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GREETINGS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Update to the food pantry numbers!!! $2900 plus food
CALL TO WORSHIP
One: In the midst of fear and anger; in the midst of mayhem and destruction, God calls us.
Many: With everything else going on, who has time for a feast? We’re busy, we’ll get around to eating eventually.
One: In the midst of our anxiety, our worry; in the midst of bill-paying and appointments, God invites us.
Many: We are tempted to just grab a bite, a sandwich between errands, a snack we can eat while driving, or checking email, or working on today’s big project.
One: The feast is spread! All are invited, all are welcome!
Many: We are invited. We are welcome. We are worthy.
All: How will we respond?
~ written by Eliza Buchakjian-Tweedy, Pastor at First Church Congregational, Rochester, NH.
Hymn – #389 Put Peace into Each Other’s Hands
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
God, You are the source of human dignity,
and it is in your image that we are created.
Pour out on us the spirit of love and compassion.
Enable us to reverence each person,
to reach out to anyone in need,
to value and appreciate those who differ from us,
to share the resources of our nation,
to receive the gifts offered to us
by people from other cultures.
Grant that we may always promote
the justice and acceptance
that ensures lasting peace and racial harmony.
Help us to remember that we are one world and one family. Amen.
~ from the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council.
Gloria Patri
JOYS AND CONCERNS
Pastoral Prayer Please join us online in our private group for prayers on Facebook.
TITHES AND OFFERINGS
OFFETORY & PRAYER
Peace-Giving God, we bring these pieces of our lives to you. Bless our tithes, our offerings of time, our smiles for each other, and our daily prayers. Let us stand firm in you. Amen.
Hymn #613 Your Love, O God, Has Called Us
SCRIPTURE
Jesus is still standing in the Temple of God, in the courtyard, where people go to debate and talk theology. Around him are his disciples, the curious crowd, and the furious religious leaders and strict religious denomination.
Matthew 22:1-14
Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi continues. He offers blessings and advice. Of curious note, he names two women as those who have taught and led the Christian community just as men have.
Philippians 4:1-9
Sermon: The Parable of the Despot who Missed Christ
I’m trouble by Jesus’ parable as remembered by Matthew. Luke, and the Q-Source, remember this parable also but in a different setting and with different application. Neither is right or wrong. Parables are… the gifts that just keep giving. Stories that we play with like a foldable metal fruit basket – into new shapes. Or a kaleidoscope. New patterns, new puzzles, new uses and insights.
Matthew heard Jesus’ parable and said ‘Ah! Jesus speaks of how Christians supplant the Jews! The Chosen of God were all who accepted the covenant with God at Sinai, and then their descendants. But when God said it is time to come to the great feast, the chosen refused. God sent them prophets. Then Jesus. And finally said okay – bring me everyone! And so the non-Jews became Chosen of God. The gentiles and Greeks and Romans. But if a non-Jewish heritage person accepts the invite, they can’t just assume they’re in heaven. They have to still don of clothes of the party. They still have to adopt the lifestyle that’s pleasing to God. Or else they’ll suffer judgment in the Final Day just like all the others who reject living as God commands.”
That’s how Matthew heard it.
But Matthew likes the phrase “outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” Matthew is speaking to other Christians in his own community, a few generations after Jesus’ death, who have seen the Jewish Temple destroyed. Who have been kicked out of their local community synagogue places of worship for proclaiming Jesus as Messiah. People who are not all born Jewish and yet trying to live as Jews-Following-Jesus.
It’s very confusing. And Matthew takes a parable passed down to him and interprets it in light of his current time, to his current people, giving them hope and meaning.
We can and must do the same. Today? We are not the minority seeking authority. It is religious abuse for us to say Christianity superimposes or replaces Judaism. That is the route that has led Christians to hating, and killing, our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are now the people with power. We are communities made of generations of Christians who haven’t recently converted from polytheism, the belief in many gods, or who have been kicked out of their communities.
We are not the Early church. We are not Matthew and his readers.
But we are still THE church. And we can still read Matthew and hear the wisdom of God.
So where are the contentious points in this parable where the story jumps from reality into the weird world of fable? Those are the hinges in our basket that let us begin to imagine new shapes. Or new images from turning the glitter in the kaleidoscope.
It begins normally. As usually. Normal – a king has a son. The king sends out save the dates for his son’s wedding. The wedding day comes. The king sends out messengers to those who RSVP’d to remind people today is the day! But instead, all the people he invited say no. This is a bit weird. This could happen in the real world… but it would be sedition and look like there’s going to be a rebellion real soon.
So the king sends more messengers. A bit weird. It could happen. Diplomacy. It would be embarrassing for the king to have no one at his son’s wedding. It means no one likes him. No one respects him. Better to really pressure the other lords and affluent before going to war with them.
But the invited go back to their farms and businesses, and the majority torture and kill the king’s messengers. Well now. Although this really could happen in life, it’s really, really unlikely. Clearly the king’s subjects have sent the message: this is war.
So the king answers with war. Prepare yourselves – now we leap so far into the unlikely side that this is now only a parable and not reality. In a single day, the king burns the city of those he invited. Uh – that would be the king’s own city, wouldn’t it? He kills those he invited. That’d be all his nobles, wouldn’t it? Then he tells his slaves to go get everyone in this burned out city standing around on the street corners and invite them to the wedding banquet… which has been on hold this entire day and somehow, didn’t spoil while the king burned down his own city and waged war against his citizens.
Next, – the king gets furious one of the guests dragged in off the street hasn’t fancy clothes on – so this spiteful, vindictive king throws the man bound up in rope back out into the burning city.
