Trinity 20

Intro: Twice late to weddings, Luke and Megan

What is in the text

Again we are in a part of the text where Jesus is being challenged by the religious leaders of the day so he tells a parable.

Verse 3. The marriage supper. I had long interpreted as the supper in heaven, but many ancient father say the communion table. I would rather not disagree with the giants of the faith but either way the interpretation is about the experience of salvation, that is the foretaste we get here or the experience of salvation in the here after.

The invitation and the ignoring: This is a royal wedding…the people would have been aware to expect it…there was no solid save the date but a general awareness that it was coming up.

A second invitation and the ignoring or even abuse of the messengers. (Law and Prophets)

The wrath of the king. For us in our day this seems over the top but this kind of ignoring of the king would have been quite a slight...

The original guests are not worthy, so they get the low people who are. What we have here is critique of the religious establishment. the ones challenging Jesus, the inheritors of the faith of Israel.

No we have a man with no wedding garment. Not only does have have no garment when one would have probably been offered, he does not speak when asked about it. Is it God wants us dressed up when we come to take communion. Well that is almost certainly not the purpose of this part of the parable. This is much more that the garments of Christ righteousness be on us. How are we clothed in Christ righteousness. I was wanting to interpret this as the righteousness we are clothed in in baptism making us worthing of the communion feast. But that was shot down by St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, and the protestant commentators all. Everyone saw Charity, that is Holy Spirit given love of God as the way to be clothed in righteousness. We wear the garments of Christ by saying yes to the Love of God and having that love infuse us. The goodness of God’s love makes us lovely, love-able, worthy of the feast.

For those who try to live without God’s love there is no place at the feast for you. As both Augustine and Chrysostom quoted, 1 Corinthians 13:1–3[1] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. [3] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (ESV)

There is unanimous agreement that those who try and come to this table without love for God which he initiated by loving us first, will in fact experience God’s judgement. This is why we give the exhortation before communion every week with the words,

DEARLY beloved in the Lord, ye who mind to come to the holy Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, must consider how Saint Paul exhorteth all persons diligently to examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that Bread, and drink of that Cup. For as the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament; so is the danger great, if we receive the same unworthily. Judge therefore yourselves, brethren, that ye be not judged of the Lord; repent you truly for your sins past; have a lively and steadfast faith in Christ our Saviour; amend your lives, and be in perfect charity with all men; so shall ye be meet partakers of those holy mysteries.

Those who feast at the table of God’s wedding supper will be those who are have responded to God’s invitation and are clothed in God’s love.

The center of this parable is the invitation to come to Jesus. Yes those who attend are the least likely, but they do attend clothed in Christ.

The Christianity I grew up in was clothed in a sort of vague universalism. And as long as you embraced the western way of life you where a probably from a Christian Country and b gonna be okay in the afterlife. So you attend funerals where people would talk at length about that loved one being in heaven even though they would have never darkened the door of a church. They where a good person, good Christian family the conversation would.

What we see is that the Pharisees being critiqued in todays parable were from a country that was literally promised to them by God. Their government was largely based on the OT law, but the rejection of the invite to the wedding feast of the Lamb, that is to work of Christ to bring the church unto himself, that rejection ends with judgement, not only that to try and come in your own clothes on your own merit leaves a similar fate.

This parable is a Gospel proclamation. Heaven is set apart for those who are saved by God’s work.

Not only should a Parable about this ask hard questions of the church it should also be a critique of the world outside the church.

I heard one scholar talk about the question of our time having to do with crafting an identity. How can I craft my most authentic Identity. That is what can I do for my greatest flourishing. In fact as far as I can tell we have never talked so much about Identity and yet, we have never been so unhappy. When we create out own identity we try and play the roll of God, we try and create ourselves in our best image. and it fails to satisfy us it fails to save us. We try and break into the wedding wearing counterfeit clothing.

The wedding clothes we are meant to wear is the clothing provided by Christ. The identity we wear is the identity given to us by God. We are Children of God, his covenantal people, the bride of Christ.

So today as the baptised people of God, let us come to this feast, as the invited guests that God intends us to be. Let us