If we were invited to a great celebration and party for someone like a king or queen or president we probably and immediately ask: what should I wear? Imagine if this were to a wedding banquet? Even with regular weddings you probably wouldn’t just come as you were, you surely wouldn’t want to dress in your dingiest and dirty clothes. You would want to wear something nice and special. Why? Because to wear grimy clothes to such an event shows disrespect and disregard to the inviter. But what if you didn’t have to worry about it, if that royal host actually provided the clothing to wear? You wouldn’t even have to worry about choosing or deciding what would be appropriate, you wouldn’t have to worry about buying something or being offensive. Just wear what is provided. It would be a generous gift for just being at the party. We would praise their generosity and receive that added gift and wear it gladly, wouldn’t we? Well I would think so.
Something similar happened in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus told a parable of a king whose son was getting married. Of course, a marriage is something worthy of celebrating, and he had long before invited many people to come to this wedding. But when the time for the wedding feast, virtually none of those who had been invited showed up. When the king sent his servants to find out “what was going on?”, some of the people who were invited merely shrugged off the messengers. They all had something else to do that they thought was more important. What is worse, is that some even beat and killed the messengers. Almost unbelievable.
Remember the one inviting wasn’t just some guy down the street, this was the king. The ruler and governing authority. The reaction of the people wasn’t caused by a slight disagreement of a sense of priorities, it wasn’t that they knew that the food and celebration wouldn’t be fun. No, the reactions of the people was outright disrespect, even hatred for their king.
But why did they hate this king? It sounds like from the parable that he was loving king, a king who was generous and patient, providing for his people, yet the ones initially invited despised him for his generosity to the point of killing his messengers.
This parable is talking about God the Father, His Son was Jesus, the time of celebration was the time of salvation and the redemption of the Bride by the Bridegroom in the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The subjects of the king who had been invited but rejected it were the Jews: many who also beat the prophets of God and killed many prophets sent from God.
The king still wanted to serve and give and celebrate so his servants gathered many people from the roads, the passersby, those travelling through the countryside, many who were probably not citizens. This represents the gathering of the Gentiles, the non-Jews into the Christian Church. But even among those who were brought in there was a disrespect and disregarding of the king and his generosity. It didn’t have to do with whether people were good or bad in their state when brought in, for it says that the servants gathered and brought in both the good and the bad. It had to do with the wedding garment. The clothing.
The king had provided for his guests a wedding garment so that all the people regardless of their background, their situation previous to being admitted would no longer be seen based on that but now would be equally dressed in royal celebration garments. The king provided for them, they were probably made of wonderful material, more comfortable than anything else, a person has the privilege of being at this feast, why would they wear something other than what was provided? Why would a person insist on wearing your own clothing? Pride in themselves and disrespect or distrust of the king.
It is very interesting that this text comes around in the 1 year series near the celebration of the Reformation because it speaks very closely to one of the primary abuses of the Western church in the days of Martin Luther.
You see, the wedding garment provided represents God’s the righteousness of free grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. The garment of His righteousness won for believers in His redeeming work of salvation when He died on the cross as a payment for sins; so that those who have been bad and somewhat good (yet all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God). According to the Law, all are unworthy of coming into the presence of God because of their wretched rags of sin and pride. But Jesus died so that ALL could be saved and become citizens and guests covered in His blood and righteousness in order to celebration the feast of this victory and marriage of Christ, the Bridegroom with the Church His bride. This royal garment of righteousness is given in baptism, and daily washed in repentance and the remembrance of Christ’s promise in Baptism…but a person can reject this garment. A person can add to it or discard it, and decide that they would rather wear the garment of their own righteous deeds or their own sin.
This was really the battle that was raging at the time of Martin Luther. The Roman catholic church at the time of Luther had failed in proclaiming the grace and mercy of God through Jesus Christ. They did not see the garment of Christ’s righteousness to be an elegant wardrobe. They insisted, that people should add to it, they should add to it their own works, their offerings to Rome, their pilgrimages to holy sites, their prayers to the Saints, and their purchases of indulgences, or permission to receive forgiveness because they paid the price with cash.
Now if that isn’t pride and a slap in the face of the king, God the Father, and the free grace and sacrifice which He provided in His Son, I don’t know what is.
Yet this is the natural state of people: Jews, Gentiles, Lutherans, pastors, laity. We all so often take God’s grace for granted and want to wear the garments of our own design. Either we want to wear our deeds and magnify ourselves in our piety and our own holiness. Or we may make instruments of God’s grace like baptism, the Lord’s Supper into works to point to our own obedience as though God’s grace isn’t enough and it isn’t His work, it’s MY work, too often we have to add our decorations; our interpretations on His Word and grace which are not biblical and do not point to Christ. People may even make attendance at church as a thing of pride, rather than an opportunity to attend the presence of the king and His Son, receiving from Him His gifts for our good.
The other side of wearing garments of our own design is that we just not care about God and His invitation and His gifts at all. We see attendance at church as something that we do “if” we have nothing else to do. Or many will just stop coming all together because they don’t see that invitation by the king as a privilege and a source of joy. “I have other things to do” or “I don’t need it”. Or I would rather keep wearing the “lived in, beat up” shreds of cloth that the world wears and my sinful flesh enjoys.
When we sin, we are discarding the clothes of righteousness provided by God. We are saying “God, you may be the king of the universe, but I will do what I want when I want to. Take me as I am, if you love me, or don’t. I don’t care, I just gotta do what I want right now. That crucifixion of your son, well that’s nice, it makes it so that I can sin right here and now so your grace can abound by forgiving me later, right?”
OH, I don’t know how God puts up with us. If we were treated the same way as we treat God in His grace, we would be same angry and bitter. Honestly, that is what we deserve. WE don’t deserve multiple chances of repentance and forgiveness. We deserve the troops of the king to come and seize us and throw us into the place of punishment with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Therefore, let us repent of the dirty shredded clothing and garments of sin of our own making, and plead for the sake of Jesus Christ, mercy to cover over our bodies of sin. To remove our pride in ourselves and the world, and put on instead the gentleness, humility, and joy of Christ’s righteousness.
This was the message that God planted into the mouth of Martin Luther and His messengers of the Reformation. Return to Christ. Don’t put on any longer those inferior garments of our own making, there are no shortcuts, nor is there room for pride.
Let us instead rejoice in the Word of God, let us be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ which is far better, greater, and more splendid than any other clothing. Let us sing unto the Lord and praise Him for His generosity and His salvation which has come to us freely, saving us from eternal destruction.
Then let us attend and celebrate the feast and banquet of His victory with not with a spirit of pride, but gratitude. being filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ and the Truth which He teaches. Jesus Christ has died for your sin, we have been clothed with His righteousness the most splendid of garments. He has risen from the dead so that we may walk in His wisdom and the newness of life, into His presence in thanksgiving and joy to rest in Him, being fed the greatest of food and drink: Himself, being comforted and strengthened now and until we receive this feast in full at the last for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas