sermon: "Changing for the Party"

Philippians 4:1-9, Matthew 22:1-14
Changing for the Party
By Rich Gamble

Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel is telling a story to the crowds gathered on the Temple grounds in Jerusalem. A king wants to throw a big bash for his son and invites the elite of the land to join in a sumptuous feast, but the invitees aren’t interested. JC doesn’t explain why someone would turn down an invitation to a royal soiree. Maybe they are too busy to take the time. Maybe they want to avoid the pressure of picking out wedding gifts for a prince. You’ve got to figure that the royal couple didn’t register at K-Mart.

In fact, the elite invitees are so angered by the invitation that they abuse and murder to folks conveying the invitation. That is a pretty strong no.

Kings being what they are, the king retaliates against the elite and kills them and burns down their city. This king isn’t the turn the other cheek sort of guy. Kings rarely are.

So there’s the prince all dressed up, the band is playing, the food is all laid out, the ice sculpture is starting to drip but there are no guests at the party.

The king sends out more of his staff to recruit party goers from the not so elite of the realm. Bring me some tired, and poor/ some huddled masses yearning to eat free the King says in so many words. And who doesn’t want to a free all you can eat buffet? So the good and the bad, the poor and the hungry, the happy and miserable all are invited to the party.

Traditional interpreters say that what is being described here is the grace of God being extended to the gentiles. The Jewish leaders would be the ones who turned down the party for Jesus and the ensuing destruction describes the destruction of Jerusalem that happened about a decade or so before Matthew wrote this gospel.

There are some wonderful aspects to this story and some very troubling ones. If we are to interpret the King as being God, then God is a violent, vengeful force. So that when Jesus tells his followers to love their enemies it seems he is asking his followers to be more loving than God as here depicted. So perhaps this isn’t an allegory in which each element of the story stands for something else. Maybe the King isn’t God. Maybe he is just a king with all the usual brutal inclinations of those who manage systems of domination. And if the king isn’t God then the elite may not be the Jewish leadership and the huddled masses may not be Christians.

Instead of being an allegory maybe this parable is a parable: a story which invites us to enter into a different perspective on reality. People in Jesus’ day, like us today understand people who have the wealth and power of kings. And we understand the notion of a wedding reception. We are not the kind of people who see the world as kings nor are we the kind that would murder the mailman for bringing us an invitation to a fancy party. We like the everyday people listening to Jesus’ story are people who would be thrilled to be invited to a princely party. We may not like caviar or foie gras or escargot but we would like to try them at least once in our lives. We’d like to be invited in through the front doors of the palace. We have no idea why someone would turn down such an invitation but heck yes we’ll be there. And if we are truly hungry, if we are daily ignored by those who don’t want to see our poverty, then the idea of being treated to princely food and treated like honored guests is even more a joyous possibility and not a burdensome obligation. So heck yes we are coming and heck yes we will load up our plates with fancy food, even if we don’t know what it is we are eating. We will enjoy the band, marvel at the centerpieces and the ice sculpture, and the numerous forks and spoons arrayed around our plate. We will lift our glasses for refills and wipe our mouths with fancy cotton napkins, and bask in the joy of being treated like an honored guest.

It is a great image. The folks who normally hold up signs begging for spare change are holding up fancy crystal glasses for refills of champagne.

But then the King comes back into the story. He walks right up to the guy standing next to you and asks the man where his wedding cloak is? The man is speechless, he doesn’t have an answer. So the King has the man tied up and heaved out into the outer darkness where there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth. This king is a scary guy.

What’s that all about? Isn’t this banquet a come as you are sort of affair?

Well it seems that just because everyone is invited, there is some implied obligation. If you want to come to the party you have to wear the right clothes.

Elsewhere in the Bible, clothing is a metaphor for behavior. So you can come to the party no matter who you are good or bad, healthy or ill, happy or miserable but…you can’t come unless you are willing to put on a particular set of behaviors suitable to the party.

A parable is meant to open people up to seeing the reality around them in a different light. A royal wedding reception attended by the hapless and homeless, the good and the bad, the everyday people rather than the elite. This is a world view that shakes up the status quo. But his isn’t a parable of simple revolution, it isn’t about the destruction of one class and the elevation of another. Because whoever you are rich or poor, good or bad if you come to the party there is an implied obligation to behave in certain ways.

We know these ways from Jesus’ lessons earlier in Matthew’s gospel and in other passages such as Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Generally this behavior is out lined in basic teachings of Judaism, which boils down to: love God, love your neighbor as yourself.

