What Not to Wear - Matthew 22:1-14

Wow, this is a hard one! I think we should set this one aside and go find a good parable about a Samaritan. Oh, or maybe that one where God is compared with the shrewd master. Almost any other parable might be a little easier to unpack, than this one. This one is full of people rejecting an invite to a wedding, violence against messengers, some guy wearing the wrong clothes and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Nobody likes weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So the king is hosting a wedding banquet and he invites all these people but none of them show. So he sends his messengers to go get them. Maybe they forgot. I think there are a few of us here would have been thrilled to receive wedding invite to the royal wedding last year. My guess is that if you or I had received such an invitation we would have done everything within our power to attend. Seriously though, I can’t imagine being invited to a royal wedding at all. But then to forget when it was or just not show up is beyond comprehension.

Anyway, the King figures, maybe they forgot and need to be reminded. So he sends out messengers to all those invited.

“Hey, the wedding’s today.”

“Oh, I thought it was next week. I’ll be right there.”

But these people did not forget. They choose not to come because they are hostile to the King. They don’t like him. They don’t like his wedding and they definitely don’t like his messengers. Instead of just expressing their displeasure, they beat up the King’s messengers, and send them on their way.

The king is not happy about this but still wants a festive wedding with lots of people so he sends his messengers out and invites anyone who is willing to come. Everyone is invited. And a bunch of people show up. After the banquet is underway, king is looking over the crowd and one man is not dressed properly. The King calls him over, lets him know how displeased he is because this guy is not dress appropriately. Then he has his guards gather the ill-dressed man and toss him out into the darkness. Weeping and gnashing of teeth surround him and he is left there. 

And that, THAT, my friends, is what he kingdom of Heaven is like, Glory, Hallelujah, praise Jesus. Who needs more good news than that? Don’t we all feel good, let’s go downstairs and have us a Pot Luck Dinner that can’t be beat. Or maybe lets’ scratch our heads? What do with do with this?

What do we do with people rejecting the invitation?

As Christians who live millennia after the first telling of this parable the idea of people rejecting Jesus, of not caring about God or Godly things is not an unfamiliar one. We live in a world that has largely rejected the call of the kingdom. We do not live in a world where everyone loves Jesus as we love Jesus. There are people all around us who do not care what has to say and who have no desire to come to know God.

There was a time, in this particular country as well as in many European countries when the general ideals of the propriety and morality were informed by the Christians narrative. At one point in order to be a King you had to at least claim to be a Christian. Government claimed to be an extension of the will and rule of God on earth. I am told there was a time, here in the US, when most people knew the general content of the Bible and understood the basics of Christian belief. But that is not the world I have grown up in, that is not the American culture with which I am familiar or understand. This is not generally true today.

We live in what scholars are calling a “Post-Christian” world. Most of the people in this country as well as in many European countries do not identify as Christian or choose to align themselves with Christ.  My guess is most of you know “our fair city” is considered one of the most secular cities in the US and the New England is the least “churched” region. In fact our City is considered so far gone by some in other parts of the country, I can the second summer I was pastor here, there was a group of teenagers from Texas came here to Cambridge to bring Jesus to the lost people of Cambridge, they were very helpful doing quite a bit of work here in the church. They painted the fellowship hall and parts of the Sanctuary, as well as doing others things around the city to help bring Jesus to Cambridge.

I am not sure Cambridge needs mission teams from across the country to come here to bring the people of this city to Jesus for us. But the fact is that here and across this country people choose not follow Jesus. Not everyone loves Jesus like we do.  Understanding the rejection of the invitation is not hard for any of us.

What do we do with people doing violence to the messengers of the king?

Although none of us here have truly experienced the kind of violent rejection of our God described in this parable. We are all aware people, the world over, are beaten, imprisoned and worse every day for their affiliation with Jesus. In fact, each year, in early November, we participate in the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, where we collectively remember and pray for people all over the world who continue to experience torture, imprisonment and death for their faith.

I remember a gentleman, who was in the same Sunday school class with me, when I attended Grace Church in Kansas City. One Sunday he told us the story of the torture he experienced in Cambodia. His entire family was murdered by a cadre of the Khmer Rouge and he was the only one to escape. The horrors he witnessed and experienced because Christians were seen as subversive to the government.

His story had such an impact on my understanding of what it meant to be persecuted as a Christian that to this day I refuse to see anything experienced by Christians here in the US as persecution for our faith; the things some US Christians will say are persecution really, at most, an inconvenience. Even though our experience here in the US does not include the kind of violence which Jesus tells us the messengers of the King received in this parable, it is not unheard of. Christians, beginning with the death of Stephen in the book of Acts through to this day have known that some people not only reject the invitation, but also reject the messengers of God, living here on this earth. So the violence in this story is not entirely unrelateable.

What do we do with the guy in the wrong clothes?

This is probably the part of the story we struggle with the most. The guy gets thrown out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth because he is not wearing the right clothes. He is thrown out just like that, no mercy, just condemnation, simply for wearing the wrong outfit. When did God become the fashion police?

But let us begin with the good news. Everyone is invited. The invitation to the wedding, the invitation to the kingdom is for everyone; no one is excluded. Anyone who wants to accept the invitation is welcome. No one is turned away at the door for any reason; no matter who you are, no matter what you have done; no matter where you come from. There is nothing that will get you rejected from coming. God’s arms are open wide, ready to embrace anyone and everyone who accepts the invitation to come.

