God loves us beyond measure, beyond death: in that love we are free to live the abundant life of love in caring for what God cares for and healing the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Christ the King, the Last Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 34, year A
Texts: Matthew 25:31-46; Ezekiel 34:11-24

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

It was Christmas break in my first year of college, and, out with friends, I was anxious about the time.

It was nearly 11:00 p.m., so I hurried home.

Now, in high school the curfew dance with my mother was long-standing. The rules were clear, the expected times never in doubt. My arrival, well, was not always in keeping with expectations. My mother had all sorts of techniques in this dance. She was brilliant with sarcasm: “I didn’t realize your girlfriend moved to Sioux Falls.” Or, “I didn’t hear the storm, but it must have knocked down all the phone lines.” And then came the judgment.

But the pinnacle was one night when I was over two hours late and certain that this time I’d won. The house was dark, not a creature stirring. I didn’t realize my trial was scheduled for breakfast. My father was the attorney, but my mother mastered the legal principle that you never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to. “So, what time did you get home?” Confident, but offering humility, I said, “I think I was about ten minutes late, sorry.” “You sure you don’t want to rethink your answer?” Of course: she’d woken up, looked at the clock, and went back to sleep the sleep of the just.

But here’s what was strange about that December night I was home from college. I no longer had a curfew. I’d asked my mother and she said, “You’re an adult. You probably stay out late at college. But I worry about you lying in a ditch, so call if it’ll be after 1 or 2, so I can sleep.” At about ten I started thinking about getting home, so she wouldn’t worry. I had complete freedom to do what I wanted. But what I wanted was for her to not have to fret.

It’s all a question of motivation, isn’t it?

As parents, we learn that fear and threats don’t motivate good behavior.

Children don’t respond as well to threats as to love. Most of us don’t react well to anger and wrath and accusation. When I finally grasped that what I didn’t want was to hurt my parents, that it was their love for me that mattered, it was a revelation.

So why do we think threats are how God means to make us good? True, there’s a lot of wrath and anger in Scripture. Today we’ve got Jesus’ parable with a serious judgment at the end, and Ezekiel hurling God’s anger at selfish, greedy, polluting sheep who harm the other sheep. If you want to find anger from God in the Bible, you can.

But God’s a better parent than we ever could be. Anger’s never the last word.

God knows what will draw us into love of God and neighbor.

From Genesis to Revelation, anger, wrath, threats aren’t God’s last word. God cannot let go of us, because God loves us. So Ezekiel, after promising judgment between sheep and sheep, ends promising that a new David, a divine Shepherd, will feed and care for the whole flock. Even the ones who were judged. At the end of Jesus’ parable, remember it is the king himself who dies on the cross. God in Christ enters human suffering, with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. Where people are in pain, that’s where God will be. Even if it means going into hell for us.

This is the last word of the Scriptures, God’s love for us that reaches its height at the cross and resurrection. Yes, God gets angry at us. But God’s bottom line is always that we are beloved, cherished, worth dying for.

And God sees astonishing love in us, Christ in us. At the cross God means to love us into the people God already sees. To motivate us through undying love to become Christ ourselves, loving God and neighbor with everything we have.

When we persist in seeing God’s law as our enemy instead of as God’s promise of life, we reveal our immaturity.

When we insist on playing the judgment game, when we continue to resent being asked to do anything, we’re still children.

Martin Luther gave us a great gift: he saw God’s grace and mercy overriding all judgment. We are loved and healed by God without our earning it. But Luther only got us half-way there. We’re still stuck on seeing God’s law as harsh, and God as threatening judge.

We know we’re loved in Christ, forgiven. But we still believe the lie that God’s law is unattainable, an undoable thing, that we can’t live as God asks.

So we ignore Jesus’ obvious point in these parables and, instead of living in love as Christ taught, we worry about the parables’ judgment. It’s my old curfew game: fearing punishment, instead of living in love.

But when we realize that the Triune God’s love for us, completely unearned, is real and cannot be taken away from us, we grow up into the people God already sees in us. We see God’s law as gift, because it comes from the God who loves us. We see blessing and joy in God’s rules, because they mean safety for us and for others, abundance for us and for others, grace for us and for others.

When we quit playing judgment-avoidance, we see a simple truth: we see where we can serve the God who loves us and wants the best for all people.

There’s a huge gift in these three parables we’ve just heard: all the characters are at the end, and there’s no more time to act. But we are not at the end, we’re in the middle.