We don’t get this image of love from metaphors of domination like King. We get them from examples lived out by people like Jesus.

Parables are open to interpretation. I take from this story a wondrous image of world so filled with good things that poorest of us can live lives filled with the abundance of resources of a princely party; the realm of God as an inclusive celebration, in which every person is an honored guest. That is what we are invited into. But you can’t wear your greed or hate or fear at this party.

The army of Pharaoh could not drive their chariots down the path of liberation through the sea. Jesus says the wealthy cannot enter into the realm of God. The path of God’s love is for every person but not for every behavior. Our faith is one of radical inclusion. Everyone is invited but we are invited into a radical reorientation of values and our actions.

The elite of our day, and we may be among them… may not want to put on behaviors which call for radical generosity; they may not want to come to such a party. The elite have become elite in the current system of domination. They may not want to make the transition to a level place with everyone else. And indeed many folks are trying to school us how to be hard-hearted, exclusive and greedy.

When we serve food at Sacred Heart Shelter the servers sit and eat the same food at the same table as the residents. On Friday nights we have homeless people and people who are well off sitting in the same hard chairs and watching the same movies, eating the same donated bread and speaking as equals in the conversation afterwards. Some of you here struggle economically, some of you don’t but you are all equal members of this community. These are small things but they are the foretaste of the Realm of God, where no one struggles for home or food or healthcare and no one has more than they need.

Herman Cain to Wall Street protesters: “If you don’t have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself.” This fits the logic of the domination system. Those who are poor or unemployed have failed to successfully compete for the limited number of jobs out there so they should blame themselves. But this isn’t a foot race for a gold trophy these are people’s lives and everyone whether they come in first or last needs to eat. Those on the conservative side actively defend the social Darwinism ethics of domination. The winners should eat, have healthcare and housing. The losers in the struggle for limited resources should suffer the consequences.

This is not the way of our faith. Basic resources are a gift from God and should be shared among all in need, the good and the bad, the hard working and the lazy, the healthy and the sick.

But to get to this world we cannot use the tactics of the King in this story. We cannot burn down the cities of our enemies; we cannot place them in the outer darkness. We can’t use violent means to achieve just ends.

When the protesters in New York and Seattle embody the radically inclusive love of God they are worthy of our support. If they use clubs or hate speech they are wrong we need to stand in opposition.

The greed of the current system of domination will create anger among those who are not the winners. There is no guarantee that this anger will lead us to a better place. Sometimes such anger has led to even more violent systems.

What the world needs is vision of where we are heading and path to get there. This party of outcasts is a wonderful vision and the example of Jesus is the best path I’ve found. As people of faith we are blessed with the essential resources: vision and direction. We are also blessed with the Spirit of God guiding and inspiring us. And for us and the world that is good news.

Saturday Sept. 17 FAN Rollout

Mark your calendar for Saturday, September 17, 2011! That’s the date of our Launch Celebration for this new ministry created by the union of the Washington Association of Churches and the Lutheran Public Policy Office. We’ll gather for worship, refreshments, and recognitions as we publicly roll out the new organization. Saturday, September 17, 5:00-7:00 PM University Congregational UCC Church 4515 16th Ave NE Seattle, WA 98105 Pastor Rich is a board member of the Fath Action Network and will be part of the celebration.

Friday September 16, Movie at Keystone

Meaningful Movies 7pm. Fridays FILM: "THE FINLAND PHENOMENON: INSIDE THE WORLD’S MOST SURPRISING SCHOOL SYSTEM" (62 min, Bob Compton, 2011) Finland’s education system has consistently ranked among the best in the world for more than a decade. The puzzle is, why Finland? Documentary filmmaker, Bob Compton, along with Harvard researcher, Dr. Tony Wagner, decided to find out. The result of their research is captured in a new film, "THE FINLAND PHENOMENON".

