October 17, 2007 - No RSVP Needed - Be Spiritually Dressed and Come! - Hayward Fong

Luke 14:15-24; Matthew 22:11-14

The story of a homeowner inviting guests to a great feast in this manner was quite normal in Palestine. The date would be set, but not the exact hour. The more honored guests were personally summoned and escorted by the servants. The remainder divided themselves into two classes. Those who had no great opinion of their importance would arrive early so as not to miss the event but humbly grateful for the invitation. Those who had a great opinion of themselves would wait until the last minute or actually come in late to make a grand entry and let everyone see that they were there.

In putting the cart before the horse, I want to focus on verses 11-14 in Matthew 22 and leave the Parable of the Wedding Banquet for another Wednesday. Though the Parable of the Wedding Banquet is recorded in both Matthew and Luke, these particular verses are only recorded in Matthew. It reads as if the event took place at the Wedding Feast, however Bible scholars believe that these verses were originally a separate parable. So, I’m going to treat it as a separate parable for today’s lesson.

You will recall from an earlier homily, Jesus had been invited to the home of a Pharisee for dinner and it was at this dinner that they were hoping to entrap Him for blasphemy. During the course of the evening, one of the guests made the remark which brought forth this parable..

The Jews had a picture of what it would be like when the golden days of the new age arrived. There would be this wondrous Messianic banquet that God would give to His people. This guest was probably thinking of this banquet when he made his remarks to Jesus. His thinking would never have envisioned gentiles and sinners having a place at the banquet of God.
Following the Parable of the Wedding Banquet, Jesus told this story of a man who came to the king’s feast in his workaday soiled clothes. The king asked him why. The man was speechless because he had no excuse; and for his discourtesy he was ejected from the feast. How could a king condemn a man for not having a wedding garment when he had just been unexpectedly picked from the streets with no chance to get properly dressed?

Some have tried to get over this difficulty by saying that at such feasts wedding garments were actually provided for the guests to wear, but there is no evidence that this was such a custom.

The idea of guests who came unfittingly dressed and were condemned for doing so was familiar to the Jews. Because only Matthew tells this story, it has been suggested that it was directed to the Jewish people in light of the Gentile influx into the early Church, and to serve as a warning to the Gentiles. True, the Gentiles are allowed in, but they must try to fit themselves for entry into the Kingdom of God.

It was always so easy to make a travesty of the gospel. The Jews had their laws and life became one long arduous continuous effort to keep them. Then Paul came along and told them it was not by keeping the laws that they were saved, but by faith in the free grace of God. Now it could be easy to pervert the truth and say, “All the laws are finished; I can do what I like and I can depend on the grace of God to forgive me!” There were those who argued like that. They said, “You say that the grace of God is wide enough to cover every sin? Well then, let us go on sinning to our hearts content because, after all, the more we sin the more chance we give this wondrous grace of God to operate.” This was using Christian freedom as an excuse for un-Christian license. Paul deals with this in Romans 6. It may well be, then, that Matthew is saying, “It is true that there is free invitation from God to the most unlikely people; nor does it absolve them from the duty of trying to fit themselves to be His guests.”

The duty was no longer a legal duty but a duty born of love. If a person is to be presented at a formal gathering, he must be dressed in a certain way. Attorneys appearing before the United States Supreme Court must be attired in a prescribed manner or they will not be admitted. That is a legal obligation. But suppose two people love each other. When they’re meeting each other, they will dress as attractively as possible. There is no legal obligation; but because they love each other, they want to be at their best. So it may be that Matthew is saying, “Yes, you are released from all these laws; but surely the higher law of love will make you want to fit yourselves to deserve the undeserved love of God.”

Though the setting was in Palestine and the time some two thousand years ago, there is a message for all times and places.

The man without the garments was guilty of three faults.

One needs to have a sense of the fitness of things. Edward Seago, renowned artist tells this story of his travels with gypsies, and painting pictures of them. In one town, he took two gypsy boys into a great cathedral. On the way there, the boys chattered and laughed as normal boys do. But once inside the cathedral, they were as quiet as could be. The atmosphere of the place told them instinctively what was fitting; and instinctively they knew what is the right kind of conduct for the presence of God.

But what we forget is this…we are apt to associate the presence of God with churches and cathedrals and to forget that the whole earth is His temple and that everywhere we are in His presence. It is not only in churches but in all the world that life must be fit for God to see. One should move through life as if living in the temple of God. That does not abolish laughter and joy, for God loves these things; but it does abolish the mean things that are not fit for God to see.
One needs to have a sense of what’s going on. This man came in with one idea…he wanted a meal. He had no thought of joining in the tribute to the king of which the feast was a part. It is almost impossible to share an occasion in any real sense if we don’t know what is going on.

That means, for instance, that we must learn what worship really means. If we go to a concert, we would enjoy it much more if we know something about the instruments, the structure of the symphony, and how the conductor conducts. When we go to a church service we should try to have a clear idea of what is going on in every part of it so we can really share in it.

The man without the garment had no reverence; he had no respect for the king. Reverence is an awareness of the greatness of the person in whose presence we are. When we come to worship we are in the presence of God. We show whether or not we are aware of that in the smallest of things. I suppose the term, “our Sunday best” expresses that awareness. The fact that we may not have good clothes doesn’t prevent us from doing the best with what we have to indicate our awareness of the presence of the King. People will stand for the National Anthem but slouch through the singing of a hymn sung to the King of kings who is present at the worship service. Reverence means being aware into whose presence we are coming and making our conduct, as far as we can, fit that presence.

One general lesson the parable teaches…the necessity of preparing ourselves to come into the presence of God. Too often we leave home at the last moment, rush down the street and arrive without preparation at all in the house of God. Probably, all of us would do well if we take a moment or two to ask God to prepare us to enter into His presence.