For Max Schultz’s fifteenth Birthday his parents decided to treat the young lad and some of his friends to an evening in Philadelphia that included an overnighter at the upscale Sheraton Society Hill Hotel. By all account Max and his friends all behaved admirably.
Several floors below however, in the hotel’s atrium lobby a hockey game quality fight broke out between two wedding parties. It was reported that one of the weddings booked at the hotel that evening had a cash bar while the other did not. One does not have to have a degree in hotel/motel management to wonder how that turned out. When it was discovered that guests from the " cash bar" wedding were availing themselves of the free libations offered just in the other room more than fisticuffs erupted. It was a full-blown battle royal involving more than 100 guests from both weddings.
Some of us have seen this because Max did what any fifteen year old, but no adult that I know of, thought to do. Max grabbed his cell-phone, and started the video recorder app, and then posted it for everyone to see on YouTube™ . He captured a scene of pure pandemonium that, were it not for Max’s play-by-play, could have been right out of a Hollywood comedy.
Men in suits and tuxedos, women in formals were involved in this " bench-clearing-brawl." The police rushed in batons and tazers. Some punches missed by miles but some landed. One in particular caught Max’s attention, causing him to exclaim, " Did they just deck the bride?" Indeed Max was right as a woman in a white wedding dress took one to the chin and fell to the floor.
It is quite a video and while it made tens of thousands of YouTube viewers, including myself, laugh out loud I am sure than none of the guests at either wedding, especially those arrested, were laughing or have laughed about it even to this day.
Jesus might have been a little proud of this wedding because he once created a story, right off the top of his head, about one that was just as crazy.
It was our Gospel reading for today and I have to quickly point out that this wedding never actually happened, it was the product of Jesus’ fertile imagination.
Biblical scholars, who have nothing better to do with their lives, have spent enormous time speculating about whether this is a parable or allegory. Without turning this into an English literature class, you all remember that in an allegory all the characters or details represent something else.
So, in this case the king would be God. The banquet would be life in God’s kingdom given in honour of his son, Jesus. The messengers would be the prophets who issue invitations to the perennial fall guys – the scribes and the pharisees – who turn them down. The allegory breaks down for me when those invited kill some of the messengers who bring the invitation and in an act of obvious over retaliation the king sends in troops and burns their town to the ground. Finally, God seems to be acting more like " The Godfather" when he takes one of the guests and throws him out with the trash.
I think this is a pure parable because, where it an allegory it would be a terrible one and it would leave us off the hook. And, as I have said to you many times, Jesus does not leave us off the hook. This is a parable and it is a parable that is as perfect for our day as it was his.||
For instance, most recent polling done by the Pew Research Religion and Public Life project found that: "Nearly three-quarters of the public (72%) now thinks religion is losing influence in American life, up 5 percentage points from 2010 to the highest level in Pew Research polling over the past decade. And most people who say religion's influence is waning see this as a bad thing."1
While in the same report and increasing number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.
This means that every week, in countless places and countless ways, the king is giving a banquet, and people have better things to do.
We know who they are and what they are doing. They’re bowling, or boating, or golfing, or fishing, or sleeping, or immersed in the Sunday political talk shows all the while bemoaning the fact that religious influence is waning.
Do you see the same inconsistency here as shown by those invited by the king in Jesus’ story? They had other things to do. They had more pressing business to carry out. The invitation was an imposition. Their lives are full of more personal concerns that they think are more important than the king’s invitation. It’s not that they can’t come it is just that they don’t want to. But by not coming they dishonour the king.
It has been speculated that perhaps the king was unpopular and this was a way to get back at him. Most of us could understand this.
There is always a tendency on our part to try to get even by staying away. Something has happened to make us angry with another person in the church so we lock ourselves behind our doors and really do say to ourselves, " Boy those people at the banquet must be having a lousy time because I am not there. I wonder if they are wondering where I am?"