Port Protest September 15

You are invited to the Westin Hotel to participate in a protest: Thursday, September 15, from 11:30 a.m. to about 1 p.m. at the Westin Hotel at 5th Ave. and Stewart St. in downtown Seattle. The Port of Seattle this year celebrates its 100th anniversary, and is host to the annual American Association of Port Authorities at the Westin Hotel, from Monday the 12th through Thursday the 15th. About 1000 port executives, staff, administrators, shipping company executives, etc. will be present. As you know, the Church Council of Greater Seattle has been working with Puget Sound Sage for well over two years on this issue. Various groups, from the religious community to community action groups, to the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, as well as unions, and Change to Win, a national umbrella group for some unions, see this as an opportunity to make their voices heard, and to focus concretely on alternative policies. The Port of Seattle, together with other ports in the nation, is not sufficiently addressing the question of air pollution, caused by the roughly 2000 diesel trucks which daily haul their loads on and off ships and onto railroad cars or to the major warehouses locally (Costco, Wal-Mart, etc). Second, those who drive these trucks are mostly independent contractors, without health benefits, social security, etc. and whose paychecks have huge deductibles for insurance, truck payments, etc. in Seattle many of the drivers are recent immigrants from African countries. Their plight has been amply documented, and Church Council members have heard from them directly on various occasions. Thursday, September 15, from 11:30 a.m. to about 1 p.m. at the Westin Hotel at 5th Ave. and Stewart St. in downtown Seattle. Pastor Rich is planning on being there.

Education and Faith

Each year of education ups the odds by 15% that people will say there's "truth in more than one religion," says University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Philip Schwadel in an article for the Review of Religious Research. Schwadel, an associate professor of sociology, looked at 1,800 U.S. adults' reported religious beliefs and practices and their education.
People change their perspective because, as people move through high school and college, they acquire an ever-wider range of friendships, including people with different beliefs than their own, Schwadel says. "People don't want to say their friends are going to hell," he says.
For each additional year of education beyond seventh grade, Americans are:
•15% more likely to have attended religious services in the past week.
•14% more likely to say they believe in a "higher power" than in a personal God. "More than 90% believe in some sort of divinity," Schwadel says.
•13% more likely to switch to a mainline Protestant denomination that is "less strict, less likely to impose rules of behavior on your daily life" than their childhood religion.
•13% less likely to say the Bible is the "actual word of God." The educated, like most folks in general, tend to say the Bible is the "inspired word" of God, Schwadel says.

Debt, Taxes and Faith

All of the political wrangling over the debt ceiling is ultimately a conversation about values and our faith has a lot to say about such values.

First, the largest contributor to the increase in the debt in the last several years has been the Bush era tax cuts which largely favored wealthy people. The next largest contributor is the wars and military budget. Some politicians are now saying that the debt is a serious problem but are unwilling to restore taxes or heavily cut into the military budget. Instead they want to cut funds for programs for programs which protect the health and safety of citizens especially the poorest citizens.

It seems likely that the “crisis” of the debt limit will bring about reductions in vital programs. This hits at a time when cities counties and states are all reeling from the lingering recession. This is the worst possible time to cut funds for the poor. If anything, the federal government should be pouring money into building low-income housing, improving schools, hiring more teachers, supporting renewable energy, etc… All of these things would provide resources and jobs for the people who need them. Instead we will be lucky if these programs are not cut too severely.

The inexorable logic of greed is rapidly shifting resources into the hands of those who already have more than they need. This stands as the complete reversal of Jesus’ call to share resources with one another and especially with the poor. Jesus offers the logic of love which moves the world towards the peace that comes from justice. Jesus condemns the hording of wealth as an act in contradiction to will of God and calls on people to share what they have so that all may be fed.

This week we celebrate the feeding of the 5000. In that story, Jesus gets the disciples to share what little they have so that all may be fed. In the end, there is way more food than anyone needs. Sharing leads to abundance. This is the logic of love.

Unfortunately the voices calling for true faithfulness in terms of our national budget receive little attention in the corporate media. That means we are called to use our grassroots forms of communication. Talk it up wherever you can.

"The Corporation"

The Keystone Social Action Team will carry out a one-year project that focuses on limiting Corporate Personhood. This would be done in a step-wise process that involves education about the issues involved, writing up a resolution to submit to the Justice and Witness Ministries of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ, and if it sees its way through, to take the final proposal to the regional conference Annual Meeting in May 2012. We are joining others nationally who are working on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Our Social Action Team is hoping that many more friends of Keystone will become educated on this issue and move forward with us.

Our team recently viewed the documentary, “The Corporation.” Many of our team expressed outrage at how large corps are behaving, and how the public is convinced by them that there is a need for whatever it is that they are selling. One of the interesting segments in the documentary compared characteristics of corporations to that of psychopaths. Here are the bullet points:
• Callous concern for the feelings of others
• Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
• Reckless disregard for the safety of others
• Deceitfulness (repeated lying and conning of others)
• Incapacity to experience guilt
• Failure to conform to social norms in respect to lawful behavior

Have you seen the documentary? What struck you? Please feel free to comment.