Guess who's coming to dinner
Commentary
God's gracious invitations to people have always ruffled the feathers of those who would rather have picked their own company, especially when it comes to dining. We dine, after all, with our families -- at least once in a while. When we party, we look forward to an evening with friends. We might even resent the people at another table in a restaurant who are not at all like us.
But when God throws a party, all the people we would not necessarily choose will be there, too. It might even happen here and now at the table of the Lord when we receive the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Sharing the table is a given -- a God-given, actually. It's the consequence of having a God whose love is much larger than ours and whose banquet table is built to match.
Isaiah 25:1-9
Tucked into this Apocalypse of Isaiah (Isaiah 24-27) is (1) this prayer, an individual psalm of thanksgiving and praise to God for having been powerful against the strong of the world and a stronghold for the weak of the world, (2) this vision about the party that God will throw when the time comes for the full realization of his divine reign over the universe, and (3) an assurance of salvation at the hands of the Lord. The combination of prayer, vision (often read at services for the burial of the dead), and assurance offers both comfort and challenge to people in all circumstances of life.
The psalm of thanksgiving and praise in verses 1-5 praises God for all the wonderful things the Lord has done as the fulfillment of ancient plans. On the one hand, the words sound like the prophetic understanding so prominent in Second Isaiah and elsewhere that what distinguishes the Lord from the idols of the nations is his ability to speak beforehand what will happen in history and then deliver what was promised. On the other hand, the context of apocalyptic that surrounds these verses might lead to the understanding that the Lord is praised here for having set in motion the rather mechanical view of history (one world empire after another until the end occurs) so typical of apocalyptic.
The same dilemma occurs in the reference to the destruction of the fortified city in verse 2. If this passage were couched in a prophetic section of the book instead of this apocalyptic one, we would expect the ruined city to be identified with a historical judgment on an urban center, such as Nineveh in 612 B.C. (see the Book of Nahum) or Babylon following the destruction by the Persians around 538 B.C. In an apocalyptic perspective, however, the ruined city might simply be a reference to all worldly powers that stand in opposition to the reign of the Lord and, therefore, need to be brought down.
Interestingly, no matter which way we look at the psalm -- prophetic or apocalyptic -- the strong are not wiped out as the Lord's enemies but, having seen and experienced the work and power of the Lord, they glorify him. Ironically it appears as though that honor will occur because God took the side of the poor and the needy rather than the earth's powerful.
The vision of the eschatological banquet in verses 6-8 conjures all kinds of old themes that become prominent in apocalyptic books. That God is the host of a banquet has its roots in ancient mythology. After subduing the chaos called Yamm, the Sea, the Canaanite god Baal establishes himself in his mountain palace and immediately throws his own housewarming party, inviting to the feast seventy of the gods and goddesses. In the Old Testament historical traditions, after subduing the forces of the Pharaoh and delivering the Hebrew slaves from Egypt, the Lord invited seventy representatives, along with Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, to the summit of his holy mountain Sinai where the guests "ate and drank" before the Lord (Exodus 24:1-2, 9-11). Now, however, in our vision the guest list to the mountaintop dinner (Mount Zion according to 24:23) includes "all peoples." No longer limited to the gods and goddesses or even to the elders of Israel or even Israelites, the eschatological party is truly an open house. The people formerly excluded on Mount Zion are welcomed as surely as the people of Israel. For "all peoples" the Lord will fill the tables with sumptuous food, while he himself will dine on Death so that it will never again bring sorrow.
The final line of John Donne's Holy Sonnet "Death, be not Proud" is a fitting commentary on the fate of death itself, as promised in Isaiah 25.
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
The assurance of salvation in verse 9 calls on people to acknowledge on the Lord's Day that it is indeed the Lord who shows up in no subtle terms. If the presence of God was somewhat hidden in the past, in the Kingdom that begins with the Day of the Lord, the people will rejoice in his unambiguous salvation.
With a party like that for "all" people and with Death itself eliminated, let the good times roll!
