19 Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 23, October 11, 2020
Exodus 32:1-14 Psalm 106
Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22:1-14
Exodus 32:1-14 Psalm 106
Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22:1-14
The presentation of God in the Bible is often frightening. Like when the people of Israel constructed a golden calf on Moses' extended visit on Mt. Sinai. So God said Moses, "This is a worthless, faithless people; let me kill them all off and start a new people with you." And Moses intercedes to placate the wrath of God and reminds God of the divine promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So, God threatened to wipe out the very people chosen by divine promise.
The biblical presentations of God, often seem to make God like a person with feelings, jealousy, anger, love and kindness.
We believe in God because we take the profound conditions in life personally. We project divine personal motivation on the things that happen to us. We project bad and evil on malevalent personal forces. As persons we cannot help but project personality upon everything that happens to us. When people did not understand causation like scientists do today, the mystery of causation was easiest to explain in terms of the cosmic being of God and fallen angels.
And as much as science has helped us to achieve, science cannot give complete precise answers to causation, particularly in how events feel to us when they happen. And because science does not eliminate feeling, we resort to art, spiritual art, inner meaning art to deal with what happens to us. We are not just machine bodies obeying the laws of physics; we are inner spiritual beings with souls thoroughly endowed with language. And in using language we cannot avoid being seekers of meaning of everything that happens to us.
The favor of God in biblical language is often expressed as being chosen. And sometimes we might regard this to be like the winning of the lottery. But it is not like God drew Israel name out of the big hopper and they won the lottery; to be chosen is to experience being in relationship. To experience a relationship and then violate the vows of the relationship is what characterizes sin. The golden calf event was a rejection of a relationship because of unfaithfulness.
In the Gospel parable of Jesus, God is presented as a unrequited party giver, because the A, B, C list of invitees decide not to come to the wedding feast.
In wedding planning with brides and groom, I often find them very over optimistic about how many people will be present at their weddings. And it can be quite a blow when the schedules or the interest of the invited do not get them to the church. And bridal families can feel quite unrequited to experience a smaller than expected crowd.
God as the one throwing a big wedding party is excited to invite those who would seem to be in an obvious relationship with God. But alas, the RSVP regrets from the A list, B list and C list of guests indicate the obvious people who were supposed to be friends of God, turn out not to be interested in the big event. They have lost their relationship with God to the point of not being able to value what is important to God, namely celebrating relationship, friendship, love and union. When the seeming preferred lists of guests sent their regrets, then agents are sent to extend a invitation to those people who seemed to be unchosen.
What is the insight of this riddle parable? It turns out those who were regarded to be the preferred and chosen, didn't really know what it meant to be in right relationship to God. And those who regarded to be unchosen, were those who were flattered to know that the invitation from God was offered to them too.
And when we're all excited that the wedding feast has these new guest, we're shocked to find out a guest is condemned to outer darkness because he is dressed inappropriately. And we wonder, why so severe punishment for a minor dress code offense? Doesn't God honor California casual?
And of course, we cannot take a parable literal; we have to crack the riddle code. God indeed, has a generous invitation to the great feast, but attending the feast still has the vows of relationship. And what is our vow of relationship? We don't have to be perfect. And we are provided with the garments of graceful righteousness by God. But we still have to put on these graceful clothes. As great as God grace it, it does not mean that we can "do" our own thing. It means we have to embrace the path of repentance, or a Paul writes, a path of intentional excellence. St. Paul warned about not misunderstanding God's grace. "Where sin abound, there did grace much more abound....shall we continue to sin so that grace may abound?" Whoopee, since I've got a "get out of jail card" for everything, I'll just keep doing whatever I want.
The grace of an invitation to the feast is offered to all, and the Host for purposes of social leveling provides graceful clothing as a gift to everyone, a uniform as it were. Accept the gift; and don't do your own thing. Don't be like a single solder or band member who decides to wear pink spats to "stick out" among the battalion or band.
What is the Gospel for you and me today? God wants to be in relationship with us. We're all invited to the feast. To make the vow of relationship is to enter the experience of being chosen. So we don't try to do our own thing; we accept the vows of our relationship with God. We don the garments of righteousness provided for us by the great host of the feasts.
And we avoid the false sense of being chosen. How can we be chosen if the invitation to the great feast is not important to us? Lots of people can live in this sense of "false choseness" and not regard the invitation to the feast of God as important to respond to. Let us not miss the invitation. Let us not use God as a rubber stamp to "do our own thing." The feast of God is a feast of communion and fellowship where love and justice is the profound experience.
Do not send your RSVP regrets to God today. Attend the feast and accept the lovely protocols of grace. Amen.
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