An Invitation for the Ages

I want you to put yourself in the following situation. It might not be exactly something that you would experience but just for the sake of imagination, place yourself in it anyway. You have been invited to the 50th wedding anniversary of an uncle and aunt and your cousins have sent you an invitation explaining that this is a wonderful black-tie affair, but that unfortunately your uncle isn’t very well at the moment and you will have to wait until there’s a second invitation at which time you will be cordially invited.

You respond and you say we will be there. But in the interim you think, “Well, what would I wear for a black tie event like that?” And so you go out and you buy a brand new tuxedo or a brand new gown and prepare yourselves, looking forward to it. Time goes on a bit and your uncle isn’t getting better so finally some other event comes up and it is also black tie, and you think to yourself, well I bought the suit, I bought the gown. I might as well wear it for the event.

You go to the event looking resplendent in your new tux and in your new gown, and at the end of the event you come out and your car is on the other side of the parking lot, but unfortunately it has begun to rain and you have no umbrella. In your new tux and in your new gown you run to your car as quickly as you possibly can only to find out that when you have sat down your suit is wrinkled, your gown is stained and you look a mess. You think to yourself, no problem, I will have it dry-cleaned tomorrow. So you get up in the morning and there’s an from your cousins saying “Oh, by the way, Uncle is feeling better, we’re holding the event tonight.” What do you do?

Well, you could wear some old clothes, you know the tux that fit you 15 years ago but doesn’t now, or the gown that was in style 15 or 20 years ago but now looks like you’re a throw-back to the 1940’s. You have the option to wear the stained and creased and crinkled gown and tux but you think that people will think that you haven’t paid respects so you’re not going to wear the terrible disheveled new outfit. But you have one third option, don’t you? You could give an excuse and not go. “I’m sorry, there’s not enough notice. We have something else on and we are unable to attend.” Okay, where are you on this one? What are you going to do? The terribly ill-fitting suit, the disheveled, stained, creased one or simply save face and not go?

The problem with all three of these options is that they’re predicated on only thinking about yourself. You’re not thinking about the guests of honour. You’re more worried about your own appearance and if you’re going to stand out from the crowd rather than honouring your uncle and aunt who are celebrating this great milestone in their life. So you opt for the third choice and you don’t go, only to find out 48 hours later that when it was found out that you weren’t going to go, your tickets to this marvelous event had been given to two homeless people from Jarvis Street, who by the way had a wonderful time at the feast and actually got the prize at the door. It was a wonderful event and they got to know your uncle and aunt very well and became friends. Now how do you feel now? You were replaced.

If you think that is too far afield that it is almost beyond our belief to think that such a thing could happen, then you’re going to have a problem with Jesus’ story from the Gospel of Matthew because it’s very similar but it’s also different. It’s similar because again, there is a feast in honour of the Son and it’s put on by the King. The King appears to be God in this parable. Fred Craddock says it’s actually an allegory more than it is a parable but I think it has both types of meaning. The King is God, the Son in whose honour the feast is to be given is Jesus. They’re sent out with these invitations to honour the King and to honour the Son but the people who receive the initial invitation decline and don’t come.

Sounds to me like the prophets of Israel who went out and proclaimed the good news to the people but the people often didn’t listen to them and turned their backs on the prophets. That is why the wonderful music (I mean that was an incredible anthem this morning from Mendelssohn.) That Elijah was one of those prophets who’d gone to the people and asked the people to turn from their terrible ways and to follow God but had been rejected. The first invitation I think is about the prophets being turned down. But the King will not give up. The King tries another attempt and sends another group of servants into the world to go and invite people, special guests to come to the feast in honour of his Son. These are the disciples. These are the apostles. These are those who would go after the life of Jesus into the world and proclaim the good news, only to be rejected.

They’re rejected for two reasons. One, because the people were apathetic and they said “Oh, we’ve got other things on our plate. We’ve got family events, we’ve got work events. We can’t go to the banquet. Sorry about that.” But then there’s another more pernicious group who actually put the messengers to death, a sign of the martyrdom that was to come for the early church. So the King is angry and says “Well, destroy the people for having destroyed our people who have gone with the message.” But then the King changes his mind and invites a whole group of other people. “Let’s go to the roadsides. Let’s go to the good and the bad alike. Let’s go to the poor. Let’s go to the outcast, which is the term that Luke uses for his parable. Let’s go out into all the world and bring everybody else in, because if the people that I’ve invited have decided they’re not going to come to the banquet then I’m going to invite the whole world to the banquet.”