The bridegroom is still coming, the master and king haven’t returned. So we know exactly what we can do: the action of these parables. And we know exactly what the bridegroom, master, and king does: dies on the cross for us and for the world. There is literally no reason for us to be afraid of God. We know all we need to know about God. This is a gift!

Every one of these servants today wanted to serve their king; some didn’t have any more time. All the bridesmaids wanted to be in the wedding party; some didn’t have any more time. The only one in these parables who didn’t want to serve was the third slave last week. And notice: he plays the judgment game, acting in fear of his master.

Likewise, I don’t know a single person here who doesn’t desire to serve Christ faithfully, to be Christ. Well, we still have time. And we know what to do!

Keep our lamps lighted with God’s oil of love so people can see the coming of the Christ who loves them and brings justice and righteousness to the whole world. We can do this.

Use God’s wealth together, and serve God’s beloved, all who are in need. Transform the world with the abundance God has entrusted to us. We can do this.

And see Christ in people who are hungry, or thirsty, in strangers and aliens, in those with no clothes or homes, in those who are sick (especially those without insurance), and folks who imprisoned (especially those wrongfully or unfairly incarcerated in our unjust system). We can do this.

If we want, we can react to these parables with fear and guilt.

We can fear God’s wrath, get discouraged at how harsh Jesus sounds. But if we do, we’ve stepped away from Scripture. If you want to feel wretched about what a failure you are, you can. But God’s Word doesn’t agree with you.

Because you are beloved to the Triune God, beyond measure, beyond death. Nothing can separate you from God’s love, a love that goes into the outer darkness, the weeping and gnashing of teeth, even the fires of hell.

God sees in you an astonishing potential to heal this world, to bless others’ lives. God sees Christ in you, sees Christ in us together.

Together we can light our lamps so Christ is seen and justice flows, together we can learn to use God’s wealth for the sake of the world, together we can care for Christ in all who are in need.

There is no greater motivation than that we are loved, no greater joy than knowing what we can do, no greater hope than hearing that in our love in this world we are serving Christ.

Maybe it’s time we rejoiced in this and grew up into the people God already sees in us.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

There’s no need for fear: we belong to a loving God of abundance, and are entrusted with that abundance for the sake of the whole world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 33, year A
Texts: Matthew 25:14-30; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

The third slave was wrong about his master.

He believed his master was “harsh, reaping where [he] did not sow, gathering where [he] did not scatter.” So he buried a huge amount of money in the ground.

But he wasn’t worried about judgment, or getting thrown out. He resented that his master would profit from his work.

Do you see the problem? This wasn’t his money. Before the master gave it, the slave didn’t have it. The name on all the accounts was the owner’s, not his. It was his job to use it on behalf of the owner, until the owner returned. If he didn’t want to do it, he should’ve refused the job at the start.

And he was wrong about his master. The other two worked their master’s wealth until he returned, and did well. And yes, the owner benefited from their work. It was his money. But both were praised, given more trusted assignments, and were welcomed into their master’s joy. They shared in his joy, his trust, and his wealth. This isn’t a harsh master. But the third one was bound up in his own fear, and couldn’t see.

But we know even more about our Master.

If we assume we’re the ones in this story given charge of God’s wealth, we have even less reason for fear. We know from Scripture that God’s abundance is meant for the joy of all, to feed all God’s children, to care for this world. We know that none of our wealth is ours, that the name on our bank accounts is not ours but the name of God.

But we know this, too: the terrible judgment at the end of this parable doesn’t land on us. Remember, Matthew has said it is truly God’s Son who dies on the cross, who goes willingly into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. God’s Son weeps and gnashes his teeth, from Gethsemane to the cross.

As with last week, this parable falls apart at the point of judgment. Whatever else happens, in real life the master takes the judgment on himself, joins all those out in the darkness, to bring them back inside, into the light, into the joy of the master, the joy of God.

And best of all, we know this ahead of time, unlike these three. We don’t have to guess at God’s nature, or the depth of God’s love. We’ve been in the outer darkness ourselves, and have been found by God. We are free to hear Jesus and act in joy.

Because the parable is simple: all we have is God’s, all we’re asked to do is use it for God.

But too often we obsess with the judgment at the parable’s end rather than the main point. That ignores the truth of the cross, that judgment isn’t the end of the story, or even the story itself. But distracting ourselves with the ending also conveniently lets us avoid the clear teaching of Jesus.

Jesus speaks of wealth beyond anything his disciples could comprehend. A talent today, about $1.25 million, is beyond most of our comprehension, too. This is intentional.

