The Wrong Clothes

 

Daily Office 7-4-2021; Year One

1 Samuel 14:36-45

Romans 5:1-11

Matthew 22:1-14

The story in Matthew of the king’s banquet is one of my favorites. It came to be a favorite because my reading of the parable is so different than the commonly held views of it. More on that later.

Lectio divina is off on a tangent again today, refusing to yield any emergent phrases, but instead insisting on showing me recurrent themes of unjust punishment and opportune rescue.

Samuel: Jonathan “sins” without knowing it, and his crazy Dad is going to execute him for it, but the people ‘ransom’ him.

Romans: Paul lists the reasons why we should brag about our troubles, because troubles lead to equanimity, strength of character and hope. The best point he makes is this: “ For if we were reconciled with God through his Son’s death when we were enemies, how much more will we be delivered by his life, now that we are reconciled!”

Matthew: The king can’t get anyone to come to his feast, so he holds an open house, dragging anyone and everyone off the street. Then he gets mad at one guy for not dressing up for the feast, so he ties him up hand and foot and throws him out into the dark.

 

On this parable, many (actually all) of the reflections and sermons I found online cast God in the role of the king. Some of the authors were certain that this king was just and right in viciously burning down the city of his ungrateful guests, and they felt no qualms about comparing this cruel king to our God of hope and love. I just don’t get it.

It made me remember a post on Facebook that I’ve seen several times that criticizes what it calls “Disney Princess Theology” in which we always choose to identify with the princess in every biblical story. I found out the author, Erna Kim Hackett, and here’s the quote:

“As each individual reads Scripture, they see themselves as the princess in every story. They are Esther, never Xerxes or Haman. They are Peter, but never Judas. They are the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisees. They are the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt.”

I want to take it a step further, and suggest that we often make the same mistake about God in scripture: always identifying God as the authority figure, the King, the General of the troops.

But the Christ Event turned all that on its head, showing us God as our victim— falsely accused and unjustly executed; betrayed and abandoned; powerless.

So, taking that view, the parable in Matthew becomes truly poignant. Here we have a secular authority, the king, who desperately wants to have control of God’s territory; who wants divine power and control. But it doesn’t work that way. The kingdom of Heaven won’t cooperate. None of its inhabitants see any value whatsoever in the king’s counterfeit wedding feast, and just refuse to show up. What’s more, they can’t be forced, even when the king vengefully burns down their city. So the king collects a bunch of random folks to fill up the guest list, just for show; just to avoid the humiliation of having everyone see that no-one came to his party.

 

Here is where it gets eerie— That one guest that isn’t dressed right, who remains speechless when asked how he got in without his tuxedo— doesn’t he remind you of that guy who didn’t say a single word when he was standing before Pilate?

Doesn’t that fit in with everything we know about the Christ Event?

Doesn’t that fit with all the other things that Jesus said about the Territory of God? That it’s not of this world; that it’s not what we think; that it’s everywhere and nowhere; that it’s within us?

 

To me, that means

 I’d better keep an eye out

 for that Divine bum;

that shabby misfit

wearing the wrong clothes;

that sly character

carrying a pin in a room full of balloons;

that quiet oddball

who’s used to being tied up and thrown out into the dark;

that empty-handed nut

who keeps on showing up, none the worse for wear.