Clothed in the Robe of Christ

Reverend Philip Stringer

Matthew 22:1-14

LET US PRAY: Gracious Lord, Bread of Life, feed us with your Word, and speak to our hearts, that we may love and serve only you, now and forever. AMEN

Short story by Henri Duvernois, a French author who lived in the early 20th century. It is about three criminals planning to rob a house. Two of them would actually do the job, and the third, named Tango, would stand out front wearing a stolen police uniform — the idea was that no one would suspect a crime was being committed because they would think there was a policeman standing right there.

Tango hated the idea — out in the open where everyone could see him. But the ringleader insulted him and insisted he do it.

He hated the idea of being so exposed, but he had to admit that the uniform looked really good. And he even had a shiny whistle, just like a real policeman!

As his accomplices entered the house, Tango paced back and forth on the street, dutifully nodding to passers-by. Soon there was a bounce in his step.

He saw a little old lady struggling to cross the street with her packages, so to keep up the ruse — he reasoned that a real policeman would help her — that is just what he did. The woman was very grateful and he found a sense of pride and happiness well up within him.

But then he saw a police lieutenant approaching and he figured the gig was up. Even so, he stood up smartly and saluted the lieutenant — who returned his salute and continued on! His sense of pride continued to grow and he felt a growing affection for the neighborhood he was “patrolling.”

When Tango saw a drunk man disturbing the peace of the neighborhood, he seized him and began to drag him off to jail —

But his co-conspirators, seeing what was about to happen, ran out to stop him. “You idiot,” cried the ringleader, “you’ll ruin everything!” And he struck Tango across the face. I suppose you can imagine what happened next.

A number of things happened in Tango’s mind in that instant. The insults and humiliations of the ringleader were hateful to him. He remembered the joy of helping the woman, and the pride of receiving the lieutenant’s salute. To the other criminal’s horror, Tango ripped out his whistle and blew a series of blasts loud enough to call every policeman in the city — and seizing his former compatriots, he yelled, “Crooks! Robbers! I arrest you in the name of the law!”

The title of that story is, Clothes Make the Man, and it came to mind for me when I was thinking about our gospel reading for the day.

What is proclaimed for us today is a message of good news rooted — not in our own righteousness — but the righteousness of God that is given to us through our baptism into Christ Jesus. You and I are clothed with the righteousness of Christ and made worthy to share in the wedding feast of God.

Jesus sets the scene for his parable as a story about the kingdom of heaven — but one important thing we see in the birth of Jesus is that the kingdom of heaven is breaking in upon the earth. The separation between heaven and earth is not so much a physical divide as it is a spiritual one — a fracture between us and God caused by sin. As Christians, we know that God is everywhere — and where God is, so also is the kingdom of God. Our process of growing into faith — sanctification — is a process of our hearts being converted from being at home in a worldly kingdom of sin — into being at home in the heavenly kingdom, characterized by devotion to the will of God. A state of perfect love.

The process of growing into the heavenly kingdom is a lifelong process. As Luther and the reformers put it, we are in a continuous state of “already-not-yet,” standing with one foot in each kingdom — the earthly kingdom of sin and the heavenly kingdom of love.

Or — to use the imagery of the short story I shared — we are like Tango in his police uniform. We are robed with the righteousness of Christ already — but we are not yet fully at grips with what that means and we are not fully devoted to what that means. The old sinful self is still part of us.

Jesus told this parable toward the last days of his earthly life. He had entered Jerusalem — he has healed in defiance of the religious authorities. He has cleansed the Temple, overturning the tables of the money changers — and when the religious leaders confronted him about all of this, he spoke parables in which they saw that he was openly stripping them of their authority — they wanted to arrest him but feared the crowds. That is the setting where Matthew presents us with this parable of the wedding banquet — and after hearing it, the Pharisees moved beyond WANTING Jesus dead, to actually making plans to kill him. All in the name of God.

What they fail to see is that they cannot earn a place at the banquet table — and in fact, their actions are actually a rejection of everything the banquet is about.

It might be helpful here to say something about the social etiquette of the day.

In Jesus story, the banquet held by the king is not just a party — it is a wedding celebration for his son — who is the heir to the throne.

The nobility of the region are supposedly those most like the royals — they are their closest associates, who have prospered under the reign of the king. You would think that they would be grateful for this and see their own fortunes tied to that of the king — and his heir.

When they turn their backs on the banquet, it is a blatant indication that they do not respect the king, they do not respect his son, and they see what they have as their own business — gained by their own right apart from the king.

What the parable shows us is that no one earns a place at the table — even the “noble” ones in the story have their station because of the goodness of the king.

The invitation is to join the king in celebrating something that is good news for everyone. Ultimately, that invitation is extended to everyone and anyone — the good and the bad. Do you notice that? —The bad are also welcome!

Now when coming to a wedding banquet, it is a sign of respect to put on your best clothes — if everyone at the party is dirty and grimy, it will affect the mood and reflect badly on the king — so cleaning up is actually a way of contributing to the joyfulness of the day.

And even if your best is not that great — that’s OK because the host will supply robes for any who need them — so the mood is preserved and you are not embarrassed.

So, you see that the wedding guest in Jesus’ story who is not wearing a robe isn’t unwelcome because he is poor or even ignorant. He is unwelcome because he doesn’t care. He is actively insulting the king in the middle of the banquet and deliberately spoiling the mood.

So, the message that Jesus is sending is that hate and division and acts of evil have no place in the kingdom of heaven.

When trying to sort out the meaning of Jesus’ parable, it is tempting to try to assign the identities of characters in the story to real-life people. And it is easy to see that the Pharisees, by their actions, are more aligned with the nobles who reject the invitation.

But remember again, that the good and the bad are welcomed.

It seems to me that rather than restricting the characters in Jesus’ story to specific people, it is better for us to think of those characters as traits within us all — and when we do that, we come closer to understanding just how wonderful it is that everyone is invited to the party.

Because you and I may not be plotting the murder of Jesus — but the sinful seeds that stirred the Pharisees are at home in us, too.

You and I will not and cannot earn a place at the table. But that’s OK. You are invited by God’s grace. God loves you and wants you to be part of the party — so much so that God welcomes not only your good parts, but your bad parts, too.

You and I have been wrapped in the robes of Jesus’ righteousness, through our baptism into Christ. You have been given a robe for the banquet, and the true invitation for you is to celebrate right now —

The kingdom of heaven is not in some far-off place; it is right here, right now. To be at the feast and participate is to join in what God is doing — It is to feed the hungry and cloth the naked; to work for peace and justice in all the earth. It is to love mercy and to care for the outcasts. Wherever the will of God is embraced and lived, there is where the kingdom of heaven is breaking forth.

And in this way, you and I are sort of like Tango, in the short story, Clothes Make the Man. You and I are growing into our identity as banquet guests. We are present because God has made us worthy to be present. It is a gift — and we celebrate the gift when we act as if we belong.

It is God’s own Spirit at work within us that creates faith — and the promise of God is that even those sinful qualities within us that would separate us from being part of the celebration are being rooted out by the Spirit of God. Slowly but surely — as our faith in God’s grace grows — and we live our faith in service to others — the sinful nature within us is being bound hand and foot and is being thrown into the outer darkness.

The banquet table is here (altar) but the celebration continues out there (doors). So, come! Let us share the feast. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

AMEN