First, Jesus insists that we have blessings and wealth from God far beyond what we imagine, far beyond our anxieties about wealth. We’re millionaires of God’s abundance and blessing, if not actual dollars.

Second, with these unimaginable amounts, Jesus frees us to remember it’s not ours. We can’t dream of holding that kind of wealth. So we’re entrusted with God’s abundance because God needs us to use it and care for this world. Feed our neighbor. Clothe and house those in need.

The only thing that can stop us is our fear.

And let’s be honest: our fear is not of God. We know God’s love for us is greater than death, it can’t be stopped. We know we are God’s beloved children.

Our fear is that we won’t get to keep what we do with God’s wealth. The third slave didn’t fear the owner. He resented that he couldn’t do what he wanted with the money, benefit himself, take care of his priorities. But he never would’ve had the money if the master hadn’t entrusted him with it.

Neither would we. Let’s break free forever, right now, of the myth that we deserve what we have by our hard work and effort. Billions of people on this planet give hard work and effort. Not all are born into the privilege of families that are doing well, not all have a culturally and economically protected skin color. Most don’t live with so much space and resources that their country believes there are no limits to wealth, that we never have enough, and that each generation needs to be wealthier than the previous.

That’s the garden you and I were born into. We got fifty talents right out of the gate, while others barely got a coin to work with. So let’s stop pretending there’s any question of whose wealth we have. It’s not ours, never has been. The only question is, are we going to start being faithful with God’s wealth or not?

Here’s our blessing: we are a “we.” We can learn faithfulness together.

What if these three had gotten together with the money and worked as one? Maybe the two could have broken through the third one’s fear and greed and self-deceit. Encouraging each other, unimagined blessings could have abounded. We are not destined for wrath, Paul says today, but are saved through the cross of Christ. So, Paul says, we encourage each other in this life of faith, build each other up, help each other.

That’s what stewardship is together as God’s people here. It’s nothing to do with meeting a budget or giving money “to” anyone. The giving we do is how we share this task of faithfully caring for God’s wealth. How we help each other be free of fear.

Because meeting our budget each year is a pretty low bar. It’s good things we do: taking care of this building, paying staff and giving generous benefits, running programs. We also give 12% above all that to others – to our global partners, to our neighbors, to our sisters and brothers across the ELCA – and that’s great.

But if we lived this parable, meeting that budget would be exceedingly easy. If we all were able to let go of only ten percent, for example, of what we have been given, we could double or triple our budget. Maybe more. We know what it costs for our usual work, so all the rest could be an astonishing blessing of abundance to share with God’s world.

What could our partners at Bethania in India, EPES in Chile, Common Hope in Guatemala, do with an extra $100,000 a year for their critical mission? What impact could we make in south Minneapolis by buying the four houses north of us and converting them to affordable rental housing for low income people, or a transitional shelter? What could our new loan program do funded at a level that truly made a dent in how many use payday lending? When we aim only for our minimum budget, we’re not quite burying God’s wealth in the ground. But we’re also not catching God’s vision for what God’s abundance can do.

So our stewardship is communal: we get together and pool God’s money, and dream what we can do. We elect leaders, a Vestry, to help guide us. We learn from each other. There are folks here who’ve understood proportional giving and tithing for decades and lived into it, and shaped this congregation. They can teach us what it is to live without fear and release what is God’s so the world is blessed.

It’s enough joy to make us giddy to contemplate what God could do among us if we really caught this parable’s vision.

The grace of this parable is in the master’s welcome: “Enter into my joy.”

Freely, fearlessly using what their master had entrusted, the first two found joy in serving and joy in living. They were entrusted with even more to care for. In their relationship with their master they found joy.

That’s our truth, always. Our relationship with the Triune God, grounded in God’s love, forgiveness and grace, is a blessing beyond our ability to describe. When we really live freed from fear because of that relationship, because nothing can separate us from God’s love, and we live into Jesus’ vision here of multiplied, shared abundance, we find the joy of our God.

We had no idea we could do so much with God’s abundance. Now we know. And we don’t need to be afraid. So what shall we do, together, as faithful stewards of God’s abundant blessings?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

There is grace here: Christ, the bridegroom, willingly takes a door-slam in the face alongside us, and is with us as we seek to prepare our lives for God’s healing grace in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 32, year A
Texts: Matthew 25:1-13; Amos 5:18-24

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

This has been a heavy, exhausting twelve months.

