Sunday, October 15, 2017

The Kingdom of Heaven is Like....Really????

Sermon for October 15, 2017

Proper 23A – RCL – Track 1 


Once more Jesus spoke to the people in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Today we heard yet another parable and as I mentioned last week we need to fasten our seat belts and put on our crash helmets whenever Jesus tells a parable. Because it is not going to end the way we think it should.  If we really listen to the parable it will reach into our very souls and shake us to our core.  And I find this to be particularly true when it is a parable purporting to inform us about the Kingdom of Heaven.  And this parable in particular is disturbing.

The kingdom of heaven is like a royal wedding feast where the first guests ignore the invitation  which enraged the king who orders their murder and then invites scoundrels in from the countryside.  Only one of them didn’t happen to wear the right clothes so he is cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Really!  If that is our God and the kingdom of heaven then I think I signed up for the wrong thing.  Perhaps socialist secularism is better suited to my beliefs!  How do we make sense of a kingdom where there is violence and destruction?  How am I, as a preacher, supposed to make sense of this parable?

This week as I pondered the lesson one of my fellow clergy, Lynell Walker, suggested that the one being cast out is Jesus – after all this parable is told during what we would call Holy Week – when Jesus has come to Jerusalem and knows that the temple authorities are plotting his death.  And perhaps that could make sense.  After Jesus was sent to death on the cross our tradition tells us that he went to that place where there is weeping an gnashing of teeth only to break open the gates of hell and liberate those human souls that had gone to that place.

And then I reflected back on last week’s parable where I suggested that perhaps the vineyard that is the kingdom of Heaven is God’s dream of creating a place of love, mercy and forgiveness on this earth and not just in some future city in the sky. A place with eternal organ music and Gregorian chant – after all that is the music of heaven right! 

But all kidding aside what if Jesus is telling us that we are getting this kingdom thing all wrong.  What if we are the King in this story?  Are we like the people in the story from Genesis who as soon as Moses in not around created a new god to worship?  Do we judge people not with mercy and forgiveness but with harshness and violence?

Indeed I read this parable as a condemnation of much of what we as a society are up to these days.  Our society is just like the one Jesus came to over two thousand years ago.  We have religious Pharisees demanding that people with the right background and the right clothes are the ones to show up.  We have elevated the second amendment to the point where for many it has become a golden calf.  We have demonized homeless people, GLBT people and anyone who doesn’t look like us because based on their natural origin we insist that they are bad people and perhaps terrorists.   It doesn’t seem to matter to some people that large parts of our economy benefit from people immigrating into this country to do work that these leaders would never do.  Our leaders seem more interested in keeping the one percent raking in the money than about making sure the poor have health care. 

I hear elected leaders and others say that this is a Christian nation and then act contrary to the teachings of Jesus.  They are quick to judge and condemn based on classes and appearances.  They are quick to throw people out of the party because they are not wearing the right clothes.  

Perhaps one of the reasons we don’t see people coming into church is that we are being judged for being judgmental and hypocritical.  That is certainly what I would believe if I only listened to the news and read the comments on social media and in the paper.

But Jesus said in the Gospel that he came to seek mercy.  That he came to seek love.  So perhaps we are the ones expecting the right guests to show up in heaven – it is not God that is the king in this story it is us.  We are the ones throwing people into outer darkness. We are the ones that continually throw Jesus out and worship idols.  Idols of security and comfort.

At the Wednesday service that I lead at St. Paul’s the un-homed and marginally homed make up the majority of people at the service most weeks.  And lately that has included a group of young homeless men in their early 20’s.  Young homeless men that I witness doing more to help each other than the average person walking in downtown Sacramento does.  Young people, un-homed or in shelters that give what little money they have to help another homeless couple buy medication for their canine companion.  They regularly attend the service – I still am not sure why.  Perhaps it is because we offer a non-judgmental place where they can rest.  Perhaps it is because we feed them lunch after the service.  These young men are more Christian than many people who say they are Christian and I am not even sure if they would self-identify that way.

When we look at being disciples Jesus is telling us it is not enough to just say yes one time and then go out and worship idols.  We need to continually work at being disciples.  We need to stop judging people by the clothes they wear.  Once called we need to seek justice and mercy and call out leaders that are worshipping idols.  We need to continue to work to make God’s dream of mercy and love come to fruition here.

I give thanks that we are doing a lot as a small community to make that a reality on this corner of God’s kingdom.  My prayer is that we will be able to stay the course.  That we will be willing to continue to advocate for policies that bring mercy and forgiveness to this world.  And I pray that we will recognize when we start worshipping idols and will ask for forgiveness before we end up inadvertently throwing Jesus, throwing God, out into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.


Amen.

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