Or, and this is the saddest thing of all. Troubles come to our lives and we decide that we’re not going to have anything to do with God or God’s banquet anymore. " We’ll show, God. We’re going to be mad at him and stay away from this banquet God throws for us every week because we’ve been hurt or are hurting and we want God to know it."
Wise people do just the opposite. When disaster strikes their lives they don’t move away from God they move toward God. Maybe they turn back to the faith that they once held, never really lost, but also never really maintained. Maybe they show up at the banquet hall and are treated like the long lost friends that they are as they feel the warm embrace of a new community or old friends who really do love and care about them.
What we cannot miss in Jesus parable is the absolutely crazy part of the kings invitation. He scratches out the words, " black tie only" and tells his servants, " ‘ Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’
" So the servants did, and brought in all they could find, good and bad alike; and the banquet hall was filled with guests."2
This new invitation is issued to everybody both good and bad.
Those people who never thought they would see the inside of a king’s banquet hall in a million years were welcomed. And the good? Maybe, some of those good people where ones who had turned down the king’s original invitation but had a change of heart. Maybe they looked back over the totality of their life with the king and said, " Hey! The guy wasn’t all that bad. Let’s give him a second chance." And when they did, they were welcomed with open arms and open hearts.
But, there is always one wiseacre is every crowd, and even he is addressed by the king as " Friend." This guy got his invitation and didn’t even bother to put on his wedding garment.
I could quote boring theologians at length about what this is all about but instead I will share a brief internet conversation between Lowell’s cousin, Aaron Wester, who writes a fashion blog called " The Modern Otter" and his mother.
His mother bragged on her Facebook page that she had worn her pair of Converse tennis shoes to the Symphony and " when it came time to walk home I felt like a woman 20 years younger than myself. Practically running past those women teetering on little heals and grimacing in pain"
To which her younger and much hipper son replied, " I don’t believe it is right ... there are certain institutions that should be elevated. There is a certain respect due ... the work happening on the stage."
Aaron got it right. To wear a t-shirt and dirty jeans to a party thrown by a king shows no small amount of disrespect to the host – especially if the party is in a palace and the host is a king.
But I don’t think that Jesus is trying to make a fashion statement here. I don’t think he’s talking so much about what you are wearing on the outside but what you are wearing on the inside.
If you show up at the king’s castle looking for a fight. If you show up, like a guest at a Philadelphia wedding, waiting for something to happen so that you can turn a banquet into a brawl then you are always going to be on the outside looking in. You are always going to be on guard for the slightest slight, the minor misdeed, that can turn a person who is so kindly disposed to you that they call you " friend" into an enemy. And the weeping and gnashing of teeth will be your fault, not theirs.
The good news is that those of you who have gathered this day is that you have accepted the king’s invitation. And even those of you who are watching on your computers or reading these words via our weekly mailing are acknowledging that you need what the king has to offer.
You may have been battling God for awhile. You still may not be sure about him. You may wonder if you even have a place in his banquet hall anymore. But the assurance is that if you want it, it is still there. There is room for everybody at God’s great banquet.
And Saint Paul might just give us the best clue of all about what your wedding garb should look like. He isn’t talking about your shoes, or your shirt, or your blouse or your tie. He’s talking about your mind set. Don’t think about something that happened so long ago that you can hardly remember the details. Don’t think about all the trouble you might have had in your life. Rather, Saint Paul suggests: " Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about."3
Or, if you can’t remember all that, remember what Auntie Mame once said, " Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!"
Christ doesn’t want you slugging it out in the lobbies of life. He doesn’t want you " weeping and gnashing your teeth" out by the trash. He doesn’t want you to " starve to death" emotionally and spiritually. Christ wants you to live!
And to do so all you have to do is accept his invitation to come inside. Come to Christ’s banquet and live!
Thanks for listening.
_____________________
Endnotes:
1, Pew Research Group, " Public Sees Religion’s Influence Waning." September 22, 2014.