It’s so tiring, all the time, isn’t it? I’m tired that there isn’t a single day without depressing news, or worse, despairing news. Almost hourly we hear of the latest shenanigans or wickedness from our highest leaders. Almost daily we hear news of shootings and killings, and our Congress, bought and paid for by the NRA, refuses to address it. Natural disasters are no longer natural, aided and abetted by climate change, city after city is pummeled by storms like we’ve never seen.

And it’s more than the news. More than any before us, we’re aware of the complex systems that cause suffering and pain, and we can’t keep up. Seemingly insoluble problems that require all our energy and creativity, embedded systems that we participate in even without knowing. We’re used to confessing our individual sins and trying to do better. Now on top of them there’s an endless list of mountains we need to work on. Just one would take great effort. But there’s not just one. Climate justice. Racism. Devaluation and objectification of women across the culture. Violence and a gun culture. Oppression of the poor in our own nation. And so many more. If we didn’t care, it would be easier. But we do. And God cares. There’s so much our care compels us to deal with. It’s overwhelming. Exhausting.

And this heaviness, anxiety, and tiredness seems to be rising among many of us who care deeply about this world and about serving God in this world.

It would be a help if we could find some relief for this weight.

Here at worship we often find God’s peace. But this past year has been Matthew’s year, and that’s contributed to the weight. This year I’ve had a number of conversations with folks here about Matthew, and how judgmental his Gospel can feel. And the lectionary creators chose a lot of prophetic witness to pair with Matthew this year, so it hasn’t been an easy year to find lightness and joy in our Scripture texts.

Just look at these next three weeks, starting today. To finish the Church Year we’ve got three very hard parables from Matthew 25 and three very angry prophets, Amos, Zephaniah, and Ezekiel. At this point, that seems more weight than we can bear.

But God has promised to bless us with grace when we gather. So we’re going to struggle with these readings until we get it. We’ll emulate Jacob at the river Jabbok, who wrestled an angel, maybe even God, all night, and refused to let go until he got a blessing. With the Spirit’s help, we’re not letting go of these heavy readings in a heavy year until we hear God’s good news.

Our wrestling reveals we’re not being completely fair to Matthew.

It’s true, Matthew’s the kind of student that, just before the bell rings, raises his hand and reminds the teacher she forgot to give homework. Matthew’s a disciple that wants to learn. He packs his Gospel with Jesus’ teachings. And we’ve heard those teachings, week after week, till we feel like all we’ve heard this year is how messed up we are and how much work we have to do.

But it’s not Matthew’s fault we don’t read his whole Gospel every week. We can’t hear all the teachings and skip Matthew’s framing truth and complain we don’t like Matthew.

If we read all of Matthew every week, we’d remember that Matthew starts his Gospel with Jesus’ family tree that includes flawed people, even naming four women. Jesus comes from broken folks just like us. It’s Matthew who says that Jesus’ true name is Emmanuel, God with us, who ends his Gospel with Jesus’ promise to be with us always. The whole Gospel is about God being with us. Matthew’s the only Evangelist that tells us that Jesus said God wills that not a single person be lost. God wants to save everyone. And unlike Luke, who heard that the Roman officer who crucified Jesus said, as Jesus died, “truly this was an innocent man,” Matthew says the officer said, “Truly this was the Son of God.”

So here’s Matthew’s Good News: Jesus is the Christ, God-with-us, born of flawed human stock, who desires to save all, and who is publicly known and proclaimed as God’s Son only when he’s dying, humiliated, on a cross.

We can’t read this parable and ignore Matthew’s greater truth.

Now, obviously the Bridegroom today is meant to be Jesus.

In most of the parables we’ve heard since September, there’s been a figure that seems clearly to stand as God. Or the Son of God. Vineyard owner, ruler, master. That’s true these three weeks, too. Today, the Bridegroom. Next week, the master. Last, the returning King.

But if Matthew is focused toward that critical witness at the cross – truly this is the Son of God – then we have to re-think all those parables. God isn’t where we thought God was in them. God-with-us is dying on the cross. And that changes everything.

Because if it’s God’s Son who’s dying as a criminal, here’s what really happens in today’s parable: the Bridegroom himself has the door slammed in his face. He’s told “I don’t know you,” and is thrown out with the rest of us foolish, unprepared ones. If the Son of God dies on the cross, then this parable doesn’t end the way Jesus said it would.

Now, Jesus told this parable right before Holy Week. Matthew 26, the next chapter, begins the Passion account. Whatever was threatened here, in Holy Week the opposite happened. The Bridegroom was thrown out, along with everyone else who didn’t properly prepare. And the Bridegroom was killed.

