SHADES OF GRAY: ETIQUETTE IS EVERYTHING

Matthew 22: 1-14

“You’re not wearing that out in public!” is a declaration a wife might make to her husband or a mother might make to her child. What we wear on the outside is exceedingly important to a few, but to others it doesn’t seem to matter at all! Do you see someone people dressed outside and you wonder if they rolled out of bed in those clothes? Pajama bottoms and tee shirts are the clothes some people don every day! And some just shrug and say, “So what; they’re comfortable!” In Florida, to the chagrin of many, people can go out for a nice meal and see dress shirts and tee-shirts on men in the same restaurant. In the cruise travel magazine I enjoy, hardly a month goes by without people complaining about dress codes not being enforced on cruises. Clothing and attire matter to many people. As I joined a special group of twelve on a behind the scenes tour of a cruise ship recently, they sent one man back to put long pants on instead of shorts. The acceptance letter specifically said all participants needed long pants for their own protection around machinery. “I told him to put on long pants!” his wife told us as he ran back to his cabin to change. “He said he didn’t think it would matter!” It did. There is a time and place for different levels of dress: funerals, beach days, banquets, and theme parks all call for different clothing. But people in Florida in particular like their comfort. This is promoted a recreation state! Several church men told me they would never wear a tie again now that they are retired! And they are wonderful men! Does it really matter how people dress? Our neighbors at the Drive-in Christian Church get many people in their church services who go because they feel welcome attending in their pajamas, in swim wear, and even with their dogs or cats. People love that! And today, this parable helps us to consider whether our actual clothing or our spiritual clothing really matter to God.

Jesus is as relevant for us today as he was in the first century once we acquaint ourselves with the leaders, the mores, the customs, and the expectations of his time. The untrained eye hears this passage, and many reach some unfortunate conclusions. This is a parable, but some read it like an allegory. Parables are subversive in-your-face stories used by Jesus to hold a mirror up to those in power. Allegories are stories written with each part standing for something or someone else. In this story, for example, people for years have said that the king represents God. But then we are faced with a conundrum: is this really the way God treats those at a Heavenly banquet table? Some have tried to make this parable be a story about God, suggesting that the king is God and the first guests that did not accept the invitation represent the Jews; that the ones brought in from the highways and byways are the Christians; and the one kicked out—sarcastically called “friend”—is one who masquerades as a Christian but isn’t one. But for today, let’s hear the story as the parable Matthew said it was. The ones who filled the table were both bad and good, invited because the king commanded that the banquet not proceed without a full host of guests. The earlier ones broke royal etiquette. When a king invited them, it should have been taken as a royal edict to be there. What hurt and anger it caused when a majority of his invited guests didn’t come to his banquet. In our day, so many people don’t reply at all that hosts wonder if guests are coming or not! As Mary Ann and I hosted two rehearsal dinners, and one wedding reception over a three year period, we both found ourselves puzzling over invitations when people did not respond, or did so at the last minute. And when a reception hall makes you pay for a prearranged number of guests, the waste of food not served and the charge of $25 - $50 a plate or more makes emotional costs almost as high as the financial ones. It is painful when there are no-shows to special events. And for a king, it is a social disgrace that can bring on responses of decree. “My guests won’t come because of those excuses? Then invite anyone from the streets to come! My banquet must be filled!” Is that what Jesus wants to say about God? Does God murder because of a refused invitation, breaking one of the commands sacred to both Jews and Christians? Or is that just a description of a human king, perhaps one who is losing his influence on his constituents, one who is desperately trying to hold onto power? And who is the one he casts out? Would God really cast out someone with the wrong clothes? And if so, what kind of clothes would they be? Today we will think about new ways to hear a story that has been told before.