Philippians 4:1-9
Part of the difficulty in interpreting this pericope lies in the unanswered question about the number of letters Paul might have written to Philippi and how many of them are included in our biblical book. The problem is reflected in our passage above all with the word translated in verse 4 as "rejoice." That translation makes a fitting exhortation within a letter in which Paul speaks of the possibility of his own death as a consequence of the imprisonment he was experiencing when he wrote the letter (see 1:12-14). The same condition of imminent death, however, could render the same word as "goodbye." The Greek word, often translated "rejoice," was often used as a greeting, either in coming or going, like the Hebrew word shalom. If it means "goodbye" here, it might indicate several letters all in one biblical package or it might mean that Paul had trouble saying "goodbye" and signing off, for he already said "goodbye" at 3:1.
In any case, our pericope obviously intrudes into a section of the letter that began in 3:1. In this section Paul deals with a topic quite different from those in the first two chapters. The problem here is the presence of intruders, possibly Judaizers, into the community who have been instituting practices such as dietary laws and circumcision. That discussion continues throughout the chapter and comes to a conclusion with 4:3.
The section that begins with 4:4 and continues through verse 9 contains exhortations to the Philippian Christians to stand firm in the faith, for the coming of the Lord is near. Further, he encourages them to act as good citizens would act in society. The list of virtues he cites in verse 8 comes out of the philosophical schools of his day. Clearly worldly wisdom is not to be scoffed at. The worldly thinkers provide ways in which even people of faith might conduct their lives.
What Paul promises to the people through his several admonitions is the peace of God. In the first instance, he defines the peace of God as that which surpasses all understanding (v. 7). It is a peace that comes from God and not from human reason or human invention. That peace, Paul writes, will guard their hearts and their minds in Christ Jesus. No human peace could offer that protection in the face of the persecutions that might come their way.
Second, Paul promises that the peace of God will be present with them, particularly if they "keep on doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me" (v. 9). This call to imitate himself is also a duplication, for Paul already at 3:27 urged the Christians there to "join in imitating me." In our discussion of 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 for next Sunday we will consider this theme more fully. Suffice it to say for now, Paul did indeed consider himself and his colleagues to be role models who themselves sought to imitate Christ.
That imitation in this letter would be particularly significant because earlier in this letter he described his own faith-filled and hopeful approach to the likelihood of his execution, a fate that all his readers had at least to consider as their own.
Matthew 22:1-14
It's party time again as Jesus continues speaking to the Pharisees and other religious folks who challenged him at 21:23 about the source of his authority. In a sense we have two parables here: (1) that of the inclusion of all kinds of people for dinner when the original list ran dry (vv. 1-10), and (2) the casting out of one guest because he was not properly dressed (vv. 11-14). Each one ends with its own punch line.
Unlike Luke who tells the same story about the feast, Matthew makes the party a wedding banquet. It was not really necessary to focus on a wedding because, as we saw in our discussion of Isaiah 25:6-8, the banquet on the mountain was an old established theme in Canaanite and Old Testament mythology. However, the addition of the wedding adds still another eschatological theme. The eschatological promise of God's kingdom to come includes the metaphor of a wedding (no feast however) at Isaiah 61:10, where the festive nature of the event is highlighted by the attire reserved for bride and groom: garland for him, jewels for her. In Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians he referred to himself as the father of the bride-to-be who "promised you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ" (11:2). The apostle quotes the wedding formula from Genesis 2:24, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh," as an allusion to the eschatological marriage between "Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:31-32). And, of course, the final vision in the Bible, that of the new heavens and new earth, portrays "the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21:2).
When Matthew joined the expectation of the eschatological feast with that of the wedding imagery, we are left with eschatology par excellence. The time is just around the corner for the best man to offer the toast.
Alas, as Jesus tells the story about the wedding party for his son, there are no guests present to enjoy the meal and to join in the fun. The Jewish religious folks, the original guest list, decided for a variety of reasons they had better things to do. Some of them even killed the king's servants who were delivering the invitations. Again Matthew goes beyond Luke (14:15-24) in this detail about the death of the servants, but in doing so, he moves the reader back to the treatment of the owner's servants of the previous parable (see 21:35). This led to a military invasion to wipe out the town where the outrage had occurred. It also paved the way for a revision of the guest list to include "all whom they found, both good and bad" (v. 10). The "all" reminds us of the guests who came to the Lord's eschatological feast at Isaiah 25:6-8.
The message is clear: the religious groups of first-century Judaism who have rejected the invitation to the Son's banquet will no longer be the exclusive guests of the king. Because of their rejection, the party is opened up to "all."