But, then there is the issue with the clothes. The idea that someone is turned out for wearing the wrong clothes is strange. It makes no sense to us. I am pretty sure none of us have been to a wedding where someone, who was invited, was turned away because they were not dressed properly. This story makes us think perhaps this was a thing in Jesus’ day and age. If you were not dressed right you were excluded from wedding festivities. There must have been right and wrong things to wear to certain occasions and that you could be tossed out of a banquet for not wearing the right outfit.

This all seems so unfair to us. This person was just invited off the street, he probably was so excited to be invited to the King’s wedding that he just came immediately to the wedding, wearing whatever he had on at the time he was invited.  Or what if the man did not have access to the right clothes? The King invited everyone. He may have owned the proper kinds of clothing and did not have the means to go purchase the right outfit for the occasion. It just does not seem right, that he is turned out because he does not have the right thing to wear. These may be our first thoughts, we probably all know that this is not really about fashion or about the clothes this man might or might not own. Something inside us says, “This has to be about something else.”

Although there is little certainty about the details of weddings at this time, some believe that upon arrival each guest was given a “bridal garment” something appropriate to wear to the wedding feast. To refuse to wear this garment would be to spurn the hospitality of the host. The improperly dressed man therefore must have refused to wear the garment offered to him. In a culture that highly valued the giving and accepting of hospitality, to refuse to wear the wedding garment would an insult to the host. To accept the invitation to come to the wedding but then refuse to wear the provided wedding garment would be like accepting and invitation to come to dinner at someone’s house but then refusing to eat any of the food.  Why would anyone do that? It would be rude. It would actually be more polite to refuse the invitation all together. This is what the improperly dressed wedding guest has done. He has accepted the invitation but then refused the hospitality offered him by the King. It is in the end a rejection of the king.

Interesting bit of history and culture, but how does that help us understand what Jesus is really trying to say here in this passage? Jesus is saying that when we come to faith, we are given new clothes. The garment we are given is a whole new way to act, a whole new way to be. Accepting the invitation and putting on the garment of Christ changes everything about us. Our lives are different. How we live, how we act, the way we interact with those around us, everything is different. In putting on the garment of Christ we become more and more like Christ, we begin to look like Christ in all aspects of our life.

To be found without the garment is to come to faith and refuse to be like Christ, or to simply not be like Christ. When we say we are Christians but to not love like Christ, to not show the kindness, patience, grace, mercy and love of Christ in all we do we are refusing to wear the wedding garment.  We come to faith, we come to accept Christ, we turn to God and choose to be Christians but that is only the first step. Accepting the invitation,  and showing up are just the first steps, there is more to being the person God is calling each of us to be than just accepting Jesus.

All are welcome and accepted as we are. There is nothing we need to do be worthy of the invitation we have received. God invites everyone and we are invited to come as we are. There is nothing we need to do to prepare, to be good enough, but once we have shown up and chosen to follow Jesus, that is not the end of it. There is nothing we have to do to be worthy of receiving or accepting the invitation God gives us, accepting and coming are

We like to say to believe in Jesus Christ is enough. But belief is more than something that happens in our head. Belief changes how we act and what we do. Belief is not an intellectual activity, true belief results a different way of acting, of doing things; a complete different way of being. Once we have come to faith we then need to put on Christ, in the same way we would put on an outfit and in doing so change the way we look in the world.

The new garment is a transformation of who we are. It is a reshaping of what matters to us and what is at the core of our lives. The new garment causes us to listen to the words and teaching of Jesus. It allows God’s character as seen in how Jesus lived his life here on earth to form and shape who we are and what we do. In doing so we are heeding the words of Christ when he says, be holy as I am holy.

When we put on the wedding garment offered to us by God, it is more than just a change of clothes it is an entire life transformation. Putting on the garment of Christ remakes us in the image of Christ. We become holy as Christ is holy. While putting on the clothes we commonly wear merely changes what we look like, putting on Christ changes us from the inside out. It changes out thoughts, our attitudes, our desires, our dreams. It changes how we see the world, how we see the people around us. It changes what we say, what we do, how we act and interact with everyone in our lives. We begin to love as Jesus loved, forgive as Jesus forgives, and show the same kind of grace and mercy we have experienced at the hand of Jesus. 

These are words for all of us who accept Christ, who accept the wedding invitation. When we come to faith, but do not allow God to transform our lives then we are coming to the banquet in the wrong clothes. It is not enough to just come to the party. Once we have accepted Jesus, come to believe in him and the work of Salvation God does in our lives, there is still more. The call of God on our lives is a call to total life transformation. It is a daily drawing closer to Jesus, it is a relationship that deepens and changes daily. It is allowing God to recreate us in the image of God, so that daily, we become more and more like Christ in all things.

The good news in this passage is that everyone is invited, everyone is accepted, no one is turned away, all are loved and cherished by God. But there is still a dress code. God expects us to take on the nature of Christ, to be like Christ, to be holy as he was holy, to live and act and love the way he did when here was here on earth. The Good news is that the king provides the wedding cloths!! We are not expected to do this ourselves. This is not something we can bring with us or provide for ourselves or be able to purchase. It is given to us, we must merely allow God to transform us, to change us, to reshape our lives, our thoughts, our inner beings so that day by day, moment by moment we closer resemble the Jesus we love and follow.

This is about being clothed in Christ, being Christ like in all things, knowing you are loved and live out that love in every aspect of your life. This is about Looking, acting, living the gentleness, goodness, kindness, patient, Christ-like nature through and through. The wedding garment is Christ and should never be taken off. 

Come one, come all! Everyone is invited!

Anyone can accept the invitation.

And THEN be transformed!

Put on the garment of Christ and be transformed!