Pentecost 20A
October 15, 2023
Isaiah 25:-19; Psalm 23; Matthew 22:1-14
INTRODUCTION
Today Jesus continues to share parables meant to challenge the religious elites of the day – but they are no less challenging for us still, in 2023. Today’s parable is particularly difficult, as it paints a picture that seems like it should describe God, inviting everyone to a royal feast, but it ends up looking very little like the God we know and love and worship.
The other three readings, however, are lovely. Isaiah will also speak of a rich and satisfying feast, at which God will wipe away tears, and at which we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation. Psalm 23 describes a table set for us in the presence of our enemies, in which our cup will overflow with goodness. Even Philippians, while not about a feast, is about rejoicing, and praise, and relishing in the goodness of Christ, who will guard our hearts and minds, and whose peace surpasses all understanding.
Hold tightly to the promises you hear in those first three readings, friends. Then, as you listen to the difficult gospel lesson, be guided by the question that best guides all of Jesus’ parables: what does this story show us about who God is, or perhaps, who God isn’t. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The parables we’ve had these last couple of weeks are difficult any time they come up in the lectionary, no doubt. Not only are they difficult to interpret – we believe, after all, in a loving and gracious God, and the king we see in today’s parable is anything but! – but they also bear the baggage of a history of antisemitic interpretation. Christians have used them to say, “God favors Christ-followers. Christianity has superseded Judaism, and is the one true way to worship God.” Lord knows, we do not need any more antisemitism in our world, and having these texts and their baggage come up in light of current world events has made a gracious interpretation of them even more difficult.
This week in particular, I admit to you that I have really struggled to write this sermon. I keep getting stuck on this line, where the king “sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.” It is so graphic, and when paired with the horrific images coming out of Israel/Palestine right now, it is near impossible to stomach.
So how do we come to terms with this? I have a few offerings which might help. One is to recognize the historical context of this writing. Matthew is writing around the year 80, about a decade after the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple (the first, the one Solomon built, having been destroyed in 587 BC, by the Babylonians, after which many of the Jews were sent into exile in Babylon). This time it was the occupying Romans who destroyed it, after a Jewish uprising. Matthew’s audience, made up primarily of Jews who had been cut off from their communities because of their belief in Jesus as the Messiah, were trying to make sense of this catastrophic event. So, it is entirely possible that Matthew’s placing this parable here, at the end of Jesus’ life, standing near the Temple, is an effort to console his audience and make sense of the horror they watched unfold. That line that troubles me so this week, about sending troops to destroy murderers and burn cities, makes more sense when it is describing something that actually happened in the lives of the people listening – rather than something that will happen.
Still, we usually think of the King in these parables as being God. So what do we do with a God who would be so brutal as to use a foreign army to fatally punish lack of faithfulness, who invites everyone in, yes, but who then binds and throws out the first person he finds not to be “doing it right,” not wearing the provided wedding garment? Some commentaries I read, in desperate search for answers, pointed out that Matthew’s context, while important to know and understand, is not our context, and thus this parable may mean something entirely different to us in the 21st century – and that is okay! After all, this is the living word of God, and one static interpretation that remains unchanging for two millennia does not sound “living” to me. Scripture is always speaking to us in different ways, depending on what is happening around us and what God needs us to hear.
Another commentator offered that when Jesus says at the beginning, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…” it does not mean, “The kingdom of heaven is like this.” Rather, the Greek tense used there means something more like “Compare this to that,” as you would compare, say, apples to oranges – that is, as a contrast. Like, “This is the way a worldly leader (like Herod) would act, indeed, it is how we have seen worldly leaders act. It is something utterly different from the way our God and King rules.” Well that I can get on board with! But I’m also always suspect of interpretations that allow me to scoot past the difficult parts and not have to face them.
And so I continued to dig and read and pray and try to understand this parable. As I did so, I heard a ping from Facebook, indicating that someone had commented on a recent post I’d made. The post was a share of a description a colleague had written, trying to help people understand some of the history of the situation in Israel/Palestine. Many of us are trying to understand, she’d said. Here is some brief historical information. The person who had commented on my share of that history was Becky, a seminary classmate of mine who is now a Jewish clergyperson. She warned of over-simplified descriptions, and added, “I would ask that you refrain from speaking of ‘sides’ in a war and from trying to explain what is happening.” I messaged her privately to continue the conversation, and she spoke of the difficulty of holding solidarity and grief and care-taking and lament. “It is just hard and extremely complex,” she said.
In her public comment on my post, she also suggested what is most needed right now. I asked her if I could share it with you and she said yes. She wrote, “There will be a time, God willing, for analysis later, but right now thousands of human beings are dead and besieged, and a lot of us are in a state of shock and trauma. Sit with us and pray with us that people will soon be able to live lives of love instead of hate. Pray for a swift end to fear and terror. Pray that humans will use their tongues to build worlds, not to destroy them. And if that all feels trite, please sit with us in silence. This truly feels like a time when no words can express the magnitude of what has happened over the past days. Thank you for being there for us and with us.”
I was incredibly moved and humbled by her words and requests. I thought of how hard I had been working on trying to make sense of this parable – a story I thought I should be able to wrestle some good news out of, and just couldn’t. I thought of the millions of people – Jews and non-Jews alike – who are trying to make sense of what is happening as we speak in the Middle East, and who will likely never succeed. And I thought of all the people of faith who have been trying to make sense of horrific tragedy throughout time, looking for God’s hand in it, looking for meaning, looking for ways to hold onto their faith in the midst of the horror.
And all of this, despite my best intentions to preach on the Gospel this week, urged me instead toward Isaiah and the Psalm, the texts we heard this morning that we share with our Jewish siblings. Like the Gospel, they both speak of marvelous banquets, but rather than horror, these serve up hope, peace, reconciliation. They serve the end of capital D Death, the end of division. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,” the Psalmist writes. I imagined this happening in Israel/Palestine – and it became in my heart a prayer that dovetailed with Becky’s: “Sit with us and pray with us that people will soon be able to live lives of love instead of hate.”
I thought of the Isaiah text, which was also written during a time of war and terror: “On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food… he will swallow up death forever.” Imagine hearing those words as the enemy army is breathing down your neck, as you fear the end of the world as you know it is near. Imagine hearing them as you long for peace, long to have an opportunity to celebrate with a feast like Isaiah describes. Imagine reading them as a Jew living on the Gaza strip today. Listen again to Isaiah’s words: “Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all the faces… It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
It is a vision we all share: a vision of life and celebration, a vision in which we need not fear the grave for God is with us and has come to save us. It is a vision of hope, even in the midst of lament. And someday it will be true. We will join in celebration at the invitation of our God, sharing together in a feast of peace, love and mercy, our cups running over. Dear God, may it be so!
Let us pray… Lord of Hosts, Good Shepherd, Righteous King, we pray for our Jewish and Palestinian siblings, both those living through unspeakable violence and those who grieve and lament from afar. And we pray for ourselves, that we try not so hard to understand and explain as to sit-with, to pray-with, to grieve-with. We pray that people will soon be able to live lives of love instead of hate. We pray for a swift end to fear and terror. We pray that we could find ways to build worlds, not to destroy them. Grant us all the peace that surpasses all understanding. We have waited for you, God, that you might come and save us. Amen.
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