Pentecost 18 A: Preaching an Ugly Parable
Dear Partner in Preaching,
Let’s just admit it: this is an ugly parable. No amount of generalizing about God’s hospitality or vulnerability or invitation is going to do away with that. In fact, I think that straying into generalities is a huge mistake, as it glosses over the serious nature and inherent danger in passages like this. So I would urge you either to preach this parable in its distinct and unattractive particularity or to choose one of the other three far more attractive and certainly more edifying passages appointed for this day. If you choose to work with Matthew, however, consider these three things.
First, in this parable, as with the one we preached last week, we are catching a glimpse of the low point in an intense family feud. I want to emphasize the word “family” here because Matthew and his community are caught up in a struggle with their Israelite kin about how to be faithful to the God of Abraham and Sarah and, in particular, whether Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah Israel’s prophets had promised. This is not a Jewish-Christian dispute – though in the centuries that follow Christians will use this passage to further their anti-Semitism (which is one of the things that makes this passage dangerous) – but rather represents the pain of a community sundered from its family and trying to justify itself.
Last week, the parable at hand indicted the Jewish religious leaders for failing to heed the prophets and for killing the legal heir and son of the vineyard owner. It ended with the ominous prediction – cleverly placed in the mouth of the religious leaders – that God would give the vineyard (Israel) to new tenants and crush the wicked ones. This week, the implicit retributive violence of the story becomes explicit, as Matthew takes up a parable also known to Luke and to the author of the Gospel of Thomas and shapes it to his distinct purposes. Whereas Luke and Thomas – and therefore, we may conclude, the earlier form of the parable – talk about a “great dinner,” Matthew changes it to a wedding banquet given by a king in order to make the refusal of the invited guests even harder to imagine or justify. In a less subtle change, whereas in the other forms of this parable the host invites all kinds of people to come to dinner after the initial invitees make their excuses, Matthew’s king sends out yet more servants to invite the recalcitrant citizens to the banquet (kind of like the second round of servants in last week’s parable). This time, the original invitees either again ignore the royal summons or, worse, mistreat and kill some of the servants, a rather absurd reaction to a wedding invitation, but not the greatest absurdity of this dark tale. In retaliation, the king sends his troops to destroy the offenders and then issues his invitation to everyone (though eventually rejects one of the new respondents for not wearing the right clothing).
On the whole, Matthew’s version is darker, more violent, and pushes even the typical parable’s tolerance for absurdity to the edge. Why? Because at this point in the family conflict, he is willing to say that God not only rejects those cousins and kin of his that rejected Jesus but actually sent the Romans to destroy the Temple as punishment (a conclusion not uncommon to Matthew, but intensified in this parable). This is painful stuff, dear Partner, and we’d best not ignore it. Why? Because this parable has been used across the centuries – and still by some Christians today – to drive a wedge between Jews and Christians and even to justify Christian mistreatment of Jews. Enough is enough.
Second, your hearers this Sunday deserve a) to know this background and b) to have you trust that they can handle it. Yes, a few will struggle with questions about whether it is “okay” to critique an evangelist, but most of our people deeply want to understand a passage like this, not have it glossed over or ignored. Most of our people, that is, what to be able to think about their faith with their heads as well as believe with their hearts. And so I would urge you to share with them some of the historical background of this passage and then also share that, while it may have been understandable in the context of Matthew’s small community struggling to make sense of its feels of alienation and abandonment, we need to think hard and well about how we read this passage today precisely because of the dark history of its interpretation.
Third, I don’t think it’s enough to put the parable in its context and leave it alone. We might not be satisfied with Matthew’s response to the questions he and his community faced about rejection and disappointment when not all of their family believed as they did, but what about us? I think that’s a growing question for our people as more of our children and grandchildren choose not to attend church or marry persons of a different faith or no faith whatsoever. So what do we do when it comes to those of our own family who do not respond to the invitation of the king? Do we imagine or hope that this king will invite them again but if they refuse destroy them?
This analogy isn’t perfect, I realize, as Matthew is speaking particularly to the religious leaders of his day and drawing on a long tradition in the Scriptures of God holding such leaders to a particularly high standard of fidelity, but I think it still applies to some degree. In short, the question before us is what do we do when people we love don’t believe as we do? If we don’t agree with Matthew’s way of resolving these difficult matters and feelings, then what response do we make?
Too often, I think, the choices are to either condemn those who believe differently (or don’t believe at all) or feel like we are somehow being unfaithful by not condemning them. But keep in mind, we are not Matthew’s community; that is, we are not the minority tradition with little cultural power trying to make sense of our rejection and alienation. Rather we are disciples of Jesus who hear, even in this parable, the good news that God invites all, good and bad (Mt. 22:10), because God is a God of expansive love and radical inclusiveness. And we are disciples who see, especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, not only just how far God will go to make this invitation of grace but also and that God’s words of love and forgiveness are more powerful than any words of punishment, hate, or fear.