What if we think about this story as reflecting human actions, the actions of a human king, perhaps a troubled one, more than the actions of God? Remember that Jesus tells this parable as scrutinizing Pharisees (like elders of today) and Scribes (clergy of today) were trying to trap him. Jesus certainly noted that they wore the right clothing for their office, but they came without the spiritual clothing that is required for the people of God: the clothing of repentance, joy, humility, and forgiveness. But instead of putting God in the king role, what if we put a Middle-Eastern monarch in the story; say, one who was losing control of his kingdom and the respect of his people; someone like Herod? Even in our day, we have seen nations lose the fear of their dictators, or in our country with the recent demonstrations, we have seen people who are fed up with our leaders. Today let us consider that this is a story about the nature of people, rather than a story about the nature of God. A king, like a president, was supposed to be afforded the respect of the office, even if he did things that did not please his people. As this human king invites people to a special event—the wedding of his son—he expects them to come. They don’t. The parable says “they made light of it.” Such selfishness or lack of a sense of duty—feigned or not—caused the king to become outraged. A king in those days—a king like Herod for example—had the power to make his constituents pay for their lack of response; and pay they did as the king sent troops to burn the murderers- the target of this king’s rageful thoughts—so his troops burned the city (certainly the part outside of the king’s palace walls!) Then as those who were left in the ashes found themselves living in newly created destitution, they knew the king meant business, and anyone who was within earshot of the king’s men—even if they never received a printed or personal invitation—attended eagerly. This time they all went because their land had been turned to ash: they would get food at the banquet, of which they now had little, they might receive the king’s favor, which they had lost, and they might see a chance for advancement. But a kind is still a king, even if he is a wicked king. In spite of the burning and maiming he created, he still expects people to come when summoned, and to come appropriately attired! It is a wedding banquet, for goodness’ sake! Most who came that day put on their dutiful sense of respect, as they recalled the Emily Post or Miss Manner’s etiquette they learned from a grandparent. They passed the king’s inspection. To do so honored the king which pleased him. But one poor soul, perhaps devastated by the burnings, forgot that a king was still a king. Like trying to take a behind the scene ship tour in shorts, or like trying to come to a wedding in a tee-shirt, he was not welcome. He had not come with appropriate dignity or deference to his already rattled king. He was thrown out. And in Matthew’s gospel the action meant he was being thrown into the city that the king himself just devastated, rather than remembering his place, and his etiquette, and his relationship with his king at his banquet. But through the ages people have made this parable say that God cast someone out into the darkness of Hell. If we read this parable that way, we have a vengeful God whose hurt feelings cause him to react in humanly vengeful ways—the very cycle of retribution that Jesus came to try to break! Jesus’ purpose for the story is to address Scribes and Pharisees; they dressed the part, but inside they were fraudulent. This parable has a different focus if we don’t call this king God.

Jesus himself, in his Sermon on the Mount, told his followers not to worry about their clothing—what they should wear. Jesus said in Matthew 6, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you as well.” If we remember that God is God, and if we remember to seek to live God’s way rather than our own, we will wear the right clothing; we will be clothed in God’s Spirit, the fruits of which, according to the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If those are Godly qualities, how can the king in the parable represent God? Jesus had many instances in the gospels when he saw people who were dressed like leaders in a synagogue or the Temple look like they would embody Godly qualities, but on examination, they were not dressed in the Spirit at all; they were dressed in the flesh. Later the first letter of Peter actually addresses elders and how they should act (or be Spiritually dressed.) It reads: “I exhort the elders among you to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising oversight not for sordid gain, but eagerly. …And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in dealing with one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’”

Jesus is giving a new guide by which we judge and are judged: how are we making ourselves to be more like God, not like the angry King? How are we showing love unconditionally; how are we doing with our patience? And how are we doing at being faithful to God, not just to human beings or causes? It is being clothed with these that will totally change the way we look at God. Instead of trying to find our place in the empire of a wrathful and vindictive God, we can get written into a different story with a loving, welcoming God. And when this God says: “Come to my banquet!” we will drop what we are doing and go.

Let us pray:

As we think about our qualities that Jesus might call Spiritual clothing, O God, we can now consider what bad habits of ours we can cast out; what harsh reactions we can change; and what hateful spite does to wring the waters of baptism out of our clothes. We can now consider also changing any attitude that seethes with disrespect and put on humbleness instead. We pray for the strength to do that now, following Jesus as our Savior and example. Amen.

October 9, 2011