HOW DID YOU GET IN
A sermon by George R. Pasley
Exodus 32:1-14; Matthew 22:1-14
How did you get in?
We have no bouncers at our door, anyone can come in. In fact, we’d like for everyone to come in, and we’re sometimes disappointed when they don’t.
So it’s shocking to hear that question, “How did you get in?”
Even more shocking to hear, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
It sounds exclusionary.
It sounds biased and prejudiced.
It sounds elitist.
It sounds mean.
It sounds capricious.
But it’s not.
In a few minutes we’re going to baptize Rhiannon, and that baptism will symbolize her adoption into the
Notice that word, adoption.
Maybe you know someone who was adopted, and maybe you know they were told from a very early time that their parents looked and prayed to find them, and how glad they were to finally find them and adopt them.
In that story that they were told over and over, which they probably repeated even more times, the emphasis was on the efforts of the parents to find and claim the child.
And so it is when we are baptized. God has looked for us and found us. The
Now, don’t think too hard about that. I know some of you want to think that you made a decision to love God. I’m simply asking you to consider the possibility that it is much more complex than that. If you want to argue, I won’t spend too much effort trying to persuade you.
But let’s look at the parable.
The King’s son is getting married, so a huge feast is planned. Everybody knows what a great party it will be, the best party ever! After all, it will be at the palace, the King is paying the bill, and it’s for the son.
Who here can forget the wedding of Charles and Diana? Even if you were like me and didn’t watch it, you remember. It was other-worldly.
So one would presume that invitations to the wedding were highly prized. But when the day was announced, when the doors were opened, the guests all stayed home. They weren’t hoping for a better offer, they just didn’t care.
I once told a friend I really didn’t like weddings and thought I might have to work on the day of his. I was young and dumb and was really surprised to see how much he really wanted me to be there.
So I know the couple in this parable must have been really upset that their invited guests didn’t show up. But I’m looking at something else.
This was a wedding feast being thrown by a KING, and a refusal to attend a party at the King’s house is first of all an extreme insult and second of all, a rebellion.
So I’m going to say something here: there is in this a parable an element of human refusal, a snubbing of the nose to the grace of God. It happens, I don’t deny it. I’m just saying it’s more complex than that.
And look what happened. The King got mad.
Now, in the parable the King gave them a second chance, but they made matters worse by killing the messengers. In fact, they provoked the King’s final judgment.
It may seem pretty hard for some of you to equate God with this king. It’s even a subject I don’t really like to talk about, but I’m not afraid to talk about it and here’s why.
For one, we deserve God’s anger. To say the least, we are petty, cruel, greedy, and capable of evil that is beyond imagining. Scripture tells us that God DOES get angry, so we ought not to think of God as some kind of naïve grandfather who doesn’t know or care what his grandkids are up to. We ignore God’s judgment at our peril.
But let me suggest another way of thinking about it.
If we ignore God’s grace and love, then we are turning our back on God’s goodness and punishment will find us soon enough without any help from God! Just try to imagine the fate of a traveler caught in a blizzard who doesn’t take shelter at the house where the porch light is on and the house owner is standing out by the side of the road urging people to come in from the storm.
Alright, back to the story. “The servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
We have been talking about God’s judgment, but the parable reminds us also of God’s grace. Good and bad are gathered into the hall. There were people at the party who were amazed beyond belief that they got to go. They had no idea, but there they were.
That’s what we celebrate today. God is gathering as many as possible into the
But the parable is not over and the hardest part is the last.
One guest got thrown out. Just one, but it bothers me.
After all, he was there- he got in- because he was invited and gathered. But the King asked him, “How did you get in?”
That makes the King look capricious at the worst, and at the least it makes the King look ignorant of what was happening when the party guests were being assembled.
But there is part of the parable we don’t understand.
At a really grand wedding party today, all of the guests would be given some sort of party favor. In ancient times, the practice at expensive weddings was more elaborate. All of the guests would have been given fancy robes that would have some way matched the robe worn by the bridegroom. They would have been handed out as the guests entered. So the one guest who wasn’t wearing his really had no excuse. He had snubbed the King in the same way as the invited guests who refused to come.
Now, in the parable the King is God, so the bridegroom is Jesus, except the bridegroom never actually appears in the parable. That absence may be a reference to his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. So the man who was not wearing the wedding clothes that had been given to him was essentially man who was saying “No” to Jesus. He was a man who kept on walking through the horrible blizzard when he was being invited into a warm safe shelter.
Once again, we have an element of choice in the parable, an element of human rejection. It happens, I don’t deny it. I’m just saying it’s more complex than that.
But look at the last line. "For many are invited, but few are chosen."
There’s no way of getting around that word, chosen. But let me offer you another way of looking at it.
David James Duncan left church several decades ago. But he reads extensively and seems to understand what it means to be chosen by God. Just listen…”Wonder is my second favorite condition to be in, after love- and I sometimes wonder whether there’s even a difference: maybe love is just wonder aimed at a beloved. Wonder is like grace, in that it’s not a condition we grasp: wonder grasps us. We do have the freedom to elude wonder’s grasp. We have the freedom to do all sorts of stupid things…we can evade wonder all our lives, non-stop.” (God Laughs and Plays, p. 8)
So the
That’s how we get in, every one of us.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
