October 9, 2005

Is There Hope for the
Hapless Wedding Guest?

Matthew 22:1-14

Strange parable. Great beginning; catastrophic ending. Yet I find myself drawn to the hapless wedding guest because nobody else is. The first sermon I ever heard in a Nazarene Church was when I was in high school. Pastor Roy Hoover preached on this wretched wedding guest. It so chilled me out that I didn’t go back for a year. I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve never heard one on it since! When preachers come to this miserable fellow, like the Jews of old meeting a leper on the road, they give him a wide berth. Luke, in relating this same parable, doesn’t even mention him. Passes over him in silence. I guess that is why I’m drawn to him, as I am to lost puppies and stray cats.

I am also drawn to this poor man because of the monumental embarrassment he suffered. Look at it: he hears the incredible invitation of the great king. Unlike those who spurned the gracious offer, he responds with enthusiasm and joy. He joins the multitudes of both ‘evil and good’ from the ‘highways and byways’ as they throng toward the king’s palace and file into the wedding hall. The lights are low. The music soft. Anticipation builds. Then the trumpets blow. The band strikes up. The spots blaze as the great king comes in. The banquet hall explodes with sustained applause, which quickly dies down as the king solemnly scrutinizes his guests. Suddenly his head snaps back. The music stops in mid-beat. All eyes turn to focus upon the object of the king’s obvious displeasure. Gasps of shock and whispers of disgust echo as spotlights zero in. Can’t believe it! No suit and tie! How did he get in? What nerve! What gross insensitivity! Disgusting!

I remember as if it were yesterday. Louie Shingler, distinguished lay-leader of Los Angeles First Church, where I was an associate at the time, picked me up on the steps of Fuller Seminary library in Pasadena where I had been studying, to take me out to lunch. It was summertime and my day off. He wheeled up in his Cadillac Eldorado.

I sensed I was in trouble when I noted that he was dressed in a dark, pin-striped suit. I was dressed in a short-sleeve, open-neck, knit golf shirt, faded, polyester slacks in which the PermaPress crease had become unPermed, wearing K-Mart blue-light special tennis shoes. I knew I was in trouble when instead of J.B.’s, or the Country Grill, he drove into the parking lot of the Pasadena University Club, the most prestigious, top-drawer country club in Southern California, where everybody who was anybody was a member. The tuxedoed maitre‘d, armed with gold-braided menus, greeted Louie by name and glared at me. We were led into a cavernous ballroom: domed ceiling, chandeliers, white tablecloths, crystal goblets, fine china, a dozen pieces of silverware, a harpist. I glanced about. Everyone in that place was dressed to the nines; men in dark suits, power ties with matching kerchiefs; women in long formal dresses or pantsuits according to high fashion of the time. Here I was: knit golf shirt, naked arms, faded, unPermed, polyester slacks, K-Mart blue-light special tennis shoes.

To make matters worse, Louie Shingler was President-elect of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses that year. At least 6,000 guests—or so it seemed to me—stopped by our table. Of course, gracious host that he was, Mr. Shingler dutifully introduced me, not as “our associate pastor” but as “my pastor!” Decorum dictated that I scoot my chair back and stand to shake their hands, thus giving them a frontal close-up of my open-neck, knit golf shirt, naked arms, faded, unpermed polyester slacks, and K-Mart tennis shoes. If I could have found a crack in the polished hardwood floor one centimeter wide, I could easily have slid through it without touching either side. Do you wonder that my heart goes out to this poor man?

I am also drawn to this man because of the abuse he has suffered at the hands of every biblical commentator I’ve read. I’ve read a few. Without exception, they rush him to judgment as the baddest of bad guys, in his filthy rags, stinking up the place. Some assume he was a wicked wretch who climbed in by a window, desecrating the sanctity of the feast. Others a phony Christian whose hypocritical profession is stripped away under the white-hot glare of God’s holiness. Or a rebel who arrogantly refuses the king’s offer of appropriate wedding garments. For holiness commentators, he is the archetype of one who has been saved but not entirely sanctified, thus lacking that “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.”

Why are biblical scholars so negative about him? Not knowing the facts they, like us, invent a worst-case scenario. They argue backwards from horrible ending to just cause. After all, in the light of his terrible fate, surely this man must have done something unspeakably wicked. The parable, however, says nothing of the sort. In fact it says nothing about this man, good or bad, other than that he failed to be wearing proper wedding attire. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of the dress code, even as I was not for Monday’s lunch with Louie Shingler. Perhaps he was too poor to buy a new suit. Perhaps he was a recent immigrant who wore the finest dress of his country, not realizing how inappropriate it would be in this land. Even if he was a wretched tramp in filthy rags, I notice in v. 10 that the slaves gathered together all they found, both evil and good. So I would presume that whatever measures of grace clothed the others with robes of righteousness would have been given to him as well. Many commentators note that Eastern kings and wealthy potentates provided wedding garments for their guests which, obviously, he refused to wear. That speculation is, however, not only far-fetched, but without one scintilla of historical support.