Well, not exactly all. The second parable -- closely attached to the first -- concludes with the line, "For many are called, but few are chosen." The connection with the previous parable is apparently that even though "all" have come through the doors to participate in the feast, not "all" fully participate. The use of "a wedding robe" to illustrate the point is interesting. In the Old Testament the distributing of festal garments was a known practice. Joseph provided such garments to his brothers when he sent them off to their home (Genesis 45:22). Samson promised the thirty festal garments that were provided to guests at his feast (Judges 14:10-13). In neither case, however, are the garments part of a wedding celebration. Perhaps what Matthew has in mind in reporting Jesus' words is the notion developed by Paul that as persons are baptized into the death of Christ, they emerge as new beings who wear different clothing. He urges the Christians in Rome to "cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light" (Romans 13:12), an image that is illustrated by behavior appropriate to new creatures anticipating the Day of the Lord. In his Letter to the Galatians he speaks of having "clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:27). These references lead to the possibility that the attire expected at the wedding feast is that of a newly baptized person who lives out that existence with joy and dedication to the Lord. While many are invited to participate, some will not have lived the part, and so they will be excluded.
The two parables, therefore, convey different but not conflicting messages. The first one brought bad news to the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day and the days of the early church, because it announced the exclusion from the kingdom of those who received the invitation to the party but declined to come. The same parable brought inexplicable good news to those who had previously been excluded from the festivities, for the partying in the temple precincts that had been reserved for the Jews was now an open house for "all." There was now no guessing about who's coming to dinner: it was those who had been excluded until now. The dinner companions Jesus chose during his ministry -- the prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners -- would now sit at the table of the Lord.
The separation of people in our own day is unfortunately not difficult to find. We tend to separate ourselves from others on the basis of the color of skin, the sounds of language, countries of origin, sexual orientation, social and moral positions, places in society, or length of time in a community. The "not our kind" syndrome might certainly come back to haunt us if we do not consider "all" people as our fellow diners for all eternity.
The second parable corrects any false idea that having made the invitation list to get through the front door is the end of the matter. Those who participate in the feast are those who have "put on" the Lord Jesus Christ in order to present themselves in public as new beings. The persons baptized into the death of Jesus Christ emerge as new creatures who bear the image and likeness of God in the world (see Ephesians 4:24). That new creation should be as obvious as the lack of proper attire at a formal party.
Now that we have guessed who's coming to dinner, the next question is how many courses will it take to separate the new from the old. Our hope is based on the desire of God to fill the wedding hall with guests. Without that divine desire, most of us would never make it through the appetizers.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Exodus 32:1-14
Our text, which is from the Yahwist, connects with Exodus 24:18, where we are told that Moses is on Mount Sinai with God for forty days and forty nights. The intervening material in chapters 25-31 is from the Priestly Writers and concerns God's command to make a tabernacle and ark of the covenant. The preacher may want to resume the story with 24:28, followed immediately by 32:1.
This story of the golden calf is so full of sermon material that the preacher has a wide choice of themes for the proclamation. Let us briefly detail them.
First there is the theme of our propensity to sin. As George Buttrick once remarked, "Before we leave the church door, we fall once again into sin." Certainly Israel in this story is an example of that. Here is a people who have been redeemed from slavery and who have just entered into covenant with God, promising, "All that the Lord has spoken, we shall do." But like us, they are an impatient people who want to take matters into their own hands and run their own affairs. Moses hasn't come down from the mountain for forty days and nights. All they are left with as a leader is the priest Aaron, who is quite willing to accede to the rebellious people's wishes. After all, the polls show what the people want! So they tell Aaron, "Make us gods, who shall go before us." Everyone needs some sort of god, and if the true God isn't satisfactory, we'll make our own. And Aaron agrees to that popular position. How quick we are to forget what God has done for us and the long path on which he has led us, and to turn to deities more suited to our preferences!
But second, we should note that the nature of God is defined by what he has done. From the time of the exodus onward, the God of the Old Testament is identified as "the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt," just as God in the New Testament is defined as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Only the deity who has those identifying marks is true God. When Aaron makes the golden calf, therefore, he has to tell the Israelites that the little golden bull he has carved is the one who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Any rational person knows that is a lie, of course, but the Israelites are easily deceived, because they want it that way. It should be a reminder to us, however, when we start manufacturing our own gods and goddesses that we should ask what deeds they have done. Is the God we worship the deity who freed Israel? Is he the one who sent his only Son to die on a cross and who raised him up on the third day? What has your God done? Has he actually conquered death? Or are his actions on your behalf a figment of your imagination? Has your god done anything at all? Or is he just some amorphous something in the great somewhere? We must be careful to know the characteristics that define who the one true God really is.