This is the astonishing grace we find when we struggle and don’t let go till we hear good news: God-with-us is out in the darkness with us.

God joins us in our foolish lack of preparation, our paralyzed inactivity in the face of such challenging things. There is no greater news. I’ve never felt that I’d be one of the prepared ones. I leave things till the last minute too often. How do any of us know if we’re ready for Christ?

But if God is with us in our struggle to be prepared, it’s a different world. Now we can hear the message of this parable – be ready, get your oil, face what needs facing – with the joy that we aren’t preparing alone.

Amos shows us the oil we need to have ready: justice that rolls down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. That’s what fills our flasks, what lights our lamps. It is God-made, and God-given. And with God-with-us at our side, we can fill up with God’s justice and righteousness and be ready for whatever mountains and suffering and work are before us.

It’s a heavy path ahead. This year has taught us that. It’s going to be heavy for a long time. But we’re not alone. God is here. So we can go on.

There’s one more grace in all this, maybe the best of all.

If God’s justice and righteousness are the oil for our lamps, what will happen when they are lighted? Our preparedness has little to do with life after we die. In Christ’s resurrection we will be borne into new life, and there’s nothing we can do to make that happen. So what are we preparing for?

African slaves in America sang “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning” to each other. They meant it as more than encouragement about life after death. It was also a prayer for God to change the world. As our lamps of justice burn, the darkness itself is lightened. The world is changed. As our lamps of righteousness burn, even if we can only do a small flame, this world begins to see again, and God’s true healing happens. Mountains start coming down. Even in this world. Maybe even in our lifetimes.

We can’t deny that more often than not we’re the foolish ones in this story, unprepared for the challenges we face.

But hasn’t Paul reminded us that the truth of the cross is that God chooses the foolish to shame the wise? That God chooses to save through the foolishness of the cross? It makes no sense for the Bridegroom to allow himself to be shut out of the party, even killed for the sake of the likes of us. But sensible or not, that’s exactly what Christ does.

And that foolish death was just the beginning. For Christ is risen, and all the foolish are restored along with the wise. In the light of the resurrection, the wedding feast of God and humanity can finally begin, even now, and change the world. It’s a feast with no doors to slam, no faces excluded. Where everyone is known and loved by name.

We taste of that feast today and at each Eucharist. We are fed with God’s justice and righteousness, we have our jars filled here each week, so we can be prepared for whatever is to come.

But best of all, God-with-us, Emmanuel, never leaves us. That is the light we’ve been longing to see in all this darkness.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

The feast of the marriage of God and humanity is a joy and a filling and forgiveness and an abundance of life: why would we refuse the invitation?

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 28, year A
Texts: Matthew 22:1-14; Psalm 23; Isaiah 25:1-9

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

This doesn’t make any sense.

Why would anybody reject an invitation to a royal wedding? It comes in the mail, heavy paper, elegant embossing, and you’re in, invited to a wonderful event. Even here in the States, where we rejected royalty centuries ago, we’re fascinated by royal weddings. But not just one person turns it down. The entire guest list makes fun of the invitation, and some do horrible things to the messengers.

Jesus likes starting parables with ridiculous scenarios like this. It’s his thing. No father would sell his house, empty his savings and give half to a younger son, then watch him head into the sunset. No shepherd in the world would abandon 99 sheep to wolves and injury and cold to go looking for one lost sheep. It’d be hard to find a farmer or vineyard owner who’d pay a full day’s wage to workers who only put in an hour’s labor.

But Jesus has deeper truths, greater wisdom, we can only get to by breaking down all we think is true. We can’t imagine rejecting a royal invitation. So, Jesus says, what do you reject? If this is like God’s realm, what invitation are you tossing into the recycling bin?

To crack this open, we need to know what the invitation is. What feast are we talking about?

Jesus tells a story of a wedding of a king’s son. It’s Holy Week when he tells this parable, along with others that use the image of an important father and his son. Obviously Jesus is talking about himself, the Son of God, and his relationship to the One he called Father.

But that it’s a wedding is also important. Whenever wedding imagery is used in the New Testament, pay attention. It’s not accidental. The Church has understood it to mean that we, the Church, are the bride of Christ. That in Christ’s death and resurrection the Triune God and humanity are joined in a new covenant, a new testament, a marriage. In this covenant we are married into to the life of the Triune God, restored, forgiven, and transformed.