There’s something else that troubles me about the way commentators trash this poor man. They automatically assume the king in this parable is God. Well, if it is, He bears no resemblance whatsoever to the God who, after the Fall, comes gently walking in the garden, not with the flaming sword of judgment but with the plaintive cry of a wounded lover, “Adam, Eve, where art thou?” Who not only graciously forgives before they even ask, but himself clothes their nakedness. This king bears no relationship to the father whose heart so yearns for his lost son that he is out at the crack of dawn scanning the distant horizon; who when he sees that wastrel yet miles from home flies down the mountain, runs across the plains, scoops him up in his mighty arms, escorts him home and shouts, “Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this son of mine was dead, and has come to live again; he was lost, and has been found.”

So if not the God of Jesus, then who is this king? And who is this hapless man? I have been pondering that for months. I wish I could tell you that it was the insights of rhetorical criticism applied to biblical hermeneutics, which invite us to crawl into the narrative and view it from points of view other than that of the narrator, but it was not. Rather it was a book I bought recently called the “Magic Eye.” It is full of fascinating, computer-generated pictures called “stereograms.” What you see, on the surface, are colorful but repetitive patterns: something appropriate for wallpaper perhaps but hardly for framing and hanging on a wall. But if you stare at the picture long enough and force yourself to look beyond the surface into the depths, all of a sudden a miracle occurs. That flat graphic comes alive as a dynamic, moving, three-dimensional portrait. Striking images, previously hidden, come breathtakingly into view. A hummingbird in one. A throbbing heart in another. Dolphins frolicking in the ocean. None of which is visible when you first look at it.

What would happen, I asked myself, if I applied a stereographic technique to this chilling parable and stared at it in depth? I read it over and over, pondered it on my early morning walks, and during odd hours of the day. All of a sudden, I saw it! I broke through the surface. What did I see?

I saw me! I am the one who has heard the king’s gracious call, who has responded with eagerness and joy, who has come into the king’s hall only to discover with a shock of shame, that I’m not dressed right. Don’t have the right stuff. Not measuring up! An unsightly spectacle. An embarrassment to my friends, to myself, and to God! And when called to account, I am speechless!

Several months ago I raced up the escalator at the Boise Airport and dashed into the men’s restroom only to be instantly confused. It didn’t look right. What did they do with the . . .? Just then a young woman came out of one of the stalls, looked at me somewhat startled, and then said cheerfully, “Good morning, Dr. Cowles, are you lost?” One of my former students! Oh no! Instantly I pictured myself, standing with head bowed, faced flushed, ears burning, before the board of Regents at Northwest Nazarene College, before the board of General Superintendents, before the General Assembly, trying to explain. I live with the subliminal fear of embarrassing myself. I battle terrible nightmares of being called upon to preach only to discover I have nothing to say. A reoccurring Saturday night dream is standing in my office, ready to begin the service. I run through my checklist: I’ve got my glasses on, my Bible in hand, my sermon in my pocket, my order of worship. But alas, I don’t have any pants on!

The thought of being exposed fills me with total panic! Raw terror! Drives me right to the edge! And in those excruciatingly painful passages where I have, in fact, made a fool of myself, or been judged as suspect, or a heretic, or incompetent; when I have been criticized, maligned, voted against, and driven out, I not only feel cast out by people, but by God! I project that condemnation, that rejection, upon God! God is angry! God is incensed! Too holy to abide a failure like me! Which is precisely what is going on in this parable. What we have here is not so much a description of God as He is, but God as He is perceived by the one who suddenly finds himself on the outside looking in! I’ve been there! Haven’t you? There is no pain to compare.

That’s why my heart goes out to this poor man, the quintessential misfit. The one who doesn’t have the right color of skin. Or didn’t go to the right schools. Or, most tragically, is not of the right gender. As I kept staring at this parable and my deep vision skills developed, I became aware that something is missing in this parable. Or, more accurately, someone is missing. The king’s son! The guests have gathered. The house is full. The king has made his grand entrance, but there is no sign of the son! Come to think of it, how can the good shepherd enjoy the party with the 99 or 99 million who are safely in the fold, while there is one poor lamb who is not?

Where is Jesus? I’ll tell you where He is: He is here! With all of us who are naked, exposed, not having the right stuff. Beside those of us who have felt the stabbing pain of discrimination, of embarrassment, of being made a spectacle: someone to be gossiped about, laughed at, scorned. To all of us who are shunned, uninvited, unwelcome, unappreciated, unwanted, Jesus understands.

He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to him.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
One from whom men hide their face (Isaiah 53:4-5).

Where is Jesus? He’s out seeking the shamed, wounded, and broken rejects. With open arms He says to you and me this morning, “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!” “He that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out!”