Third, we see from this text the intercessory function of the prophets in the Old Testament. Moses is the first and greatest prophet (cf. Numbers 12:6-8), and he begins the function of interceding for his sinful people, pleading with God to turn aside his judgment on Israel's sin (cf. Deuteronomy 9:13-20, 25-
29; Amos 7:1-6). Moses makes two appeals to God. He points out that the Lord will be dishonored in the eyes of the Egyptians if he slays his people. But he also reminds God of his promise of land and many descendants to the patriarchs. If God destroys the people in the wilderness, he cannot keep his promise. And that is unthinkable to God. So, says our text, "The Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people" (v. 14). In other words, because of the intercessory prayer of his servant Moses, the Lord God Almighty changed his mind!
We sometimes have the mistaken notion that all of the future is preordained by God, and that therefore intercessory prayer is futile. Not so in the Bible! What we find there is a constant dialogue between God and human beings, in which the Lord takes very seriously the actions and faith and prayers of us mortals. What we do and what we believe and for what we pray make a difference. And so Jesus tells us in the New Testament, "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). And Ephesians 6:18 tells us, "Pray at all times in the Spirit, with prayer and supplication." God hears the prayers of his faithful, and we are to pray for one another, just as Moses and the prophets of old prayed for their sinful folk, trusting that God will answer the prayer in accordance with his love.
Lutheran Option -- Isaiah 25:1-9
The lectionary is shaped more by tradition and the content of passages rather than by form criticism. As a result, it often joins separate forms or breaks apart passages that belong together. That is true of this stated text. What we find here is, first, a song of praise (vv. 1-5) that interrupts the connection between 24:23 and 25:6. Then the proclamation contained in 25:6-9 should be ended before the last sentence of verse 9 ("Let us be glad and rejoice in our salvation"). That sentence belongs with verse 10, as the beginning word "For" in verse 10 shows. Nevertheless, we can follow the thought of the passage.
This reading is a part of what is known as the Isaiah Apocalypse that is made up of Isaiah 24-27. Consequently that which is pictured here is the end of history, when God has won his final victory over his enemies and brought in his kingdom, to be worshiped by all nations.
The song of praise in verses 1-5 praises God for his triumph over a ruthless enemy of both Israel and God. God has planned such a triumph from of old, because his plan and goal have always been to establish his kingdom on earth -- a fact known most familiarly to us from the Lord's Prayer ("thy kingdom come"). The passage emphasizes that the defeat of the enemy is permanent. Never again will the fortified city be rebuilt; it will disappear. Further, when the nations of the world see God's triumph, they too will be brought to worship him as the Lord. From his actions, all peoples will know who is God, especially since he will be shown to be the one sure defense of all those in need or who have no strength of their own -- a thought most tellingly set forth in the Suffering Servant Song in Isaiah 52:13-15. God shows his lordship by exalting the defenseless and putting down the mighty, and of course the New Testament emphasizes that in everything from the Magnificat to the cross and resurrection. In contrast to the futile defenses of the strong and ruthless, God's might is the one sure protection.
After God has defeated his enemies, verses 6-9a go on to tell of God's banquet on Mount Sinai. And here a universal note is sounded. Not only will Israel be exalted, but God will make a luxurious feast for all peoples. His love in his kingdom will extend to all. (Another writer excludes Moab, vv. 10-12.) Best of all, God will do away with the veil of mourning and death that has laid for all centuries over humankind. Tenderly, the Lord will wipe away tears from faces and take away all reproach of his people. Then there will be the universal rejoicing and confession found in verse 9a. We have waited for the Lord, and he has saved us.
In its entirety, our text portrays for us the hope found in the Christian faith. God will bring an end to humankind's violent and sin-pocked history and will establish his good reign over all the earth. Every knee will bow to him and every tongue will confess his lordship. And in the words of the Bible's final book, "God himself will be with (us); he will wipe away every tear from (our) eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things (will) have passed away" (Revelation 21:3-4). For that festive and joyful end we wait in certain hope. Therefore, we need never despair and we need never be crushed, no matter what our situation. Nor need we ever wonder what the world is coming to. It is coming to God. Of that joyful reign of his over all his creation, we can be very sure.