This parable’s wedding feast is the wedding feast of humanity to God. It’s a joyful celebration of God’s love and forgiveness, God’s eternal marriage promises of faithfulness and care. It’s a celebration that we know now and that continues into the life to come. When we come to this Table in this liturgy, we eat of this marriage feast, taking in God’s food for life and wholeness and salvation. Why would we ever reject this?

We might not be terribly fond of the rest of the guest list.

Anxiety around seating charts at receptions seems to haunt many wedding planners; apparently whom we sit next to at a wedding matters. Maybe we don’t want God’s invitation because of who’s at our table.

David sings of a feast prepared in his enemies’ presence. The way the Hebrew Scriptures speak of the feast of God, including Isaiah today, suggests that David’s feast is a reconciliation meal. The feast is spread amongst enemies, so they’re also at the table.

Isaiah proclaims the great feast in the life to come, when death is destroyed, but it’s the same inclusive vision. All peoples, all nations, will come to this feast on God’s mountain, and all will be fed. This marriage of humanity to the Triune God that Christ creates will join all people to God. We’ll be cheek and jowl with everyone.

Now, this congregation lives with the belief of full inclusion in God. We experience it repeatedly: here all are welcome, all are seen as loved by God, no matter who they are, what they look like, what quirks they have. Still, most of us wouldn’t need much time to make a list of individuals or groups that we don’t want next to us at God’s wedding feast, either in the life to come, or at the marriage feast in which we live in this life.

We also might not really want to be married.

Marriage joins for life, so you’re together. A lot. If it’s the Triune God making this covenant with us, then God’s planning on taking up residence with us. Living in our lives. There, all the time. Maybe we reject God’s invitation because we’re not ready for that marriage.

As beloved as the 23rd Psalm is, there’s an uncomfortable intensity of relationship there. The Shepherd anoints us with oil at baptism, brings us through those waters, provides all in abundance. The Shepherd leads us on the paths of God, not our paths. The Shepherd restores our soul, walks with us through dangers, feeds us at the Table, accompanies us all the days of our life.

That’s a lot of closeness with God. When the path winds through valleys of shadow and fear, we certainly want our Shepherd. No one wants to face wolves alone.

But all that guidance, directing of our paths, walking with us all day, being with us while we sleep, maybe that’s more than we’re ready for. We like our own paths, seeking out satisfaction that we want, even dangerous things. At our core, we resist walking with God daily because we can never get away, or run wherever we want.

We also might not want to come to the marriage feast on God’s terms.

We love the idea of receiving God’s grace, God’s eternal love, without earning it. But at the same time we often hope that somehow we’re probably doing well enough to earn some of it. Better than others we could mention, we think.

But the final wedding guest list in the parable is populated by “both good and bad,” whoever could come. All are worthy because the king said so, not because of what they did. As people are brought in from the streets, the pickpocket and the one whose pocket got picked are both guests. We’re worthy because God says we are, not because of us. We don’t always like that very much.

And we resist what it means to be brought into God’s grace. The Scriptures say that when we’re loved by God through grace we are transformed into Christ. Whatever we are, good or bad, is utterly changed. We’re made worthy by the Spirit’s transformation.

That’s the problem of the wedding garment. In a culture where poor people didn’t have two sets of clothes, Jesus imagines that the king provided clothing for all guests. A rack of tuxedos and evening gowns were inside the entrance hallway, in all sizes.

In Colossians, Paul says our transformation into Christ is like being dressed in Christ’s clothing, putting on love, forgiveness, patience, as a garment. (Colossians 3) Being dressed to be someone we aren’t yet. And like the guest in the parable, we’re not always ready for that. Why do I need to be made to look like Christ? Don’t I get to be myself?

But none of these reasons actually make any sense, do they?

After all this, we’re still back at our principal objection: why would anyone ever turn down God’s invitation? Even with such reasons, once we see God’s feast spreading in this world now and forever, once we learn what God plans marriage with us to be, there’s nothing we want more.

We want communion and grace with God, even if it means God in our lives all the time, every day. Because it means God in our lives all the time, every day.

We want the joy of feasting in God’s love and forgiveness, even if it means having enemies or those we don’t like feasting alongside us. Because it means reconciliation with enemies and those we don’t like.

We want the blessing of being clothed in God’s love and grace, covered with the garments of salvation, even if it means letting go of our clothing, our ways. Because there is nothing we want more than to look like Christ, to love like Christ, to live like Christ.

The invitations are out, and you’re invited to the wedding feast of God. So is everyone. It’s time to RSVP, and start living in this new life, at this feast, in the marriage love of God now and forever.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen