Sermon For October 10, 1999
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
HEBREW TESTAMENT:
The scene is set, a young woman in her home on the phone, talking to her husband:
"I’m so excited Eric, this Thanksgiving will be the first chance for most of the family to see our new house. I invited everyone in the family. (pause) yes, I sent official invitations the middle of September. (pause - laugh) Don’t worry, I ordered a 24 lb. turkey. There’ll be plenty for everyone. (pause) OK, I won’t forget the cranberries and cornbread. In fact, I’ve thought of everything. I’ve ordered flowers, the linens are pressed, and the china is sparkling. It seems like we’ve been preparing for Thanksgiving for months. It’s going to be so wonderful, just like a Norman Rockwell picture, The Family Thanksgiving. I can hardly wait. I better get going, I have to check my e-mail. I sent out reminders to everyone last night and asked them to let me know what time they’ll be arriving. (pause) OK then (pause) I’ll talk to you later. (pause) Love you. Bye.(use the mouse to pretend to open e-mails, vocally responding briefly to each one - getting increasingly upset)Oh no. (pause) you’re kidding me. (pause) I can’t believe this. (pause) well, at least our kids will be here (pause) WRONG! Nobody is coming. (pause)(upset) what am I going to do?(picks up phone and calls her husband)Eric, you’re not going to believe this. What? (pause) you were going to call me? Let me talk first, then you can share your news. Our Thanksgiving is wrecked. No-one is coming! My sister and her husband decided to spend the holiday with Alan’s folks to help them out after his mom’s stroke last week. Your parents have decided to leave early for their condo at Cannon Beach. Our son has been invited to his fiancé’s parents’ home. It’s not fair, I invited them first! Our daughter is on call at the hospital all night long. Even my brother can’t make it. They’re still negotiating the contract. The strike is killing them. It’s just going to be you and me. We’ll be eating turkey for years. (pause) What!? You’re kidding me. Oh Eric, do you really have to be in Japan? Can’t they send someone else to the meeting? Well, I hope our dog likes cranberries on his turkey. (little laugh, pause) Yeah, right. (pause) No, I understand (pause) I’ll be OK. Don’t worry. (pause) I’ll see you when you get home. Bye. (hang up phone)(Put head in hands) Oh god, what am I going to do? (long pause) Wait. Maybe this is an opportunity to do something different. (pause) There must be someone who needs a Thanksgiving meal. I’ll just invite everyone in our church directory who doesn’t have family nearby, and might not have any holiday plans. Maybe I’ll have a Thanksgiving after all…
(scene shifts to 9:00 PM, Thanksgiving night - phone rings. It’s her husband, calling from Japan.)
Hello? Oh hi! What time is it there? (pause) Oh, well thanks for calling. (pause) Yes, it turned out fine. (pause) I had 27 people here! (pause) Except for missing you, everything was wonderful. The meatless gang brought a couple of delicious veggie casseroles. And you know Sue? You know she’s deaf? Well, she made calligraphy name cards for everyone, and before supper we all played this word game on paper, no talking allowed! A couple of the college kids picked up the folks from the retirement center. What service! And our new neighbor even helped out. I was telling him about John and his wheelchair and how I was worried about getting him up the stairs. Can you believe, the next day Bob came over and built a simple ramp up the front. We just rolled John right in. Sama walked down to the bus-stop to met Rachel so that she didn’t have to tap her cane all the way up the block. You know she hasn’t been here before. The couple our church is helping to resettle even came. They don’t speak much English yet, but they smiled a lot and nodded. After supper they played a little Kosovar music and did a few folk dances. It was great. We laughed and sang, then had pumpkin pie. You know, no-one really wanted the day to end. I’d have to say that this was the best Thanksgiving ever!