But when God throws a party, all the people we would not necessarily choose will be there, too. It might even happen here and now at the table of the Lord when we receive the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Sharing the table is a given -- a God-given, actually. It's the consequence of having a God whose love is much larger than ours and whose banquet table is built to match.
Isaiah 25:1-9
Tucked into this Apocalypse of Isaiah (Isaiah 24-27) is (1) this prayer, an individual psalm of thanksgiving and praise to God for having been powerful against the strong of the world and a stronghold for the weak of the world, (2) this vision about the party that God will throw when the time comes for the full realization of his divine reign over the universe, and (3) an assurance of salvation at the hands of the Lord. The combination of prayer, vision (often read at services for the burial of the dead), and assurance offers both comfort and challenge to people in all circumstances of life.
The psalm of thanksgiving and praise in verses 1-5 praises God for all the wonderful things the Lord has done as the fulfillment of ancient plans. On the one hand, the words sound like the prophetic understanding so prominent in Second Isaiah and elsewhere that what distinguishes the Lord from the idols of the nations is his ability to speak beforehand what will happen in history and then deliver what was promised. On the other hand, the context of apocalyptic that surrounds these verses might lead to the understanding that the Lord is praised here for having set in motion the rather mechanical view of history (one world empire after another until the end occurs) so typical of apocalyptic.
The same dilemma occurs in the reference to the destruction of the fortified city in verse 2. If this passage were couched in a prophetic section of the book instead of this apocalyptic one, we would expect the ruined city to be identified with a historical judgment on an urban center, such as Nineveh in 612 B.C. (see the Book of Nahum) or Babylon following the destruction by the Persians around 538 B.C. In an apocalyptic perspective, however, the ruined city might simply be a reference to all worldly powers that stand in opposition to the reign of the Lord and, therefore, need to be brought down.
Interestingly, no matter which way we look at the psalm -- prophetic or apocalyptic -- the strong are not wiped out as the Lord's enemies but, having seen and experienced the work and power of the Lord, they glorify him. Ironically it appears as though that honor will occur because God took the side of the poor and the needy rather than the earth's powerful.
The vision of the eschatological banquet in verses 6-8 conjures all kinds of old themes that become prominent in apocalyptic books. That God is the host of a banquet has its roots in ancient mythology. After subduing the chaos called Yamm, the Sea, the Canaanite god Baal establishes himself in his mountain palace and immediately throws his own housewarming party, inviting to the feast seventy of the gods and goddesses. In the Old Testament historical traditions, after subduing the forces of the Pharaoh and delivering the Hebrew slaves from Egypt, the Lord invited seventy representatives, along with Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, to the summit of his holy mountain Sinai where the guests "ate and drank" before the Lord (Exodus 24:1-2, 9-11). Now, however, in our vision the guest list to the mountaintop dinner (Mount Zion according to 24:23) includes "all peoples." No longer limited to the gods and goddesses or even to the elders of Israel or even Israelites, the eschatological party is truly an open house. The people formerly excluded on Mount Zion are welcomed as surely as the people of Israel. For "all peoples" the Lord will fill the tables with sumptuous food, while he himself will dine on Death so that it will never again bring sorrow.
The final line of John Donne's Holy Sonnet "Death, be not Proud" is a fitting commentary on the fate of death itself, as promised in Isaiah 25.
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
The assurance of salvation in verse 9 calls on people to acknowledge on the Lord's Day that it is indeed the Lord who shows up in no subtle terms. If the presence of God was somewhat hidden in the past, in the Kingdom that begins with the Day of the Lord, the people will rejoice in his unambiguous salvation.
With a party like that for "all" people and with Death itself eliminated, let the good times roll!
Philippians 4:1-9
Part of the difficulty in interpreting this pericope lies in the unanswered question about the number of letters Paul might have written to Philippi and how many of them are included in our biblical book. The problem is reflected in our passage above all with the word translated in verse 4 as "rejoice." That translation makes a fitting exhortation within a letter in which Paul speaks of the possibility of his own death as a consequence of the imprisonment he was experiencing when he wrote the letter (see 1:12-14). The same condition of imminent death, however, could render the same word as "goodbye." The Greek word, often translated "rejoice," was often used as a greeting, either in coming or going, like the Hebrew word shalom. If it means "goodbye" here, it might indicate several letters all in one biblical package or it might mean that Paul had trouble saying "goodbye" and signing off, for he already said "goodbye" at 3:1.
