Today's Daily lesson comes from Matthew chapter 22 verses 1 through 13:
And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3 and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ 5 But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7 The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ 10 And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.11 “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Now here is a parable that is tough to preach on. So tough, in fact, that when this text comes up in the lectionary cycle my first thought is usually that this would be a good Sunday to let our youth pastor have a turn in the pulpit!
Deal with it we must.
Note some things that Jesus does not say. Jesus does not say that this is exactly the kingdom of Heaven. He says the kingdom of heaven may be compared to this. Likewise, Jesus does not say that God is this angry king destroying a city; though surely there is a sense of judgement upon the city which we are to take seriously. And, Jesus does not say the man who shows up at the wedding feast, but then gets kicked out is thrown into eternal hell; though we do get the sense that the man is in a kind of miserable hell, standing alone in the dark of isolation.
The last time this parable came around I did preach on it, and I used an historical event to capture what I believe Jesus was trying to say. I thought about the life of Joseph Ratzinger, born into a strong Catholic family in the Bavarian part of Germany in 1927 and caught up in the tumult of his country's rise and fall under the Nazis. And whether out of a sense of duty or solely by conscription or a mixture of both, Ratzinger and thousands of other young boys put on the Nazi uniform in order to serve the German fatherland. In the bitter end, when Berlin and Dresden and so many other German cities, had been left in rubble just like in today's parable, it was teenage boys like Ratzinger who were left defending home; and it was teenage boys who decided either to surrender or to fight to the death. Ratzinger surrendered, was interned in a prison of war camp though the Spring of 1945, and upon release entered seminary to study for the priesthood later that year. Now as I said, there were many thousands like Ratzinger, but I know him and his story because he later became Pope Benedict XVI.
In that story we find two striking parallels to Jesus' story. First, a whole nation destroyed -- not necessarily by the wrath of God -- but by the judgment which ultimately befalls all evil and unrepentant nations and the cities they build. And also this, a resident of a nation destroyed, who being willing to take off one uniform takes up another and is welcome into a gathering likened unto the kingdom of heaven.
I'm not really sure how easy it sits with me either. Like I said, it's a story I would prefer to pass off on others. But in the end, it's a story of judgment and of grace, the former of which I want for others and the latter of which I desire for myself.
But that's not how Jesus told stories about the kingdom of heaven. He told stories of judgment for all who will not come to he banquet and grace for all who do -- so long as they are willing to change their clothes and abide the company they find themselves with.
Even, I suppose, if the company is former Nazi German soldiers.
And the kingdom of heaven may be compared to that.
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