Reflection on Matthew 22:1-14

It helps to put on the clothes. 

“Now that was sort of out of left field,” you think.  “Where is he going with this?” 

Where I am going with this is to address this weeping and gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness that happens when that one wedding guest in the kingdom shows up to the wedding banquet lacking an appropriate wedding gown. 

I think that I have been that guy before.  When I was a teen, I was invited to a nice wedding during a period of time that I owned almost no nice clothing.  My dad was going back to school and my mom was working the till at a drug store.  Needless to say, we did not have any money. 

I went to Goodwill and did the best that I could.  I found some “kind of nice” pants.  You know, the type that pretend to be nice, but are made of a fabric so stiff that they actually do not need a person sporting them to walk around and show them off. 

I found a “kind of nice” shirt also.  It was as if the shirt was once nice, but seemed to have degraded to a point where the owner decided that it was time to discard it.  And, when I say “it was as if” I mean, that is literally what happened. 

After that $5 splurge, I did not have any money left over for shoes, so tennis shoes would have to do. 

At the wedding, I felt very self-conscious.  I hid in the corners of the wedding, hoping that no one would notice me.  I was present, but my shame did not allow me to participate as much as I would have liked.  There was no dancing, no working of the crowd, nothing.  For the longest time I stood in a corner drinking my exotic Hawaiian Punch and 7up mixed drink.  One old woman saw me in the corner and mentioned off hand that the least I could have done was wipe my tennis shoes clean.  I was so glad that I showed up!

All of this is to say that it helps if you can put on the clothes.  I would have felt free to dance and talk and participate in the wedding if only I had the option of wearing appropriate clothes.

Anyone who has acted knows that something magical happens when you wear your costume for the first time.  You can study and practice what a character sounds like, moves like, and feels like all you want, but it is not until you put on the costume that you can finally let everything else in the world drop away and be that character.

The current pope talked about experiencing a similar thing.  Before he put on the robes of the papacy, he was just a church administrator…a pastor…in other words, he was just himself.  But, once he put on the robes he was suddenly the hope of the poor and an apostle to the world.  Once he put on the robes he felt the need to bless to suffering, love his enemies, and live simply as Jesus lived.  It helps to put on the clothes.

Now, I have to say here, that my underdressed teenaged self would have probably been just fine in that wedding banquet from the scriptures.  Remember that the banquet was originally held for the elite of the town, but when the elite decided that they were too busy to honor the king, people from the streets were invited to come. 

I can imagine that some of these poor dug out their best, which was not so best-ish.  One had an old wedding gown from his father, found in an old box.  Another found an old one in the ruins of the city that was just recently destroyed.  Yet another taped one together using newspaper and duct tape.  OK, they did not have newspapers or duct tape at the time, but you get the idea.  All of these people were fine coming to celebrate at the king’s banquet because they wanted to be there and wanted to participate, no matter how meager their participation may be. 

I would have been just fine in my Goodwill clothes, because the king had called me and I showed up as best as I could.

The weeping a gnashing of teeth stuff does not happen to the humble and poor, the weeping an gnashing of teeth befalls the guy who showed up at the king’s banquet, but had no intention of participating.  He had no desire to put on a wedding robe and be one of the guests.  He had no desire to actually be there. 

Why did he even come in the first place?  For prestige?  For improving his social standing?  Was he a future politician who wanted some social points?  Was he just there for the free food but not the celebration of the king? 

I do not know.  I do not really want to focus of that guy too much because he is uninteresting.  There are plenty of unremarkable people in the world who have no desire to put on the clothes of the kingdom of God.  They are normal, dull, and uninspiring.  They want the cake but not the dancing.  They want the party, but not the joy.  They want the grace, but not the sharing.

Dietrich Bonheoffer, one of the few German men who saw through Hitler’s schemes from the very start, put on the wedding gown of Jesus’ kingdom of grace and love, and wore it to the very end.  Even as he rode his final train ride to the location of his extermination, he comforted and preached God’s grace to those who also were counting their last minutes on earth.  Somehow they were held in the bondage of fear and hopelessness, but he was acting as if he was at the banquet feast of God…because he was. 

As the Apostle Paul reminds us, “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, NRSV).

He knew this to be true.  He lived it to the very end.  He wore the clothes of Christ and sang his Alleluias to the very end.  It helps to put on the clothes.

Do not get confused though.  The point of wearing this clothes is not to bring about some sort of moral perfection.  When you are found wearing the clothes of Christ, you are not somehow now a perfect being who will never fail. 

When pastors put on their holy robes on Sunday morning, you can still see the collars and shoes of their street clothes.  The sin and imperfection of the everyday does not disappear when you put on Christ.  Rather, Christ overcomes and overlies your sin and imperfection. 

Putting on the clothes of the kingdom is what imperfect people do when they have hope. 

It is what imperfect people do when they trust that they can have a new life in Christ. 

It is what imperfect people do when they desire to dance in the kingdom of God. 

It is what imperfect people do when they want to share all that Jesus has done in their lives. 

It is what the people of God’s love do when they have felt loved and accepted into a party for which they had no little good clothes. 

Welcome to the banquet.  Welcome to the kingdom.  It is all yours.  Come, put on your wedding robe and celebrate…it is good enough.  You are good enough.