In any case, our pericope obviously intrudes into a section of the letter that began in 3:1. In this section Paul deals with a topic quite different from those in the first two chapters. The problem here is the presence of intruders, possibly Judaizers, into the community who have been instituting practices such as dietary laws and circumcision. That discussion continues throughout the chapter and comes to a conclusion with 4:3.
The section that begins with 4:4 and continues through verse 9 contains exhortations to the Philippian Christians to stand firm in the faith, for the coming of the Lord is near. Further, he encourages them to act as good citizens would act in society. The list of virtues he cites in verse 8 comes out of the philosophical schools of his day. Clearly worldly wisdom is not to be scoffed at. The worldly thinkers provide ways in which even people of faith might conduct their lives.
What Paul promises to the people through his several admonitions is the peace of God. In the first instance, he defines the peace of God as that which surpasses all understanding (v. 7). It is a peace that comes from God and not from human reason or human invention. That peace, Paul writes, will guard their hearts and their minds in Christ Jesus. No human peace could offer that protection in the face of the persecutions that might come their way.
Second, Paul promises that the peace of God will be present with them, particularly if they "keep on doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me" (v. 9). This call to imitate himself is also a duplication, for Paul already at 3:27 urged the Christians there to "join in imitating me." In our discussion of 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 for next Sunday we will consider this theme more fully. Suffice it to say for now, Paul did indeed consider himself and his colleagues to be role models who themselves sought to imitate Christ.
That imitation in this letter would be particularly significant because earlier in this letter he described his own faith-filled and hopeful approach to the likelihood of his execution, a fate that all his readers had at least to consider as their own.
Matthew 22:1-14
It's party time again as Jesus continues speaking to the Pharisees and other religious folks who challenged him at 21:23 about the source of his authority. In a sense we have two parables here: (1) that of the inclusion of all kinds of people for dinner when the original list ran dry (vv. 1-10), and (2) the casting out of one guest because he was not properly dressed (vv. 11-14). Each one ends with its own punch line.
Unlike Luke who tells the same story about the feast, Matthew makes the party a wedding banquet. It was not really necessary to focus on a wedding because, as we saw in our discussion of Isaiah 25:6-8, the banquet on the mountain was an old established theme in Canaanite and Old Testament mythology. However, the addition of the wedding adds still another eschatological theme. The eschatological promise of God's kingdom to come includes the metaphor of a wedding (no feast however) at Isaiah 61:10, where the festive nature of the event is highlighted by the attire reserved for bride and groom: garland for him, jewels for her. In Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians he referred to himself as the father of the bride-to-be who "promised you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ" (11:2). The apostle quotes the wedding formula from Genesis 2:24, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh," as an allusion to the eschatological marriage between "Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:31-32). And, of course, the final vision in the Bible, that of the new heavens and new earth, portrays "the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21:2).
When Matthew joined the expectation of the eschatological feast with that of the wedding imagery, we are left with eschatology par excellence. The time is just around the corner for the best man to offer the toast.
Alas, as Jesus tells the story about the wedding party for his son, there are no guests present to enjoy the meal and to join in the fun. The Jewish religious folks, the original guest list, decided for a variety of reasons they had better things to do. Some of them even killed the king's servants who were delivering the invitations. Again Matthew goes beyond Luke (14:15-24) in this detail about the death of the servants, but in doing so, he moves the reader back to the treatment of the owner's servants of the previous parable (see 21:35). This led to a military invasion to wipe out the town where the outrage had occurred. It also paved the way for a revision of the guest list to include "all whom they found, both good and bad" (v. 10). The "all" reminds us of the guests who came to the Lord's eschatological feast at Isaiah 25:6-8.
The message is clear: the religious groups of first-century Judaism who have rejected the invitation to the Son's banquet will no longer be the exclusive guests of the king. Because of their rejection, the party is opened up to "all."