I did something else to this parable: I stepped back and looked at the context with a wide-angle lens. Jesus spoke it during the last week of His life, under the looming shadow of the cross. The triumphal procession has fizzled. The cleansing of the temple has enraged the religious authorities. Jesus’ enemies are in the full heat of conspiracy. Immediately preceding this parable is another Jesus told about a landowner who planted a vineyard, let it out to tenants, and sent servants to receive his share of the produce. They beat some and killed others. Finally he sent his son, sure that they would respect him. Not so. Rather, “They said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and seize his inheritance.’ And they took him, and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.”

All of a sudden I saw it: Who is this unfortunate wretch without proper wedding attire? Who was stripped naked of every vestige of orthodoxy, of honor, of legitimacy by both the religious and political establishment? Who was arrested while at prayer, dragged off in chains, hauled before the chief priests, put on trial before the official Sanhedrin—representatives of an austere and authoritarian God? Who literally stood before the great king? King Herod no less, without proper attire? And who, when questioned, answered not a word? Who heard those chilling words uttered by the duly established and legitimate authorities?

Bind this messianic imposter hand and foot. Slap his face. Flog his back. Smash those thorns deep into his skull. Drag him through the streets. Cast him outside the holy city. Spit in his eye. Split his hands and feet. Pierce his side. Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him! And who cried out in unspeakable agony, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He came unto his own, and his own said, “Damn his soul to hell!”
And to hell he went! Rejected by humanity and abandoned by God, Jesus descended into hell. What did He do there? What else could He do but what He had always done: He preached to the spirits in prison. Preached good news! Good news that even in hell they were not forgotten of God! Good news of grace, mercy, and deliverance! Now I ask you: isn’t that just like Jesus? Why did Jesus forego the comfort and safety of being transported instantly in the presence of His father? Peter says he did it “in order that He might bring us to God!” Hallelujah! But the story does not end there. Peter goes on to declare, “Having been put to death in the flesh, he has been made alive in the spirit” (I Peter 3:18). Made alive in the Spirit? Well I guess! Up from the grave he arose,

With a mighty triumph o’er his foes,
He arise a victor o’er the dark domain,
And he lives forever with his saints to reign.
He arose . . . Hallelujah, Christ arose!”

I thought I had died and gone to heaven when my pastor—my friend, my model, my hero—upon hearing that I didn’t have a place to stay for the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college, invited me to live with his family. They fixed a corner for me in the garage, with a cot and a small chest of drawers. I worked 12 to 16 hours a day, but always tried to eat the evening meal with the family! I loved it!

“C. S., I need to talk to you,” he announced rather ominously one night after dinner. We moved into the unlit living room. The sun had set. He sat in the chair with its back to the picture-window, his face shrouded in darkness, back-lit by twilight. Sensing trouble I slouched down in the couch. Then he started in on me. Scolded me for leaving my bed unmade when I left for work early in the morning, for shoes left strewn around which could cause someone to trip and break their neck, and a dozen or so other irritations.

He continued, “C. S., you’ve said that God has called you to preach. I can tell you that you’ve got very large rocks in your head if you ever think you can make it as a preacher! Forget it! You have neither the gifts nor the grace. Furthermore, you’ve testified to being entirely sanctified. Well I’ve been watching you closely and I can assure you that you not only don’t have the experience but you don’t have a clue. In fact, I can’t see much evidence that you are even a Christian! So, what do you have to say for yourself?” What did I have to say? What could I say? A fully-loaded cement truck driven over my stomach could not have hurt worse!

Early the next morning, long before the sun came up, I wrote a note thanking my hosts for their hospitality, slipped it into an envelope, along with the money I owed for board and room, slid it under the kitchen door, packed everything I owned into two cardboard boxes, strapped them on the back of my Cushman scooter, lifted up the garage door, and drove out into the night—never to return to that house, never to return to that church or any church of that denomination—except for my uncle’s funeral; I would, in all likelihood, have kept right on driving into the deep darkness of despair, unbelief, and the outer darkness of hell.

Except for Jesus, who caught up with me in the night. I first became aware of Him when He gently put His arm around me. Starlight refracted from tiny, glistening diamonds on His cheeks. It was tears. Tears to match my tears. He whispered in my ear, this great Jesus did, “The table is set. The food is prepared. A place has been reserved for you. I want you to go back to the feast.”

“But,” I protested, “the great king.” Jesus interrupted and said, “The great King loves you! He was alarmed when you fled from His presence. He sent me to seek you out and bring you back. The King says that it wouldn’t be a party without you there.”
“But,” I protested once again, “I can’t go in! Look! No proper suit of clothes. All I have are these rags!”

“What rags?” Jesus asked. I looked down. I couldn’t believe it! I was clothed in a gleaming, pure wedding garment, shining like the sun in full strength. I looked at Jesus. Guess what He was wearing? You’ve got it: my knit golf shirt, faded, unPermed, polyester slacks, and my K-Mart blue-light special sneakers. As I stood there, once again speechless in amazement, He bid me farewell and with a wave of His hand hurried on down the darkening path, looking for other rejects. He stopped, turned, and called back, “My Father’s expecting you. The celebration cannot start until you get there. So, what are you waiting for?”

Good question: What are we waiting for?