And because we have seen and heard and experienced first hand God’s love, we do not have to call down God’s judgment but can trust the God we know in Jesus to care for those who do not respond to God’s invitation just as graciously as God has cared for us. We can, to borrow the words Paul writes in today’s second reading, “not worry about anything” – including when our loved ones don’t believe as we do – but “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let [our] requests be made known to God,” trusting that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus.”
If we can practice trusting God enough to resist condemnation but instead pray for our loved ones, we might find ourselves more capable of sharing why what we believe is important to us (rather than just insisting that believing is what matters). We might respect the questions, beliefs, and struggles of those we love. And we might offer our care and support in the name and example of the one who died rather than condemn and was raised to offer peace rather than retribution. And this patient understanding and loving support, as it turns out, may just be the most powerful witness we can offer.
This is hard stuff, dear Partner, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never read anywhere in Scripture where being faithful to our callings was supposed to be easy. 🙂 As you struggle with how to preach this difficult passage to your people, please know how grateful I am for your fidelity, voice, and courage. What you do matters, now more than ever.
Yours in Christ,
David
PS: If you do opt for another passage – and that’s just what I did last time around – you can find what I wrote, including some “participatory” suggestions, on preaching Ps. 23 in a culture downing in “wanting” here.
I like what you are saying and it is not a friendly text. I challenged my congregation to wear something they would not normally wear to church (it has to be clean and not political- I told them that). I am using that to illustrate who might be thrown out into the outer darkness. The rest is still a work in progress. The pastor (me) will also be wearing something unusual.
Where is God in the parable? The King who invites citizens who murder and then imitates their brutality?
The man thrown into the outer darkness because he refused to wear the robe? Because he refused to recognize the legitimacy of the brutal King?
Which character is more Christ like? The King who inflicts pain? Or the man who is cast out and suffers pain?
Is the violence divine, or revealed to be completely human?
I choose to see God in the man who suffers violence, God meeting us in our darkness
Thanks for this comment. It creates the possibility of exploring the man thrown out as the Christ figure (I know that’s not likely what Matthew had in mind) much like, in the Good Samaritan the man in the ditch may be the Christ figure. I’d like to hear more of your thoughts in this direction. Very creative response. Thanks.
I’m thinking this year to explore the possibility that the one caste out is Jesus – those who don’t show up are protesting the best way they know how against an unjust leader.
This passage tells of the reality of judgment; both flawed human judgment and divine judgment. More importantly it is a beautiful portrait of God’s grace for all people. I see us as those sent out into the far reaches to invite all to come.
Is there anything to the fact that Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to,” rather than “The kingdom of heaven is like”? Could it be that the parable shows us all too human reactions, people making excuses not to come, and the king taking action against them and asks us to think about how God would react? I don’t know, haven’t looked yet at the Greek. I know it lets the parable off the hook, but thinking about it in terms of how people respond to the invitation, and how we might be tempted to condemn those who don’t respond, might be a helpful thing.
I am resigned to the fact that Jesus didn’t preach “pretty” parables, and often ask how the parable speaks to me as an individual and to my hearers as a congregation. I am uncomfortable, to say the least, with the response to the person not wearing the appropriate garment. On the surface, it speaks to those who condemn others for not being appropriately dressed when they attend church. But I’m reminded of congregations that boast of their inclusivity, be it racial, economic, gender/sexuality differences or any number of other possibly divisive issues. I’ve seen in some of these congregations the tendency to boast of their individual differences to the point of near-idolatry. But in our acceptance of differences, we also have to recognize and preach conversion and redemption, not just remain in our comfortable dysfunctions. I like to say that God loves me as I am, and I believe it to be true. But I also have to admit that God calls me, and us to new life that we have not yet known, and that call is a call to change my (our) way of knowing ourselves, each other, and God. My discomfort, my dis-ease with this parable is that I can be any one of the characters in this drama, as I not only come to the banquet, I preside and invite others to it. My hope is that if I find that someone comes unprepared, rather than expel that person, I might instead invite a time of change and transformation that could possibly redeem us both. I hope I would not be so consumed with the preparations that I can find the time to be gracious, and that God will do the same with me.
Thanks for this response. One of the things we sometimes forget is that while God loves us all, no exceptions, that does not mean the acceptance comes without expectations for transformation–otherwise acceptance becomes meaningless. Bonhoeffer reminds us that grace is not a refuge from obedience, but an invitation to transformation and redemption. That grace, in the words of the writer of Ephesians: “equips us with every good thing by developing in us what pleases {God} him through Christ Jesus.” The works that follow grace and transformation things, that in Luther’s words, follow us, as a shadow follows our body. The text then may be asking us what it means to come to the banquet, and reminding us that while grace is free, it is not cheap.
