chaos. Or to put it
more bluntly, this chapter is a hot mess!
Jesus starts with a wedding banquet that turns to a scene out of Lord
of Flies or Game of Thrones.
As the parable starts off you can hear Pachelbel’s Canon in D
playing softly by strings in the background.
You can smell the roasted oxen for miles and miles. The DJ is setting up in the corner of the
dance floor and the disco ball is hung.
The servants go out, wearing tuxedos, knocking politely on the door, and
saying, “The King doth requesteth your presence at the party-th.” And everyone was like, “Nah, just too busy”
and others get downright violent. Good
lord who let this parable into the Bible!
And the king gets upset and sends in the troops, because violence
often begets more violence ~ we cannot bomb our way to peace. After the smoke settles, the king has all
this food prepared so he says, “Fine, go get the least and lost and
lonely”. Which sounds sweet, until one
poor chap gets tossed out on his ear for wearing white to the wedding that was
reserved only for the bride. I don’t get
it.
That is perhaps the
point. We are not supposed
to “get” parables. They are meant to
confound and confuse us. They are meant
to frustrate and flummox us. They are meant to reflect the world as it is, with
glimpses of how the world might be, and how messy (like the backside of a
quilt) life is. Beauty and brokenness
sit side by side. Too often, pastors
boil down parable’s messiness into an easy to apply treatment for your
life. I am not sure what that would be
for Chapter 22? Throw a party, invite
people you don’t really know or like, but become like Tim Gunn judging what
they wear? Or that we are missing the
party because of our busyness and excuses?
Or maybe this parable is a mirror to our humanness. I don’t think the king here is
a metaphor for God. I don’t think the
lesson here is wear nice clothes to church.
I think this parable is meant to show us as we live out the realm of God
we will bring our full humanness to the adventure. Our halos will always have smudges and smears
on them. I am like the king. I have grand plans and when people blow me
off, I get angry. While I don’t send out
an army, I do say things that I regret and wish I had not. I can think I am doing a good deed, only to
judge someone I am helping as unworthy.
Keep turning this parable as a lens for your life. As you do, let the words of Chapter 22:34-40
about loving God, neighbor and self (a trinity of love that is always in process,
evolving, expanding as we explore and seek to embody), let this center/core
tenet of our faith mix and mingle in your life as we Gospel our life according
to Matthew climbing this mountain of faith.
One quick word on chapter 23 – go back to chapter 5, the Sermon on the
Mount and hold the words here in conversation with the Beatitudes. There is a lot here in these chapters and I
pray you will pay attention to what sparks your imagination, stirs your soul,
and what causes you to scratch your head in disbelief ~ I am still looking at
you Parable of the Wedding feast! Amen.
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