This blog has been idle for a little while. I haven’t been preaching in September, so I haven’t paid as much attention to the scripture readings coming up. I have an assignment later in October, however, so I’m stepping back into the flow of the scriptures we’re all hearing.
Having just read the readings for Sunday, I’m left scratching my head. The gospel reading in particular is troubling. Jesus tells a parable about a king who plans a wedding banquet. When the invitations go out, those invited laugh it off and even kill the delivery workers. So the king kills them all and has his servants go out in the street and invite everybody in–the good and the bad. Good news there for us who through Jesus are invited to God’s great feast of joy. And yet the story concludes with the strange wrath of the king toward someone not suitably dressed. the conclusion: Many are called but few are chosen.
The community for which Matthew writes his gospel is a mixed community. Some are super Christians claiming special gifts of the Holy Spirit. Matthew sees others as shallow Christians. For Matthew true faith is lived out in right living. At the same time he discourages a judgmental attitude toward others. Judgements about sincere faith are to be left to God in God’s good time. So the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
We could read this story as a call to invitational evangelism–inviting others into the faith community of which we are a part. How good a “church member’ they may be, how good a “follower of Jesus” they may be is not up to us to decide, but simply to invite them and let God work in their lives. In the end God will make the judgements.
Listen to the first reading as well. What good news it is that even God can change God’s mind. We are constantly creating idols for ourselves, we turn away from God and God would be rid of us. But Jesus intervenes on our behalf and God changes God’s mind and continues to be our God. In our baptism God has made us a promise to always be our God. We trust God not to have a change of mind, a change of heart about that. But it is Good News to us that God is not just an angry God, but a God of steadfast love.
May you enjoy these days of beauty and let them remind you of God’s great blessings.