…
Matthew’s interpretation of the king as God doesn’t sit well with me at all. Sure, it helped Matthew and his fellows when they needed it…
But today? Today – I do not need a savior who is full of spite, malice, and capricious murder. It is hurtful theology for me to think of God as a divine king killing entire cities because some elders of the city made God mad. It is especially troubling to think God’s going to throw out the very people God invited into heaven because they show up without fancy clothes, or without the garb of Christ, or without enough good deeds to their names.
No.
For me, this parable needs to be flipped and examined to see how it applies to today. It was a useful shape for Matthew. But it isn’t a useful shape for us. Let’s play with it…
First: dismiss the name. This isn’t the Parable of the Great Feast. Once these stories were all oral. And then they were written down. And then they were transcribed. And translated. To make things easier, along the way monks added verses. Chapters. They even added the punctuation. Naturally, they added titles. Jesus and Matthew didn’t title this.
So we can make up our own title to reflect what we think the point of Jesus’ story is. What would you call this story about?
Second… what about those clothes? St. Augustine, a several hundred years after Matthew, also felt the need to work with this parable. He asked – what if the king had made clothes for every guest and gave them out to each person as they came? So it’s a honest question to the man without wedding clothes – why are you in street clothes?
And the man is speechless because he has no excuse. The clothes were literally provided. All he had to do was put them on. Therefore, the king is justified. This saves the parable for Augustine as still a parable of God throwing out some – those who refuse to look / take part in the banquet even through everything was provided.
But how do you explain that “many are called, few are chosen” bit? “Many were called.” Actually, everyone was. But the only one chosen, is the one chosen by the king. And he is chosen for BAD attention from the king. So does God call everyone and man, oh man, you don’t want God’s attention? Many are clothed but one is chosen to not be clothed and they’re gonna get hell?
Maybe, using St. Augustine’s shape of this parable, and assuming the clothes were supposed to be offered, the man is speechless because he doesn’t know how to answer the king without giving the king insult. If he says, “I don’t have a robe because you ran out” he is saying the king’s generosity and wealth has a limit. If he says, “I don’t have a robe because your servants didn’t give me one,” he’s saying the king’s servants are useless or messed up and the shame is again, on the king.
Me… I wonder… Since the text doesn’t say clothes were offered, so maybe the man is speechless because his answer is, “I’m not wearing a wedding robe because you burned down our freaking city you monster!” Yeah. More trouble.
So he’s speechless. What do you say? The last people the king didn’t like were murdered brutally. The chosen man actually gets off really well being speechless. He’s simply thrown outside bound up. He goes with his arms and legs and head still attached. He’s still alive.
Although this is an interesting shape to this parable, it still isn’t speaking to me today about the nature of God, the commonality of humanity, the sacredness of nature, and the divine covenant of among all of us.
So what do I know about Jesus’ ministry? That will frame my understanding. He reserved his harshest words for religious people who abuse in the name of religion. He advocated sharing our lives, our homes, our incomes, our prayers, our hopes and dreams with one another. Jesus did great miracles for the no-names and the no-bodies. He fed sinners and saints alike. But he refused to answer to the political somebodies. And refused miracles for himself. He died as a political and religious rebel. He rose as a specter and spirit to some, in the flesh and body to others, and with glory – proving death, violence, and fear are not the most powerful forces. He continues to abide with us, in the Holy Spirit among us, and he shall yet come again when the full reign of God is realized on Earth as it is realized in Heaven.
We know Jesus would not abide a despot ruler throwing temper tantrums when his party didn’t go the way he liked.
We know this because Scripture specifically mentions a fancy party Pontius Pilate has where Jesus’ cousin, first mentor, and the one who Announced the Coming of the Lord was murdered for funsies. Remember John the Baptist?
Oh yes – we know Jesus abhorred the strong harming the weak. We know we have seen the Father when we have seen the Son. We know God abhors the strong harming the weak.
In this parable, if Jesus is anywhere, he is the man who is bound up and tossed out of the party. He is the man who refuses to put on the garb of the murderous king – even when that means risking his life. When that means rejecting the bounty of the king’s feast. Jesus is the lamb who stands silent before the slaughterer. The Man of Constant Sorrows who refuses to answer the ruler’s questions. He’s this man at the very end of the parable bound up, and tossed into the outer dark for rebelling.
That makes this parable still speak to the religious rulers Jesus is addressing. They may claim their faith is open to all – but then they went and destroyed the Samaritan places to worship God. They may claim they are open to all – but then toss out the poor they invited in for being poor. Jesus is chastising them – saying a faith truly open to all wouldn’t toss out the least. And in tossing out the least, the faith tosses out God.
This is the parable of the despot who missed Christ.
This is the warning to the church who tosses Christ out when someone in the congregation doesn’t perfectly fit.
This is the warning to you and me about chasing earthly glory over the glory of Christ… who is found in strangers.
…
“Let your gentleness be known to everyone.”
“Be of the same mind in the Lord.”
“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise – think about these things.”
“And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds.”
True.
Honorable.
Just.
Pure.
Pleasing.
Commendable.
Praise-worthy.
Gentle.
Unity.
And from these come peace that surpasses understanding.
I hear the promise here that when we give up kings’ banquets for Jesus, and when we are tossed into the outer darkness for refusing to honor tyrants, we find true peace. Peace in the middle of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Because we have kept to our God and not donned the garb of empire or political party. Peace because we’re stood with the least and not the powerful. Peace because God is refuge to the poor, refuge to the needy in distress, shelter in the rainstorm, and shade from the heat. Peace because generation after generation God comes to us, reminds us God knows what it is like to be human, and throws open the party feast we actually want to be at for everyone, including the ill-dressed.
Peace because God has the last word. And the last word is one of love.
That’s my interpretation. What is your’s?
Amen.
Hymn #447 Because He Lives
Benediction
Hymn #466 – Take My Life and Let it Be, v 1
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 