Well, not exactly all. The second parable -- closely attached to the first -- concludes with the line, "For many are called, but few are chosen." The connection with the previous parable is apparently that even though "all" have come through the doors to participate in the feast, not "all" fully participate. The use of "a wedding robe" to illustrate the point is interesting. In the Old Testament the distributing of festal garments was a known practice. Joseph provided such garments to his brothers when he sent them off to their home (Genesis 45:22). Samson promised the thirty festal garments that were provided to guests at his feast (Judges 14:10-13). In neither case, however, are the garments part of a wedding celebration. Perhaps what Matthew has in mind in reporting Jesus' words is the notion developed by Paul that as persons are baptized into the death of Christ, they emerge as new beings who wear different clothing. He urges the Christians in Rome to "cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light" (Romans 13:12), an image that is illustrated by behavior appropriate to new creatures anticipating the Day of the Lord. In his Letter to the Galatians he speaks of having "clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:27). These references lead to the possibility that the attire expected at the wedding feast is that of a newly baptized person who lives out that existence with joy and dedication to the Lord. While many are invited to participate, some will not have lived the part, and so they will be excluded.
The two parables, therefore, convey different but not conflicting messages. The first one brought bad news to the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day and the days of the early church, because it announced the exclusion from the kingdom of those who received the invitation to the party but declined to come. The same parable brought inexplicable good news to those who had previously been excluded from the festivities, for the partying in the temple precincts that had been reserved for the Jews was now an open house for "all." There was now no guessing about who's coming to dinner: it was those who had been excluded until now. The dinner companions Jesus chose during his ministry -- the prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners -- would now sit at the table of the Lord.
The separation of people in our own day is unfortunately not difficult to find. We tend to separate ourselves from others on the basis of the color of skin, the sounds of language, countries of origin, sexual orientation, social and moral positions, places in society, or length of time in a community. The "not our kind" syndrome might certainly come back to haunt us if we do not consider "all" people as our fellow diners for all eternity.
The second parable corrects any false idea that having made the invitation list to get through the front door is the end of the matter. Those who participate in the feast are those who have "put on" the Lord Jesus Christ in order to present themselves in public as new beings. The persons baptized into the death of Jesus Christ emerge as new creatures who bear the image and likeness of God in the world (see Ephesians 4:24). That new creation should be as obvious as the lack of proper attire at a formal party.
Now that we have guessed who's coming to dinner, the next question is how many courses will it take to separate the new from the old. Our hope is based on the desire of God to fill the wedding hall with guests. Without that divine desire, most of us would never make it through the appetizers.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Exodus 32:1-14
Our text, which is from the Yahwist, connects with Exodus 24:18, where we are told that Moses is on Mount Sinai with God for forty days and forty nights. The intervening material in chapters 25-31 is from the Priestly Writers and concerns God's command to make a tabernacle and ark of the covenant. The preacher may want to resume the story with 24:28, followed immediately by 32:1.
This story of the golden calf is so full of sermon material that the preacher has a wide choice of themes for the proclamation. Let us briefly detail them.
First there is the theme of our propensity to sin. As George Buttrick once remarked, "Before we leave the church door, we fall once again into sin." Certainly Israel in this story is an example of that. Here is a people who have been redeemed from slavery and who have just entered into covenant with God, promising, "All that the Lord has spoken, we shall do." But like us, they are an impatient people who want to take matters into their own hands and run their own affairs. Moses hasn't come down from the mountain for forty days and nights. All they are left with as a leader is the priest Aaron, who is quite willing to accede to the rebellious people's wishes. After all, the polls show what the people want! So they tell Aaron, "Make us gods, who shall go before us." Everyone needs some sort of god, and if the true God isn't satisfactory, we'll make our own. And Aaron agrees to that popular position. How quick we are to forget what God has done for us and the long path on which he has led us, and to turn to deities more suited to our preferences!
But second, we should note that the nature of God is defined by what he has done. From the time of the exodus onward, the God of the Old Testament is identified as "the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt," just as God in the New Testament is defined as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Only the deity who has those identifying marks is true God. When Aaron makes the golden calf, therefore, he has to tell the Israelites that the little golden bull he has carved is the one who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Any rational person knows that is a lie, of course, but the Israelites are easily deceived, because they want it that way. It should be a reminder to us, however, when we start manufacturing our own gods and goddesses that we should ask what deeds they have done. Is the God we worship the deity who freed Israel? Is he the one who sent his only Son to die on a cross and who raised him up on the third day? What has your God done? Has he actually conquered death? Or are his actions on your behalf a figment of your imagination? Has your god done anything at all? Or is he just some amorphous something in the great somewhere? We must be careful to know the characteristics that define who the one true God really is.