Then there was a second parable, the parable about the man who comes, not having worn the robe. I’ll deal with that at another time. But it ends with the King going out into the world to invite those in who will not reject him but will accept him. Now this is Thanksgiving for us. This is a season of great feasts, and a time for us to remember and to give thanks for God’s graciousness and God’s abundance and God’s gifts. It’s the moment when we say to the Lord, “Thank you for all that you have given us.” But it is also a time for the world to think about if it is truly honouring the God who has provided so much for us. It is a moment maybe like this parable of warning not to take for granted the graciousness of God, and not just to assume that because God has given us so much it will always be thus.

Nevertheless this is good news. It’s about the Kingdom. It’s about the Gospel. For ultimately it’s about an invitation. And the invitation is to come to a dinner to honour the Son. It is an invitation that is rooted in Jewish thought, namely that someday all the people will gather in heaven and there will be a great banquet and the Leviathan will be slain and truth will reign and God will be praised. This is the banquet that Jesus is thinking about, when the whole world will come and honour him and glorify him. It is an invitation for joy. It is an invitation to experience the love and the graciousness of God.

Who can be invited to a feast and not be thankful for the invitation? Who cannot see a feast as something that is joyful and wonderful? But Jesus here is not giving a kind sort of motivational speech, a rah-rah, as it were, to try and get everyone feeling upbeat. This is a parable with real power. I was reading a piece in USA Today this past summer about a survey that was done by Gallup. A poll of workers and people who worked for companies. In it the comment was made that companies, in North America in particular, spend billions of dollars hiring motivational speakers who are trying to get everyone to rise above the ordinary, to take on the challenge of the corporation and to become more productive and better. Billions of dollars spent on motivational speakers, a lot of whom are paid a great deal of money. I think I should become a motivational speaker, don’t you?

The problem with motivational speakers is that very often they don’t work. They find that they get everybody all fired up for a short while but there’s not much sustaining depth to it. Whether or not motivational speakers are helpful in the long run is questionable because the Gallup poll says that nearly 50 per cent of all workers are not really that invested in their jobs anyway. They do it in a perfunctory way. They have no really over-arching loyalty. They do what they do out of a sense of an obligation but there’s not really an investment in what they’re doing. Twenty per cent of workers actually cause more trouble than they’re worth. If they had a sick day there’d be more productivity by everybody else. We’ve all encountered that. I think the Gallup poll is correct, but what is really interesting is in this article by Spencer Johnson, who wrote that incredible book Who Moved My Cheese, There is this line within it and he concludes the following – and this is really brilliant – He believes that research will one day show that the only long-lasting motivation will come from employees who bring it to work in the form of God or spirituality or a faith that causes them to rise to a higher purpose.

Jesus is getting at that here in this parable. This is not a nice little warm and fuzzy story to last for a while. This is a call. This is an invitation to something deeper and greater and more meaningful. It is something that profoundly changes your life, and if you come and you accept the gift of his feast, then you get something that makes everything else in your life different. That when you attend this feast every other part of your life changes, including your dedication to what you do. But you’ll notice - notice the language of the invitation. Is it an invitation to an individual? Is it to George or Mary or Susan or Edward or Sheila? No, it’s an invitation for a whole group of people. It’s an invitation to a collective. A feast is not a private dining room meal in a restaurant. A feast is a gathering that brings people in from all over to celebrate it. It is the gift of the church.

Last Thursday, some of you were here but most weren’t when we had the Homecoming Thanksgiving service. I’ve got to tell you, it is one of the most joyful things that we do here in this church every year. It’s joyful because we bring people who otherwise are not able to come to church on their own. We pick them up, we bring them here, we give them a wonderful service. Beautiful music, Paul sang solos, it was gorgeous. But then after the service, I think the thing for which everyone really comes, is a reception and a tea and they sit around tables. You have never seen so many happy people in one room in your life. It is as if all these individuals, who by virtue of age or infirmity are not able to meet with each other are now finally around a table with people with whom they share a faith.

Sure, the sandwiches are great and the chocolates are even better and the cupcakes are marvelous and the tea is great. But it’s not that. It’s the true fellowship of being in that room, and you can’t help but love it. You think this is kind of a picture of what the church is to be. This is what Jesus had in mind when in fact the King invites all these people to come and to accept the invitation and to sit around the table. But the problem is, you have to RSVP to the invitation you have been issued. You have to acknowledge that you have received the invitation and respond to it. I don’t know if you’ve ever sent an email to somebody inviting them to something and then never got a response from it. I’m sure that’s happened. Maybe at times you haven’t responded to an email that you have been sent. You know how awful that is when it happens. Oh sure, technology can mess things up. We know that. But this is because you just didn’t do it. You weren’t interested in it. You didn’t care enough to respond. We all do it. But can you imagine if the great invitation from the great and the glorious God, from the Almighty on high comes to you and you don’t accept it. What is it like? What does God think? Well, God’s not happy. And God’s not happy as you find out in this very parable. In fact God is furious. God may be gracious, God may giving an invitation, but God isn’t to be mocked and God’s invitation is not to be mocked and made light of.

