The Proper of the Day: Penteccost XXII

Yesterday was a long day, but good too. We gathered to encounter the Word in word and Sacrament - and this week the Gospel has got some of Metthew's "hard words" to deal with. See what you think. As always, I welcome your feedback!

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Vernon
Proper 23A RCL 2008
Ex 32:1-14; Ps 106:1-6, 19-23; Phil 4:1-9; Matt 22:1-14
The Rev. R. F. Solon, Jr., Vicar

May the words of my mouth, and meditation of all our hearts, be always acceptable in your site, O Lord our Redeemer, Amen.

When I was on vacation two weeks ago I visited my parents in Toledo. It was a good visit, except for the driving part! During part of my time there I had the opportunity to look through some of the family pictures from years past. It was very nostalgic in lots of ways to see pictures of me and my brother and parents during the holidays and stuff. Chad is twelve years younger than I am, and it was fascinating to see some of his baby pix in my minds eye when I had lunch with him later in the week! But what really has stuck in my mind are some pictures of weddings we went to when I was growing up. There was one with my uncle Denny – I was in the wedding party and we had to wear what we would now think are truly atrocious ruffles and a top hat with a walking stick. I think I was ten or so. There was another one with my cousin Celia – I vaguely remember that one. She was older too and so I might have been 12. There was my other cousin Kevin’s wedding too – it was bitterly cold and wasn’t even that fun, as far as I could recall. The truly oddest one, in a way, was the wedding of my own parents! It was a fall wedding, in October, and the wedding colors were exactly the colors of the leaves right now. I was also in that wedding party, too, and no, it’s not what you might be thinking! This was my father’s second marriage and I was five. I don’t remember too many details because I sort of didn’t quite understand what was going on until later. And thinking back on it, it was kind of a surreal experience, going to your own parents’ wedding.

Some of the details of the wedding we heard about in today’s passage from Matthew are pretty surreal, too. The parable starts normally enough. There’s a king, and his son is getting married, and invitations to the feast get sent out. Now in those days it was customary to get rsvp’s back, plan the banquet, and then send out a reminder closer to the day of the wedding. If you’re a king, you don’t need mail or email, you have your slaves go out. But for whatever reason, the invited guests blow the king off. They apparently have other stuff to do that’s more important. That’s the first odd detail. Remember that, like at the wedding at Cana, that weddings, especially royal ones, lasted several days and the parties were umbelievable. So the king got everything ready for the big multi-day dinner, and sent some more slaves, and, like in the parable of the vineyard, some of these get mistreated or even killed. That’s where it starts to get even more unreal. You don’t go around mistreating the king’s own slaves, after all! That’s sort of like beating up the mailmen. But then it gets even more strange, and rather bloody besides. While dinner is apparently more or less on the table, the king sent his soldiers to kill the guests and burn their city. Probably, this verse refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 and might be a later addition into the story. It’s hard to tell, though, and in any case the point is that the king is not a happy camper. So he’s got all this food and wine, maybe a nice orchestra, all camped out for a week or more, and he tells his slaves to literally go pull people off the street to come to the feast. And as Matthew notes, “Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.” Can you imagine having a week-long wedding reception at say, the Highland Lakes Clubhouse and just asking anyone to come in?

And here’s the next bizarre part of the story. The king comes in and sees one of the guests without a suit on. He asks him about it, and the guest has nothing to say. Now remember that this guy got his invitation, at the earliest, the same day. I can picture our guest going out for a donut, unshaven, wearing some old 501s, favorite rock band t-shirt, and maybe some flip flops, when all of a sudden a bus pulls up on a street corner and the driver says, “Come on, get in, there’s a great party over at the palace and the kings is having everyone in!” In jumps our guest in whatever he has on, and off he goes right to the great hall. But the king has him bounced out of the feast anyway, just like at a club in Midtown Manhattan or someplace. I’m reminded of my cousin Kevin’s wedding, where it was nice and warm inside the reception and below zero and snowy outside. “Many are called, by few are chosen,” are the concluding words of this parable.