2. St. Matthew 22:9-10. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]
3. Philippians 4:9. (TLB)
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
"Pity the Angels" - Revelation 12:7–12 and Saint Matthew 21:33–46
And war broke out in heaven..."[1]
If ever there was a line in scripture designed to make people – especially people of our day – sit up and take notice that was it. "
In heaven too?" we might ask as a war weary world looks again to the middle east and sees the same battles being waged among the same people who have been waging them for the last decade.
We look and we do not understand. We do not understand the difference between Shiite and Sunni. We wonder if even they understand.
The capitalists among us, of which I count myself as one, shake our heads and wonder why they don’t work together to build rather than destroy? Their countries have great climates. They have historical sites that would draw tourists by the thousands if not hundreds of thousands. "
"Hey! Hey!" we want to shout, " there is money to be made here people. Lots of money! From oil! From tourism! There is enough for all if you would just put down your guns and stop trying to blow each other to smithereens."
And now we hear, in scripture no less, that a war once broke out in heaven. It is a war of almost mythological proportions between the angels and a dragon. The good news in this story, that most biblical scholars believe is a myth, is that the angels prevail. The dragon was defeated! The angels win and cast the beast out of heaven.
It is the age old struggle of the epic battle between good and evil and in literature, certainly more often than in life, good wins out.
That is the way we want it to be. That is the way we hope it is in our time,
Rick Marshall, was a writer for Disney and an editor at Marvel Comics, who admits that he " spent a lot of time trafficking in the contemporary versions of civilizations’ epic confrontations and traditional fairy tales."
"But, I have to report that I wondered during my Marvel days, why millions of readers were so invested in superheroes, forever asking " what if?" about characters with super powers, invincibility, the ability to defy nature, fighting life-threatening foes and defeating evil, as good as good guys can be … but how so many of those young (and older) readers could be indifferent about Jesus."[2]
That may also be why people are drawn to angels over Jesus -- at least of the Hallmark variety. They are the quintessential winged good guys who protect us when they function as our guardians, and find us good parking spots when they are functioning as our G.P.S. devices. They would never get their hands dirty, much less bloody, in a battle for territory. And, if they did, those would not be the angels we would want to purchase to hang around our neck as costume jewelry or keep in our curio cabinets.
It also may be why people do battle to keep the real Jesus out of their lives.
For some it is just easier and I understand them. I actually understand them better than fiercely fundamentalist Christians. In fact, I gravitate to their kind even though I am somewhat disappointed in them.
For instance, one of my intellectual heros is Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George F. Will who, up until last week, I thought was an Episcopalian. Turns out that even though Will majored in religion in college he describes himself now as an " amiable, low-voltage atheist."[3]
Only George F. Will could come up with the phrase, " amiable, low-voltage atheist" and in so doing also give us a huge clue as to why wars break out if not in heaven, at least on earth.
They break out when people, nations, tribes or cultures become less than amicable, high-voltage groups – holding on to land, political positions, religious affiliations, no matter what the cost.
Take the tenants in today’s parable who certainly were no angels.
They had made a deal with the landowner that seemed at first to be not only fair but friendly. They would work the land for him – not without pay but certainly not for 100 percent of the profits. The problem is that somewhere along the line they got to believing the land and crops belonged to them.
It’s a strange little leap in logic but one we make all the time. We look over our lives, our accomplishments, our treasures, and begin to believe that since we have worked hard for them they belong to us.
In most cases, you have worked very hard for what you have. I know precious few people who were born with silver-spoons in their mouths. And, even those people of means who I do know are not on a beach in Greece somewhere drinking Ouzo but are going to work at something, somewhere, everyday.
We’re the workers in the vineyard and our only requirement is to remember that the vineyard doesn’t belong to us it belongs to God.
