| The Foundation of Lady Katherine Leveson at Temple Balsall | ||
 |
||
|
St
Mary's Church
|
   
|
|
|
The Great Feast in Matthew Matthew 22. 1 14 Sermon preached on 13 October 2002 by If anybody wanted a reason to back-up the reality that the Bible is a rich but complicated set of texts and stories then part of the proof certainly lies in these first fourteen verses of Matthew Ch.22. You'll remember that the parable of the banquet is told by Luke in a very different way showing us that each of the Gospel writers takes a particular event and story and shapes it to reflect their own concerns. The parable of the banquet in Luke is more straightforward, cleaner, without the violent and complicated features that characterise the way Matthew tells this story. Luke has more of an ability to engage the reader with the characters in the story and I have to say the unusual details of Matthew's account result in a rather unrealistic and unbelievable story. Let us remind ourselves of the story:- The meal is a wedding feast hosted by a King. When the servants are sent to tell the invited guests to come, a strange thing occurs: they are made light of, mistreated, and even killed - an odd way to treat servants who come to perform a positive and helpful function. Understandably, the king reacts with rage, but then the story of the feast itself is interrupted long enough to allow the king time to marshal his troops, destroy the invited guests and burn their city. The meal is held in abeyance until the violence is over. Then the story is taken up again: the second group of guests are invited off the streets and the wedding hall is filled. Matthew's parable is the result of applying a simpler version of the story of the banquet to the Jewish rejection of the Christian Gospel. The servants calling the invited guests are preachers who have been abused and whose message has been rejected by Jewish leaders. The vengeance of the king seems to relate to the havoc wrought on the city of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70AD and Matthew makes his point pretty drastically clear - the parable of the wedding banquet reflects the Jewish rejection of Christian messengers who bring the invitation to the Kingdom. What on earth are we to do with all this? The details in the story are hard to fathom. Should a guest invited off the street be expected to have appropriate clothes? A Dinner Jacket in his bag? Isn't the outer darkness with its weeping and gnashing of teeth a hard punishment for one who only lacks the proper attire? Let me go a little further. This is Matthew at his worst - Matthew at his most unlikeable. This isn't a text to draw upon if we are to understand the relationship of Christianity to Judaism. What are we to make of the Jews? Who is their Messiah? Are they saved? Does God live the Jew as well as the Christian? As intelligent Christians, there are some parts of the Bible that need to be handled with considerable care. Perhaps there are seven some parts of the Bible that we should simply disregard. In spite of its sharpness and oddity there is a challenge in the Matthew Parable which is relevant to us here this morning. When the old Jewish people of God failed and were succeeded by the new people of God, what you had was a mixture of bad and good. That is what the Church was from the outset and, indeed, that is what it still is: a mixture a both good and bad. Sometimes the issue is whether the community should rid itself of the bad; pull up the weeds that have grown amid the wheat. In Matthew's story there seems to be no such issue. The good and the bad belong together. For Matthew the effort to confront the audience with the hapless and disquieting figure of the guest without a wedding garment is an important part of the message. Judging others is no business of the audience; rather they are to tend to themselves, their own preparedness to meet the King, their readiness in the face of judgment. We are all accepted as members of the Church here this morning, not because we are good, but by the grace of God. But that acceptance gives us no indemnity - no licence to feel secure, cosy and complacent. It doesn't excuse our moral lounging about and our failing to take trouble. This is an issue for us about the quality of our lives: whether for you and me in the ordinary dimensions of our relationships we manifest a genuineness and a trustworthiness. What matters is a life without pretence that takes seriously the love and grace given to us in Christ and offered to us in this holy Sacrament. The Reverend Dr James Woodward |
||