This is, once again, an example of one of Matthew’s hard sayings. There are more coming up before all is said and done. Sometimes it’s easy to see the Good News in a particular parable or other passage from the Gospels. Other times it isn’t, and this seems like one of those. What’s going on here?

The first thing to note is that Jesus is still talking to the Pharisees and the scribes, his sworn enemies. This is the third parable he tells them, all after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, so this might be only two or three days before the last Supper and the Crucifixion. Just like last week’s parable of the tenants in the vineyard and the story of the two sons the week before, the major point of this story is of an allegory of salvation history. The wedding banquet is the end time – after space and time has ended, when all are brought into judgment, and those judged worthy get to sit down to the banquet. God is the king, Jesus is the son, the slaves are not only prophets from the Old Testament times but also Christian missionaries later on, and the first round of invitees are the scribes and Pharisees themselves. Well, they don’t seem to be accepting the Good News of God’s love, and so other people – you and me, the guests pulled in off the street, are invited to the wedding instead. So far so good. But who is the guest caught in t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops? What’s that supposed to represent?

Well, here’s where it’s both Good News and also hard news. The wedding garment the guest is lacking can be thought of as putting on the new clothes of salvation - you have to take off your old clothes if you want to put on new ones. It was the earliest practice of Christianty that people took off their old clothes, were baptized naked, and then put on a white baptismal robe to signify their new life in Christ. It may be that this practice has an echo in this parable. But the new clothes of salvation, for Matthew, are not merely the acceptance of the invitation. That’s where “many are called” comes in. Everyone, absolutely everyone, rich or poor, gay or straight, Republican, Democrat, Independent, white, black, men, women, are invited to God’s great celebration of new and renewed life. And that’s the Good News! God constantly calls to you and to me and says, “Hey, come to my dinner – I have all sorts of good things for you!" That’s what Jesus did – he issued a standing invitation to come to God’s wedding hall and dig in. And at the wedding each of us is given a white wedding garment to wear. Think of that as both baptism itself and more importantly, the baptismal covenant we renew several times a year. We’re given the garment and we’re expected to wear it. We don’t have to, it’s always our choice. But putting it on means taking off our old clothes first, the old clothes of not respecting the dignity of every human being, of not continuing in the apostles’ teaching and the breaking of bread, of not seeking and serving Christ in all persons, and the other things we sign up for that we say we agree with and that we will do. Matthew is very concerned that the grace of salvation gets acted on, and the little vignette about the wedding guest with crummy clothes is nothing less than a representation of one who just shows up and expects to be saved, without any expectation of doing anything else. Just because we get an invitation doesn’t mean we can show up in any old thing we want to wear. Just because we know we are saved, that we are in right relation with God, doesn’t mean we can just sit back at the banquet and chow down.

The wedding garment here is nothing less than the good works that we prayed for earlier this morning. “We pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works.” Notice that grace comes first. That’s so important! We are given the gift of salvation and it actually surrounds us and permeates us. Our good works don’t earn us grace, our good works are in response to grace. Our prayer is that this grace will inspire in each of us ways to show that God’s love is active right now, by extending God’s love out from each of us into the world we live in. And what’s completely wonderful is that we have a prequel of the wedding banquet that we’re invited to, every time we gather here in this place. Our Eucharist is nothing less than a preview, an appetizer, if you will, of that same wedding feast Jesus told us about in this parable. And like all food and drink, this holy meal nourishes us and strengthens us. “Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength, for pardon only, and not for renewal.” Strength and renewal go along with getting a wedding garment, and it’s what we need to do those good works we just prayed that we want to, in fact, do.