Third, we see from this text the intercessory function of the prophets in the Old Testament. Moses is the first and greatest prophet (cf. Numbers 12:6-8), and he begins the function of interceding for his sinful people, pleading with God to turn aside his judgment on Israel's sin (cf. Deuteronomy 9:13-20, 25-
29; Amos 7:1-6). Moses makes two appeals to God. He points out that the Lord will be dishonored in the eyes of the Egyptians if he slays his people. But he also reminds God of his promise of land and many descendants to the patriarchs. If God destroys the people in the wilderness, he cannot keep his promise. And that is unthinkable to God. So, says our text, "The Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people" (v. 14). In other words, because of the intercessory prayer of his servant Moses, the Lord God Almighty changed his mind!
We sometimes have the mistaken notion that all of the future is preordained by God, and that therefore intercessory prayer is futile. Not so in the Bible! What we find there is a constant dialogue between God and human beings, in which the Lord takes very seriously the actions and faith and prayers of us mortals. What we do and what we believe and for what we pray make a difference. And so Jesus tells us in the New Testament, "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). And Ephesians 6:18 tells us, "Pray at all times in the Spirit, with prayer and supplication." God hears the prayers of his faithful, and we are to pray for one another, just as Moses and the prophets of old prayed for their sinful folk, trusting that God will answer the prayer in accordance with his love.
Lutheran Option -- Isaiah 25:1-9
The lectionary is shaped more by tradition and the content of passages rather than by form criticism. As a result, it often joins separate forms or breaks apart passages that belong together. That is true of this stated text. What we find here is, first, a song of praise (vv. 1-5) that interrupts the connection between 24:23 and 25:6. Then the proclamation contained in 25:6-9 should be ended before the last sentence of verse 9 ("Let us be glad and rejoice in our salvation"). That sentence belongs with verse 10, as the beginning word "For" in verse 10 shows. Nevertheless, we can follow the thought of the passage.
This reading is a part of what is known as the Isaiah Apocalypse that is made up of Isaiah 24-27. Consequently that which is pictured here is the end of history, when God has won his final victory over his enemies and brought in his kingdom, to be worshiped by all nations.
The song of praise in verses 1-5 praises God for his triumph over a ruthless enemy of both Israel and God. God has planned such a triumph from of old, because his plan and goal have always been to establish his kingdom on earth -- a fact known most familiarly to us from the Lord's Prayer ("thy kingdom come"). The passage emphasizes that the defeat of the enemy is permanent. Never again will the fortified city be rebuilt; it will disappear. Further, when the nations of the world see God's triumph, they too will be brought to worship him as the Lord. From his actions, all peoples will know who is God, especially since he will be shown to be the one sure defense of all those in need or who have no strength of their own -- a thought most tellingly set forth in the Suffering Servant Song in Isaiah 52:13-15. God shows his lordship by exalting the defenseless and putting down the mighty, and of course the New Testament emphasizes that in everything from the Magnificat to the cross and resurrection. In contrast to the futile defenses of the strong and ruthless, God's might is the one sure protection.
After God has defeated his enemies, verses 6-9a go on to tell of God's banquet on Mount Sinai. And here a universal note is sounded. Not only will Israel be exalted, but God will make a luxurious feast for all peoples. His love in his kingdom will extend to all. (Another writer excludes Moab, vv. 10-12.) Best of all, God will do away with the veil of mourning and death that has laid for all centuries over humankind. Tenderly, the Lord will wipe away tears from faces and take away all reproach of his people. Then there will be the universal rejoicing and confession found in verse 9a. We have waited for the Lord, and he has saved us.
In its entirety, our text portrays for us the hope found in the Christian faith. God will bring an end to humankind's violent and sin-pocked history and will establish his good reign over all the earth. Every knee will bow to him and every tongue will confess his lordship. And in the words of the Bible's final book, "God himself will be with (us); he will wipe away every tear from (our) eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things (will) have passed away" (Revelation 21:3-4). For that festive and joyful end we wait in certain hope. Therefore, we need never despair and we need never be crushed, no matter what our situation. Nor need we ever wonder what the world is coming to. It is coming to God. Of that joyful reign of his over all his creation, we can be very sure.