Luther once said of this text in 1513 as “the terrible Gospel on which I hate to preach.” or words to that effect. It can certainly feel that way when we reach the end of this parable with its almost Calvinist tone–almost a quote from Esdras that while this world was created for many, the world to come for only a few. Don’t get much more threatening than that.
Since Matthew’s gospel includes many elements of judgment, this text isn’t so out of character with his theme: that weeping and gnashing of teeth does show up more than once.
I think this passage creates a tension between grace and judgment which Matthew chooses, for whatever reason, to leave unresolved–at least in a way that’s satisfactory. In many ways his own words don’t make sense–after all, how can a guy dragged in from the street be expected to come with a wedding garment?
Archibald Hunter’s suggestion in his work on this parable may be helpful: it must be put in the context of the full gospel–not this isolated instance. This same Jesus is the one who says many will come and sit at table with Abraham, and that when he is lifted up he will draw all to himself.
Another interesting element is that, although this banquet is supposedly given for the son’s wedding–the son is totally absent from the parable–only the father is present to the guests. While Matthew is generally very Christocentric, what happened here? Yet another puzzling aspect of this “terrible” parable.
I think we can trust our people to deal with the tensions Matthew leaves unresolved here–just takes courage to take that risk.
As always your comments are most helpful.
At the Festival of Homiletics this past year Angela Hancock preached on this, laying out every possible interpretation.Then she brought it around to finding who Jesus was in the parable, and located him in the guy who got thrown out. But why would Jesus be there with no robe? Because, she said, he gave his to you.
Really worked for me. I was breathless.
I heard that sermon, it was amazing! I think you can download it from “Peach new media”…
I see so many of our churches in this parable. We want people to come, the right people, young ones,families, ones who have the time, inclination and finances to contribute, but they don’t want to come, they see us as being out of touch, irrelevant, hypocritical; they reject us. So we try to invite others, but they don’t dress right, their kids don’t behave, they don’t follow our church etiquette, they aren’t really us, so we throw them out; not literally,of course, but so often, I hear, I went to that church but they scolded my child for not doing something, or everyone was dressed up and I was wearing jeans, or even worse, my son had a pink mohawk and everyone starred at him, some even told him he looked stupid, or even, I didn’t understand all the rituals and the words they were using and felt like an outsider because I didn’t know what they were talking about, etc and etc…….)
And to take it one step further, who’s missing in the story? the son. Who is often missing in our churches??? Often the Resurrected Christ is missing as churches focus on programming, getting more people, more money; churches loose focus on what is important, the reason we are there…..
Still struggling after all of this. We see a vengeful God, the image of God I grew up with, ready to smite you if you stepped out of line. You don’t get a second chance (although the rich people did). I have read several commentaries that said the host would have supplied the wedding robe and the guest for whatever reason – arrogance, stupidity, etc. – chose not to put on the robe, chose not to avail himself of the opportunity presented by the king. But still, that would mean that to become an insider the outsider would have to bow to the will of the insider. The guest already had done that by coming into the banquet hall, it would seem. The more I ponder this, the further away it seems to get. I am left flailing in the darkness.
I think the parable is straighforward if we take a couple of things into account. The Wedding Feast for the son is to wed all the guests to the truth that the Son represents – justice, peace, mercy, reconciliation, love. It’s a redo of the Isaiah feast which is a love feast prepared by God for his people. To not attend is to wed yourself to indifference, violence, oppressive ideologies, etc. i.e. to enter into a world where your violence brings violence upon you, i.e. there is a consequence to the choices we make. The invitation to the the good and the bad is the distinctive invitation of the Gospel signifying the grace of God and the love of God for God’s people, i.e. even the Tax Collectors and prostitutes will go ahead of your into the Kingdom of God. While people today might interpret the person without the proper clothing as something related to the question of prejudice against those not wealthy enough to buy good clothes who come to our churches, that would be to read our prejudice back into time. The person without the wedding robe came to the feast but did not recognize nor honor that the feast was all about a wedding, a wedding of our minds with the mind of Christ (see the Philippians texts) the values, truths and love that the Son has revealed to us as being life-giving. Choices and their consequences. This text goes with the one before it in which the Pharisees recognized it was about them. So, about the wedding garment I think the comments of Karoline Lewis are very pertinent: “What not to wear? Complacency, conformity, and any kind of garb that is content with the way things are. What should we wear, so that the whole of the world can see who we are and what we are about? The kind of compassion, birthed by God’s own righteousness, that cannot, anymore, leave things the way they are.”
This is the way I’m going – that it isn’t about a granddaddy thumping kids on the head for misbehaving, but the indicative of what happens to those who choose to live in cycles of violence and revenge. The way life is doesn’t sustain fullness of life to the winner of the fight. And when I show up full of a sense of responsibility for everything and not a sense of grace sustaining me, I do live in an outer darkness.
The story (with its echoes of Zephaniah) is about the consequences of life choices, not the arbitrary imposition of culture or power?