And what is that? As I mentioned earlier, putting on the wedding garment means accepting what we signed up for when we were baptized or when we are confirmed. It’s a set of values that are at times completely antithetical to the values of the world around us. It’s seeing a need, here in St. Thomas’ or in the community, on in someone you know, or perhaps people you may never meet, and helping out in whatever ways you can to live out salvation right in your life. That’s what Jesus means when he talks about wearing the wedding garment. Each of us is given one, and we have to put it on – we’re asked to live out our wedding invitation. Each of us has different gifts that God us to do this – it’s part of the grace that precedes and follows us, because gifts, like grace itself, are unearned. Perhaps you have a special ability that know is useful and needed by the community. Perhaps you have the gift of time that you are offering for the ongoing ministries of St. Thomas’s or in the township. Perhaps you have a good income that you are contributing to the material fabric of the parish and support of the ministries. For most of us, it’s some combination of time, talent and treasure that at various times in our lives we can bring. Whatever it is, it’s valuable. And I want to thank and acknowledge whatever it is you are offering now. All of it is helping to build up this community of St. Thomas’s and is needed and helpful. In God’s eyes, there are no unworthy contributions at all. Everyone is invited to the Feast, and everyone’s offerings are valued and valuable too. That’s the flip side of the Good News. With great privilege - the good news that we are made right with God and each other, in Jesus - comes great responsibility, that we actually have to act like it.

I still remember how odd it was to stand there next to my Dad and his girlfriend in my own little tux. Going to your own parents’ wedding as a five year old is definitely a bit surreal, at least if you’re five. I often am mindful of that event in my life when I read about the surreal wedding of the king. The invitations, the over-the-top destruction of the city and then the weird treatment of the wedding guest. But the strangeness is the point. I wore a tuxedo back when I was five. Each of us is also invited to an ongoing wedding, and that feast starts right here. But if we go, we’re expected to get dressed up first. That starts here too. How can each of us daily live out the invitation we have been given, inviting others to the very same feast that we already have a standing invitation to?

Amen.

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

RFSJ

The Proper of Yesterday: The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Weeds by Ian Polluck

Yesterday we at St. Thomas's gathered as Christians do on the Lord's Day for Word and Sacrament. We're trying a Summer Schedule of 1 service at 9 AM with less music rather than our usual schedule of 2 services at 8 and 10. Seems to be so far, so good, but I haven't really gotten any feedback yet. But I had to pack and get out to Cross Roads Camp and Conference Center, where I am serving as Visiting Chaplain this week. So here's my sermon notes from yesterday. My continued apologies for the bulleting - I will try to work on it later.



St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Vernon
Proper 11A RCL 2008
Gen 28:10-19a; Ps 139:1-11, 22-23; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
The Rev. R. F. Solon, Jr., Vicar


May these words be in the Name of Him who knows both the weeds and the wheat in all of us, Amen!

· Bread
o A basic human necessity in the West.
o All kinds – white, wheat, rye, various artisan breads
o My fave is sourdough, by the way
o It smells great when it’s baked
o Can add all kinds of things to it – raisins, nuts, fruit, (then it’s fruitcake and lasts forever)
o Amazing how we figured out about bread
o Ever stop to think about food and how it came about….

· Bread made from wheat, usually, but can be made from potatoes and stuff too

· Obviously important in Jesus’ day, here’s another parable about it.
o Last week the seeds were not really named, just implicitly valuable.
o This week it’s clearly about wheat
o (recount the parable)
· Parables are meant to point away from themselves

· In this case something about the Kingdom of Heaven – pretty explicit, J says so

· All of chapter 13 is about why not everyone is rushing to hear and accept the Good News.

· Last week we discovered that even then the Word is spread about like seed before the wind, not everyone receives it.

· This week it’s about judgement – how long will things go on?
o Definite end – “the end of the age”
o Sorting of the weeds and wheat
o Pretty harsh language about those who are seem to be weeds
o Barns for the wheat, the furnace of fire for the weeds

· Two ideas here
o We’re not doing the sorting – God is!
§ Not to judge ourselves, God will do that
o Time is not determined – when the harvest is ripe

· We are not to be the sorters!
o We may be wheat, or we may be weeds, but the parable is explicit about letting them grow up together
o Not the best farming practice, but then J was a carpenter, after all!