adapted from Access Sunday Resources
Now the retelling wasn’t quite like the first telling, in fact it’s a little bit more like Matthew’s version of the story. You know that sometimes when you read one of Jesus’ stories it’s recorded not in just one gospel, but it’s also told in a similar way in another gospel. Well this is one of those occasions. You have the story in Matthew, you also have it in Luke. In Luke it’s a much more pleasant story, like the one that Leah shared with us this morning. The guests that were invited weren’t able to make it. One excuse after another, so the host said, “Ok, I’ll invite somebody else.” He did and the event was wonderful. In the Gospel of Matthew, it’s not quite so smooth. Not quite so nice. When the King finds out that people are not responding to the invitation, and in fact that they have killed the messenger that brought the invitation, troops are sent out and those who declined are put to death. Pretty heavy message. You had better be careful how you respond to those invitations. In addition, after everyone was invited off the streets to come and fill the places of the ungrateful invitees, someone showed up without the proper attire. That’s asking a little bit much that these last minute invitations are going to be properly clothed, but this person was tied up and thrown out. What makes all of this more complicated is that in many of Jesus’ parables, God is represented as one of the characters. It is very clear that in this story, God is the King. So now we have a God who invites, who holds grudges, who gets back at people, and even when the folks from town are invited in, is willing to turn and throw them out too.
The message is much more than a simple “feel good” be nice and invite everybody. There is a way to understand some of it. The message was one that was more complicated than Jesus against the Jewish religious authorities. In fact Christians had been guilty, throughout history, of focusing too much on the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders and how wrong they were. The message is much broader. Because Jesus was also a Jew, it was also an “in house” argument. It was not one group against another group, but instead Jesus was talking with his fellow Jews about what it meant to be a person of faith. What it meant to live the way God wanted us all to live. So when he corrected the religious authorities he was not coming from outside the tradition to correct them, but he was speaking as one of them. If we are not careful today we can fuel anti-Jewish feelings. We’re no longer Jews, and as Christians we have to be very careful in the ways that we express our criticism of religious leaders of Jesus’ time. When the gospel writer recorded Jesus’ words, they also found a wider audience because the Christian message was starting to spread out now to the gentiles, to the non-Jews, to the Greek world. Sometime after Jesus was crucified, 30 or 40 years afterward, Rome came through with armies and turned Jerusalem into a pile of rubble. It was a difficult time to be a Jew. It wasn’t a much better time to be a Christian. People had to make decisions. The story in that context is saying that, “You thought that you were children of Abraham. You thought that you were safe. God issued a call to you and you didn’t respond to God’s call. Part of what happened to you was the destruction that the Romans brought.”
For those who would tend to get arrogant about believing that they are on the right side of the equation, that last little piece about the person who came to the wedding feast, but was wearing the wrong clothing, is an important reminder.
The original people didn’t respond to God’s call. They were out. People were called in. People from the streets, from all walks of life. Luke says the cripple, the lame, the blind. People with disabilities. People from different backgrounds. Women and men and children. All invited to the table. When you are invited to the table it’s not enough to say, “Ha ha. We got the last invite, and now we’re at the meal.” Something is still expected of us. When we respond to God’s call it’s not just saying, “Yes, here I am God. I love you.” But it is also saying, “Yes, here I am God. What do you want me to do? I will do it.” And then I do do it.
A story. A parable, to teach us what it means to be a child of God. To teach us what it means to accept God’s invitation. What it means to live as a person of faith. When God calls, we need to be prepared to answer. When we answer we need to be prepared to do what God wants us to do.
The other part of the message, the part that Matthew shared with “Luke” was also important today on Access Sunday. That is, God is always on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion. God always wants to open arms wide. God always wants to draw the circle bigger. God always wants to bring people in together, to love. If we believe in free will, then we have to believe it’s possible to say, “No”. That it is possible to say, “I don’t want to be a part of your circle. I don’t want your hug. I don’t want your love. I can do it on my own.” But God will always say, “Welcome.” The story of the prodigal son says that God will always say, “Welcome back.” The message that Jesus brings is always one of inclusion. The inclusion carries expectations that we will include others. The bottom line is always, “Welcome.”
You are invited by God. You are welcomed by God. I pray that God’s Spirit will be with you so that you might accept the invitation and live as God wants you to live.
May God’s Spirit be with us all. Amen.