What an awful story Jesus tells today.
It starts out
with happy news: a prince’s wedding. But when the day arrives, the guests blow
it off. Some invitees even go so far as
to kill the messenger. (Overreacting much?)
The king’s reaction is swift and violent: He sends the army and destroys the city of the
rebellious guests.
Meantime, the
feast is quite ready – I imagine it sitting over sterno cans in an empty hall –
so the king sends out to invite anyone and everyone, “good and bad,” from the
streets. The party goes on, and this ought to be a happy enough ending. But Matthew tells us Jesus wasn’t done there.
The king is
mingling with his oddly assorted guests when he discovers one who hasn’t
bothered to follow the dress code (and if everyone there was surprised off the
street into a party, you have to imagine that if only one hasn’t dressed right,
then it’s been pretty easy to do.) So when this guest won’t answer why he didn’t
wear wedding garments, the king has him thrown out – not just out of the
banquet hall, but into utter damnation.
This story is a
nasty, illogical mess of insults and inhospitality and overreaction.
And Jesus says
God’s kingdom is like this?
Yuck.
Yuck.
But sometimes
God-life is like that. It starts off with good news – acceptance,
welcome, abundance, love, a new identity among God’s people, new self-respect. But then happily ever after is more
complicated than it looks. Sometimes all that love and abundance doesn’t
actually solve the problems you find yourself in. Sometimes the struggle you brought to God gets
worse instead of better. Or you just get bored.
You find yourself
waiting
and waiting
and waiting:
for the Messiah
to show up, for prayer to be answered, for other people to come to your party, for that mountain-top
feeling or joyful certainty that those folks advertising God’s kingdom seem to
have, but you just don’t feel.
And waiting
stinks.
Because all too
often, it can feel like you’ve been blown off, ignored, or abandoned. And you really don’t want to feel that way about
God.
That’s where the
golden calf comes from in the wilderness, you know. It doesn’t come from greed or deliberate
idolatry. It comes from the people’s
feeling that they’d been duped and abandoned.
They’d gambled their
lives on this God who called them out of slavery, they’d committed themselves
to God’s commandments, and God’s promised to guide and protect and love them, and
they’re still stuck endlessly in this
wilderness, waiting and waiting for guidance and freedom and security and any further sign from God.
Have you ever
felt like that, even just a little?
Like God is great
and all, but faith just isn’t the primary thing in my life – it’s not urgent
right now, and there’s a lot of other critical stuff to focus on.
I’ve felt it.
God’s time can
work that way – long periods on our clock or calendar when nothing’s really happening. God’s not demanding much, the kingdom hasn’t
come, it all feels kind of back-burner-ish.
So there’s more
emotional urgency, more stability and reward, in focusing on family matters or
work challenges or financial security.
It’s natural to
feel that way.
But when we act
on it, we’ve built ourselves a golden calf.
Or we’ve blown
off the wedding invitation without even realizing it.
And that has
dramatically dangerous consequences.
That king in
Jesus’ story destroys cities and pitches people into “outer darkness” when he’s
dissed. God disowns the people in the wilderness and offers to destroy them.
It turns out
that we can’t have it both ways.
Our spiritual
history is pretty clear on this: We’re invited – over and over, and without
limit or preconditions – to have it God’s way: love, abundance, radical
welcome, deep and holy intimacy with God.
But to have it
God’s way, we have to let go of having it our
way – having predictability and security, a sense of control, and our own
choice of priorities.
God’s time isn’t
our time. While the people are feeling bored
and abandoned after endless days in the wilderness, God is working swiftly and
intently with Moses on plans for how to build God a way to be physically present
with those people.
And God is
flexible. The king doesn’t take an
initial brush-off for rejection. He sends a tantalizing, welcoming description
of the feast to the first folks who ignore him, hoping they can still be
persuaded. In fact, he wants to throw this party so badly he invites the good,
the bad, the unexpected and the unprepared to a sumptuous feast.
But that doesn’t
mean God’s okay with our temptation to have it our way when God’s way isn’t
convenient or comfortable for us.
The world you
and I live in – even the church around us – tends to advertise the false idea
that we can have it both ways. That relationship with God – instead of
requiring us to leap off a cliff with trust – instead can provide predictability, a secure place in the world, mainstream
comfort, direct guidance when we want it and easy freedom when we want that.
But it’s not
true.
Being God’s
people is a much, much, more intense, risky, fantastic and festive thing than
it looks in contemporary Lombard . We can’t
show up on our own terms, prepared to taste-test the banquet, but not
wholeheartedly committed to the party.
We need to show up dressed – outside and in – for action and joy, even
if we think we’ll be bored.
We can’t trust
God only when there’s not much at risk
Those are our terms. God insists that we have to risk everything and
lean into that trust when we’re lost and alone and insecure and everything is at stake.
Our world makes
it easy to feel like we can have it both ways. But when we live as though we
can, we all lose.
Faith left on
the back burner dries up.
Being too
cautious with joy – your own or other peoples – hardens your heart.
Letting work or
family concerns set the terms by which you feel secure makes it harder to trust
God when those things fail.
And when any of
that happens, God’s heart breaks at losing you.
To live God’s
way takes tremendous patience and hope and loving vulnerability. But God will
keep inviting us to the feast; expecting us to commit ourselves to God’s party.
So see what
happens for a week or a month if you consciously and repeatedly try to pull
God’s love and generosity into the center of all those things that clamor for
your attention – email, family, work, school, groceries and chores.
See what happens
when you insist on trusting God on something even when it would be easier to just
do it yourself.
Parties – feasts
and joy and abundance – truly are a risky business. But God really, really wants you at this
one.
Are you coming?
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