· But what about this Judgment? Is this Hell?

· Lots of different ideas about this
o I don’t usually talk about Hell
o J doesn’t much either, but in Matthew he does
· This is a passage that really suggests that there will be some sort of time after sorting that is nasty to the weeds and good to the wheat

· This is where I’m supposed to ask you whether you are weeds are wheat. Except I’m not going to.

· Here’s what I believe, which I think is consistent with all of Scripture and of what I know and understand to be God’s will for us in Jesus:

· Sorting – judgment, if you will, happens in an ongoing way, by individuals who decide they do not want to be art of God’s economy and so disconnect themselves from God.

· God, as far as we can see, is putting off the assertion of his own omni-ness in creation for some indeterminate time. That’s why the end of the age hasn’t come yet. Perhaps – and we’ll never know – he’s waiting for us to get our acts together.

· In the meantime, each of us are indeed called to be wheat – to be fruit of 30, 60, or 100x.

· Mission of the Church is to reconcile all to God and each other in JC – that’s what being wheat is about – to proclaim God’s love we already know to the world.

· We already know people respond differently. We know now it isn’t up to us in or out of the church to judge how people respond or not. Our job is to concentrate on living out our lives as faithful followers of JC.

· Does not mean, btw, that anything goes
o Addiction, violence, destructive behanvior to self or others or the community – must always confront that
o Respect the dignity of human being in the process (Bapt. Cov.)
o The Commandment is still in force - Love one another as Christ loves us

· So rather than ask if you’re weeds or wheat, my questions are:
o Where is the wheat in your life? The weeds?
o Do you find yourself judging others? That’s God’s job after all

· We know how important wheat is. What are you doing to cultivate the wheat in yourselves, and get rid of the weeds?

· We don’t need to worry about others – remember logs and motes in eyes? Concentrate on ourselves – let God take care of everyone else in God’s own good time.

· Let’s concentrate on treating others as wheat - better to err on the side of caution than try to overstep our own bounds and get stuck in the weeds.

Bread is the staff of life. We eat the Bread of Heaven every Sunday. We are the wheat, mixed with the weeds. Tjhere is both weed and wheat in each of us, after all! Let each of us be the Bread of Heaven which gives life to the world around us, not just now, in the walls of St Ts, but when we walk outside this place as well. The world is hungry for the bread we provide. How can you be that bread this week?

Amen.


Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.



RFSJ

The Proper of the Day: Pentecost XXII

Today the Church celebrates a Feast of Our Lord in the Eucharist and readings from Joel, II Timothy, and Luke. The passage from the prophet Joel contains the vision:

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

your old men shall dream dreams,

and your young men shall see visions.

In the second letter to Timothy, St. Paul is lamenting his own predicament and defending his ministry and promising that the "crown of righteousness" will be reserved for him and by implication for all of us after we ourselves have each ben "poured out as a libation." A libation is a drink offering, where the offeror literally ours out a chalice onto or in front of the altar. Most of the uses of the word "libation" int he NRSV come from Jeremiah, which we just finished reading last week.

And today's passage from Luke is the famous Pharisee and the Publican, or Tax Collector. You know the one, the one who says, "Lord, I'm glad I'm not like that tax collector over there." I know I am often guilty of that same feeling. I need to be aware of who it is I am marginalizing by my own holier-than-thou mentality. Even if I don't express is publicly, I sometimes think it. I think we all do. Jesus calls us to remember that in God's economy, none of us are better than anyone else. Salvation is purely a gift of God and we can't earn it - it's freely available to all, which means we are all equal in God's eyes. That's the Good News - God really doesn't look at us with our own attitudes and our own value systems. And thank God, too - can you imagine if we actually got what we all deserve? But in Jesus of course we don't. We get God's own limitless and all-forgiving love for each and every one of us, whether we sometimes act like a Pharisee or sometimes like a Tax Collector.

RFSJ