That’s what the servants in today’s parable forgot and the Pharisee’s (who are not the bad guys here but rather the voices of truth) tell what happens to people who will go to any lengths to keep what belongs to them – up to and including murder. They end up with nothing.
Think of the lands in which wars have been fought. Think of those pictures we see every evening on the news. One word sums it all up: rubble.
Think of churches where people come to the believe that it belongs to them and their kind. They become social clubs dedicated to people who are only like us no matter what the us might be. Strangers are viewed as people whose strange ideas just might upset our tried and true ways of doing things even if those paths have lead to a desolate landscape barren of new ideas.
Pastors sometimes are put in the position not of leaders but adversaries who are to be opposed at all costs.
Church Council is not seen as a place where people go to think creatively on how to solve problems but a place where people go to create problems.
And what happens to nations and institutions whose deepest desire it is only to do battle with one another. God takes what they have away from them and gives it to others who will use it wisely.
Some of those who have toiled so hard in the church for years only to come to believe it was their own sometimes find themselves in exile wondering what is going in on the inside but still choosing to remain on the outside.
The problem with all of Jesus’ parables is that much as we would wish they are not about those people way back then they are about us. They are not about just the people in his original audience, they are about you and me.
They are warnings to us that war can break out at any time in any place – from heaven to earth – whenever we begin to think that any part of heaven or earth is ours and ours alone.
Thanks for listening for them and to me.
__________
Endnotes:
1. Revelation 12:7. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
2. Rick Marshall, " Pity the Angels." Www.realclearreligion.com September 22, 2014.
3. Nicholas G. Hann, III, " George F. Will: The RealClearReligion Interview." www.realclearreligion.com. September 22, 2014.
If ever there was a line in scripture designed to make people – especially people of our day – sit up and take notice that was it. "
In heaven too?" we might ask as a war weary world looks again to the middle east and sees the same battles being waged among the same people who have been waging them for the last decade.
We look and we do not understand. We do not understand the difference between Shiite and Sunni. We wonder if even they understand.
The capitalists among us, of which I count myself as one, shake our heads and wonder why they don’t work together to build rather than destroy? Their countries have great climates. They have historical sites that would draw tourists by the thousands if not hundreds of thousands. "
"Hey! Hey!" we want to shout, " there is money to be made here people. Lots of money! From oil! From tourism! There is enough for all if you would just put down your guns and stop trying to blow each other to smithereens."
And now we hear, in scripture no less, that a war once broke out in heaven. It is a war of almost mythological proportions between the angels and a dragon. The good news in this story, that most biblical scholars believe is a myth, is that the angels prevail. The dragon was defeated! The angels win and cast the beast out of heaven.
It is the age old struggle of the epic battle between good and evil and in literature, certainly more often than in life, good wins out.
That is the way we want it to be. That is the way we hope it is in our time,
Rick Marshall, was a writer for Disney and an editor at Marvel Comics, who admits that he " spent a lot of time trafficking in the contemporary versions of civilizations’ epic confrontations and traditional fairy tales."
"But, I have to report that I wondered during my Marvel days, why millions of readers were so invested in superheroes, forever asking " what if?" about characters with super powers, invincibility, the ability to defy nature, fighting life-threatening foes and defeating evil, as good as good guys can be … but how so many of those young (and older) readers could be indifferent about Jesus."[2]
That may also be why people are drawn to angels over Jesus -- at least of the Hallmark variety. They are the quintessential winged good guys who protect us when they function as our guardians, and find us good parking spots when they are functioning as our G.P.S. devices. They would never get their hands dirty, much less bloody, in a battle for territory. And, if they did, those would not be the angels we would want to purchase to hang around our neck as costume jewelry or keep in our curio cabinets.
It also may be why people do battle to keep the real Jesus out of their lives.
For some it is just easier and I understand them. I actually understand them better than fiercely fundamentalist Christians. In fact, I gravitate to their kind even though I am somewhat disappointed in them.
