Two-Minute Homily: CH_ _ CH: What's Missing? U R                   

FINDINGS II

Proper 23 - A - October 9, 2011

Matthew 22: 1-14    

Harry T. Cook

Matthew 22: 1-14

Jesus, still engaged, told them some more parables. "The rule of heaven is like a state ruler who put on a wedding celebration for his son. He sent his slaves to tell those who already had invitations of the time and day certain for the celebration. Those who had their invitations sent their regrets. So the ruler sent more slaves, this time with instructions, saying 'Look people, the dinner is ready, the oxen and calves have been butchered and the tables are set. Come already to the wedding!' But they seemed uninterested and went off, one to his own farm, another to his business, while the remainder of the reluctant invitees grabbed the ruler's slaves and killed them on the spot. At this the ruler got angry and sent armies to murder the murderers and to torch their city. Then he tells yet more slaves, 'This wedding celebration is ready but those we invited are not deserving. So go out into the public places in the city and invited anybody you can find.' So the slaves went and rounded up those they could, regardless of their standing in the community, so filling up the hall with guests. The ruler came in to talk to his guests and noticed one of them had not obeyed the dress code. And the ruler said, "Listen, buddy, how did you ever get in here dressed like that?' And the poor man was stricken. The ruler told those waiting table, 'Tie this man up hand and foot and throw him out into the night. It is there that they'll weep and grind their teeth.' It is a fact that many are called but few are chosen."

(Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook.)

RUBRIC

Addition of insult to injury is the sense of this passage when considered in connection with what has come immediately before in parables that essentially question the legitimacy of the regnant powers of traditional first century Judaism both pre- and post-70 C.E. What makes the exegete think that Matthew may have tailored his version of this earlier Q tradition passage is that Luke in 14: 16-24 uses it in quite a different way, viz. to make the point that the messianic banquet is for all who will come -- no doubt especially the poor and maimed and blind and lame who were the marginalized of society. Maybe Matthew retooled the Q parable and applied it as a vengeance tragedy wherein the occupied and the indifferent alike are shut out and those who are depicted as murdering those sent by the ruler to force the reluctant to show up are put under a sentence of death by the ruler. And not only that: He who shows up in not quite the right togs, it will be for him as if he not shown up at all because he is consigned to the valley of wailing and gnashed teeth. Our blood pressure would soon go down if we examined The Gospel of Thomas' version of this parable, which is almost surely closer to the story as originally told or appropriated by Jesus.

HOMILETIC WORKSHOP

Matthew's use of the wedding banquet story suggests that there was much at stake in his late first century C.E. venue. One is shocked at the image of burning the ingrates' city because it seems so obvious a reference to the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. It could be that this is Matthew's subtle suggestion that Rome was, after all, responsible for the death of Jesus.

So what is the wedding banquet that has been prepared for "both bad and good" and who are its guests? From the perspective of a Gentile Christian community ca. 80 C.E., the celebratory meal might have been something like an early eucharist. If both "bad and good" would be included, it would have been both the "bad and good" of the synagogue Judaism world that were excluded. So with this barely veiled parable, Matthew has drawn a line between the emerging and nascent church and post-Temple continuing Judaism.

Not content to do that by itself, Matthew decided to tighten up admission standards for his communities. Not only was it necessary to embrace the Jesus movement either by exiting the Gentile world or by foreswearing allegiance to the synagogue if you were Jewish, but you had to have donned the proper "wedding garment." Since there is no evidence that a thing like that existed as a requirement for a wedding guest in first century Judaism, it is Matthew's invention. Maybe it represented for Matthew an incomplete conversion of one who came casually to the community's meal out of curiosity. At 1st Corinthians 11:19 Paul speaks of those who may or may not be "genuine" in their interest. In the 21st century church such folk are all but knocked down in the clergy's rush to welcome them and make them members.

The disinvited in the Gospel of Thomas (64) version of the parable are "businessmen and merchants." Each of the refuseniks claimed pressing commercial and personal concerns in declining the invitation to dine. In their place the ruler wants anybody and everybody to be welcomed. No mayhem. It's just that the businessmen and the merchants had excluded themselves. No dinner for them.

If economic and social justice were agenda for the communities of Jesus Judaism, then those whose concerns rising from the desire to protect and enhance financial security made them unavailable to the community's life would have been self-excluded.

Scholars of Mediterranean customs of the time remind us of the means of inviting people to fetes. First came the general announcement of an impending party with time uncertain. When that was finally determined, runners were sent out to the previously invited to say that now was the hour. Readiness as well as willingness to respond positively and promptly was the idea. The Collect for the First Sunday of Advent in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer captured that idea quite well: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon is the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life . . .*

* p. 90

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Two-Minute Homily

Ch _ _ ch: What's Missing? U R                              

By Harry T. Cook

That ubiquitous piece of clich�d evangelism has at one time or another appeared on most church bulletin boards -- go-getters in each congregation apparently thinking they had coined the thing themselves. It represents the faux kind of welcome that all too many religious communities offer.

The anti-reproductive rights people are concerned for a baby whilst it abides as an embryo attached to the wall of a uterus and over the next nine months as a fetus. That concern pretty much evaporates once the baby is expelled from the birth canal.

It's rather that way for church people. They get excited about having attracted a few visitors to their midst, but once the latter become members they should only melt into the group, sign up already to host a coffee hour, teach Sunday school and help with the rummage sale. Those who never do any of that but stick around for whatever reason are soon scorned by the in group as "inactive."

Some churches are alarmed by some visitors. I will always remember the Sunday that a lesbian couple showed up at the church of which I was then pastor. They were not exactly welcomed, but their presence was tolerated. They came because they knew me and of my commitment to the concerns of the LGBT community. They stayed because they were stubborn.

They became acceptable to the general membership once they began to host coffee hours, teaching in the Sunday school and helping with our version of a rummage sale. They didn't quite put on Matthew's required garment, i.e. demonstrate total conformity, but they made up for that lack by shouldering a lot of the work burden. Who says salvation is only by faith?

In the 21st century, the reality for organized religion is that its institutions must make their way in a free-market environment. They can't compel people to come. Only the most rigidly orthodox congregations deliberately exclude people different in some way from themselves. Just take a ride through any part of any city and count how many church bulletin boards display such legends on them as "ALL ARE WELCOME," and "A WARM WELCOME AWAITS YOU" and the already mentioned groaner: "CH_ _CH: WHAT'S MISSING? U-R."

Some churches still practice what is known as "closed communion," meaning, in the case of the Catholic faithful, that they must have been baptized Catholic and ideally have made a recent confession in order to take communion. In other denominations, persons coming to the altar must be vetted and registered members who have embraced the denomination's principles. Many are called and few are chosen.

The mega-churches throw open their doors to everybody. The fact that they generally enjoy larger audiences than conventional churches suggests that the "y'all come" strategy works because the visitor can get lost in the crowd and generally escape persistent invitations to "get involved" or "make a commitment" -- the desideratum of church enthusiasts.

To those who for any reason have been excluded by whatever means from a congregation's life, I say: Shake the dust of those places off your feet and make certain that the door doesn't hit you in the back on your way out. They didn't choose you? Don't choose them. You've been thrown out of better places.