Matt 22:1-14

“RSVP”
Grace and peace to you from God our father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and from the Holy Sprit, who gives us life, Amen.
Last year Deb and I celebrated the wedding of our son to a very nice woman he had been dating for a while. For those of you who have gone through wedding planning, there are a lot of details to be worked out including whom to invite. This list includes family, friends of the bride and groom, and friends of the parents. It is important that these people respond, to RSVP so to speak, so that there will be enough food, seating, rooms for out of town guests, etc. One of the requisite purchases for this celebration was a handful of bridal magazines. Have you seen the size of these magazines? I noticed that although there were articles for how to outfit the groom and his party, there were not too many about the roles and responsibilities of each member. I guess that leaves it up to each member of the party as to how to conduct themselves. This reminds me of the story of the young usher who had never before participated in a wedding. He asked an arriving guest if she were a friend of the bride or a friend groom. The woman replied that she was a friend of both. The usher replied that the woman would have to choose a side, saying, “ I haven’t been told where to sit the neutrals.”

Such is the case of the man who was discovered without the wedding robe. Although the man had been invited to the wedding, he did not have the necessary attire to attend. He was in fact neutral about his invitation. This neutrality results in his expulsion into the outer darkness. So why does Jesus tell this parable? For the past 4 weeks we have heard a series of parables given by Jesus about what the kingdom of heaven is like. These take place in the courtyard of the temple area in Jerusalem. His audience is the chief priests and elders, as well as those who have been “amazed” by Jesus’ teachings. The purpose of the parables is twofold. The first was to remind the elders and chief priests of their responsibilities to the people of Israel and how they had failed in carrying out those responsibilities. The second purpose was to announce that Gods’ kingdom was in fact here and now and that there was a paradigm shift in the requirements for entering the kingdom. No longer would it be just the nation of Israel and its leaders, since they had relinquished their responsibility to be a light to the nations and the salt of the earth. Now the kingdom was open to all, to the prostitutes, to the tax collectors, to the good people, to the bad people, and to those who were early as well as to those who where late.

There is a part of this particular parable that might strike some of us as harsh, though. It comes at the end where Jesus tells the crowd, that the man without the robe would be tossed “into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.” Some of you might even be thinking to yourselves, “Does this mean me? Will I too be thrown into the outer darkness?” or “Am I really chosen?” This is judgment language, and frankly it is not language we like to hear about about God or ourselves. It is something as Lutherans we do not like to discuss. We want to think and believe that God is good, and loving and that we can escape the wrath of God. Yet we continually find in scripture there is this talk of judgment. It is a spiritual reality that we must live with. We even confess in the Apostle’s Creed that “Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead”. However, I think that Jesus’ parable here is instructive as to how God will judge in the end and how this affects us.

The first and primary word to be understood in this parable is “invitation”. Verses 3 through 7 are an allegory for the nation of Israel. They had been invited, they had been chosen to be God’s people and they rejected that invitation, that call. So now Jesus is saying the invitation is now open to all. The servants went through out the town gathering everyone up, “both good and bad”. So everyone comes to the banquet. The banquet hall is filled up. Everyone has been invited to the banquet. But like modern weddings there is a dress code for this banquet. Today we dress nicely as a sign of respect and of devotion for those that will be married and for their families. The same held true in Jesus’ day. The dress code then was for those who had been invited and were in attendance to wear a wedding robe. This was nothing overly fancy or flamboyant, but nonetheless formal enough to show respect for the host. What was great about these banquets is that if you showed up without a robe, the host would furnish one for you. I know of several fancy restaurants that also have the same policy. That is if you show up without a coat or tie they will furnish one for you. How cool is that?

Moving on to verse 11, we read that the king finds a man without the essential attire, without the robe. The language the king uses is not confrontational. To paraphrase, he asks, “Friend, where is your robe? Why did you not avail yourself of the robe I offered you?” We have to ask: What is this robe? Why is it so important? It isn’t just about showing respect, although this is important. I think Jesus is using the image of a robe as an allegory for what we will look like when we appear before God. I propose that this robe is the robe of righteousness. There are two biblical references I would like to use to make my point. The first comes from the book of Zechariah chapter 3. The writer has a vision of a priest named Joshua standing before the Lord of Hosts, clothed with filthy garments. An angel has the filthy garments removed and tells Joshua, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with rich apparel." The second reference comes from the book of Revelation chapter 19. It says: ‘Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderclaps, crying, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure" -- for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, "Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb."’ Both of these passages speak of visions that these writers had. But they also describe what it will be like when we have been forgiven of our sin and stand before the righteous one.

Like the man in the parable, we too have been given an invitation. Unlike the man, who was neutral about his invitation, we cannot nor should not be neutral about our decision. The parable makes it sound like we have a choice in this matter. And in some ways we do. However, the words at the end of this text tell us something different: “For many are invited, few are chosen”. There is that judgment language again. Although we are given the choice to accept or deny this free gift of grace hear what Paul writes in Galatians 3:27, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ”. Our decision is not the same as God’s decision. This is not about how we can earn our way into heaven. It is about what we do with the robe once we have it on. It is about how we take the grace freely given to us and pass that grace along to others. It is being the light to the nations and the salt of the earth. It is how are we like Christ to others in our daily relations with them. The neutral man wanted all of the benefits of the invitation without any of the responsibilities that went along with it. That is why he was bound and tossed from the banquet.

Like our new members here today we have been given an invitation into the kingdom of God. Not only have we been invited into the kingdom, but we are also chosen to wear the robe, to appear before the king without spot or blemish, to be bright and pure. The robe has been given to us in our baptism, the robe is given to us in the confession and absolution of our sins, and the robe is to us given each week in our own banquet feast when we are told “this is the body of Christ given for you, this is the blood of Christ shed for you”. The good news is that it doesn’t matter what we are dressed like. And just think, at the great banquet, we won’t be seated with the neutrals, we will have something nice to wear, and we won’t even have to RSVP. Amen.