I told a story on Tuesday about a minister who, along with his wife, decided to visit the Canadian Rockies. He took with him his camera, and in this magnificent tour of the Rockies took copious numbers of photographs. When they got home the wife showed his photographs to her friends, and her friends’ only comment was “My, your husband must have a very good camera.” She told her husband, silly woman, what her friends had said. Why, he was irate! He said “Do people, when they see a beautiful painting, go ‘wow, those must be high-quality brushes that they used! Or gee whiz, that sculpture, that must have been one sharp chisel that he used to be able to make those lines.’ So why is it when I take a great photograph they say I have a great camera.”

She says “Well now you know how God feels. God makes this. God gives us this. Good gives his Son. God gives himself.”

What do the people in this parable do? They say they’re too busy, they’ve got other things to do. They just don’t respond. Or else they actually turn on the ones who deliver the message. Now, I’m going to say something straight to you this morning and it is really from the heart. I am concerned for our culture because I fear that God just might do what he did in this parable and move on. In other words, if there is not a recognition of God, if there’s not a thank you to God for what God has given, if there is not an acknowledgement and a praise and an honour of God, then in fact God has been slighted. I look and I see the churches in the Third World where people have little at times for which to give thanks, actually filling their churches in praise. Isn’t it ironic that maybe this is what Jesus was talking about in his parable when he said those that have been invited have turned away from my invitation, and therefore I will go to the highways and the byways to the poor and the lonely and the needy and I will invite them in and they will come to the banquet?

I do not think this is an inevitable situation, my friends. I’m not saying that this is the end of God’s favour as we know it. I’m just saying that I think we need to start taking what God has given us seriously and not just treat God as a convenience, or God’s Son as if his sacrifice means nothing. For God, as we find out in this parable, sometimes moves on. Don’t let him move on from you. Respond to the request. Respond to the invitation.

Tony Campolo, who is a great Christian writer from the U.S. and a great social activist, tells a story of a miner in Scotland who was a very devout man, and in his devotion he was sort of a light to all those around him. He was at peace, he worked hard, he was kind, he was generous and one day his manger came to him and said “What is your secret? How come you are so at peace? Despite a really dangerous job you seem to be full of joy all the time? What can I do to have what you have?”

The miner says to him, “Well why don’t you come in your suit down the mine and get in with the coal dust and the dirt and the mud and be with us and you will see.”

The manager said “I’m sorry, I really can’t do that. It’s not really my place and I’ve got a good suit on and I don’t want to mess it up and no, I don’t think so. But thank you. Thank for the invitation.”

He’s still upset and still wonders why this guy has so much peace and joy in his life and how he’s such a great motivational worker and so good with those that are around him. So he goes to him again, he says “Look, can’t you reconsider this? Is there anything that I can do to have what you have? I really need it. I’m hurting here. I need what you have.”

The miner says “I’ve told you, come down the mine with us, be amongst the coal and the dirt and the mud and then you will find out what it is that gives me my joy.”

The owner of the company, who is also the manager says, “All right, all right, I want what you have so much I’m willing to come down in my suit. I will get the coal dust on me and I will get the mud on me, if that will give me what you have.”

The miner said to him, “It’s okay, you don’t need to do that. I just wanted to make sure you’d be willing to if you had to. For what stands between you and what I have is pride.”

Sometimes we take ourselves all too seriously, like in the story that I told at the beginning.
We worry about what we will look like, what others will say, trying to find a way or an excuse not to do what it is that we know deep down in our hearts we’re to do, and this is to respond and to be dedicated to God. Maybe it is because at times we’re so caught up in ourselves we actually don’t see the many who would like to replace us at the feast, the poor and the lonely and the hungry and the hurting. Maybe we’re so absorbed with just whether or not we attend the feast that we don’t give thought to the many others who would love to be invited to the feast and who honour the Son. This is Thanksgiving, don’t be full of pride. Don’t be self-absorbed. Just in your heart, in your mind, in your character, in your soul, in your compassion, in your justice, in your duty and in your faith, say to the King who invites you to the dinner, I will come. I will be there. I will honour your Son. Amen.