For instance, one of my intellectual heros is Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George F. Will who, up until last week, I thought was an Episcopalian. Turns out that even though Will majored in religion in college he describes himself now as an " amiable, low-voltage atheist."[3]
Only George F. Will could come up with the phrase, " amiable, low-voltage atheist" and in so doing also give us a huge clue as to why wars break out if not in heaven, at least on earth.
They break out when people, nations, tribes or cultures become less than amicable, high-voltage groups – holding on to land, political positions, religious affiliations, no matter what the cost.
Take the tenants in today’s parable who certainly were no angels.
They had made a deal with the landowner that seemed at first to be not only fair but friendly. They would work the land for him – not without pay but certainly not for 100 percent of the profits. The problem is that somewhere along the line they got to believing the land and crops belonged to them.
It’s a strange little leap in logic but one we make all the time. We look over our lives, our accomplishments, our treasures, and begin to believe that since we have worked hard for them they belong to us.
In most cases, you have worked very hard for what you have. I know precious few people who were born with silver-spoons in their mouths. And, even those people of means who I do know are not on a beach in Greece somewhere drinking Ouzo but are going to work at something, somewhere, everyday.
We’re the workers in the vineyard and our only requirement is to remember that the vineyard doesn’t belong to us it belongs to God.
That’s what the servants in today’s parable forgot and the Pharisee’s (who are not the bad guys here but rather the voices of truth) tell what happens to people who will go to any lengths to keep what belongs to them – up to and including murder. They end up with nothing.
Think of the lands in which wars have been fought. Think of those pictures we see every evening on the news. One word sums it all up: rubble.
Think of churches where people come to the believe that it belongs to them and their kind. They become social clubs dedicated to people who are only like us no matter what the us might be. Strangers are viewed as people whose strange ideas just might upset our tried and true ways of doing things even if those paths have lead to a desolate landscape barren of new ideas.
Pastors sometimes are put in the position not of leaders but adversaries who are to be opposed at all costs.
Church Council is not seen as a place where people go to think creatively on how to solve problems but a place where people go to create problems.
And what happens to nations and institutions whose deepest desire it is only to do battle with one another. God takes what they have away from them and gives it to others who will use it wisely.
Some of those who have toiled so hard in the church for years only to come to believe it was their own sometimes find themselves in exile wondering what is going in on the inside but still choosing to remain on the outside.
The problem with all of Jesus’ parables is that much as we would wish they are not about those people way back then they are about us. They are not about just the people in his original audience, they are about you and me.
They are warnings to us that war can break out at any time in any place – from heaven to earth – whenever we begin to think that any part of heaven or earth is ours and ours alone.
Pity the angels and the God they serve who have to spend enormous time and effort to keep us from destroying our neighbours and eventually ourselves.
Pity them, but then follow them, God and God’s angels, I mean. For what they are telling us is simple.
Work as hard as you can in this world that God has given you, but work for the causes God cherishes – justice, love and peace – otherwise you shall have none.
Work for your church, your family, your friends, your neighbours, your vocation, yourselves but know that all of them, every single one belongs to God.
Work for the cause of Christ but do so knowing that Christ isn’t just your personal Saviour but the redeemer of the world.
Be amiable to each other but not indifferent to the cause of Christ which is nothing less than bringing all of us under his reign and rule until we gather as one around his throne and feel the touch of angel’s wings bringing us finally what we have longed for all along, God’s great heavenly peace.
Work until the day the promise we sing about every Christmas is realized because " man, at war with man, hears not the love song which they bring. So, hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing."
Thanks for listening for them and to me.
__________
Endnotes:
1. Revelation 12:7. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
2. Rick Marshall, " Pity the Angels." Www.realclearreligion.com September 22, 2014.
3. Nicholas G. Hann, III, " George F. Will: The RealClearReligion Interview." www.realclearreligion.com. September 22, 2014.
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