I wonder what is the first thought that comes into your head when you open an invitation and find yourself invited to a wedding.
Do you say a wee prayer of thanksgiving for the couple?
Maybe you do.
Do you rejoice that two people have discovered that they love one another and give thanks for the places in your own life where you have known love too?
Maybe you do.
Or, upon reading that invitation, is the first thought that comes into your mind, “Oh no! What on earth am I going to wear?â€
It is as though we have a global, cosmic, universal, catholic fear of being the man in the parable that I’ve just read – the one who was caught out at a wedding wearing the wrong clothes and thrown out into outer darkness where there is “weeping, wailing and gnashing of teethâ€.
I’ve already preached on that phrase once this year. I really must learn my lesson and look up the readings before doing the clergy rota. This parable is so horrible that it is the kind of thing that should only be scheduled for a curate. Or maybe a passing bishop.
It’s not too bad for a while – the idea that at the great wedding banquet folk haven’t turned up and God sends for the riff raff to fill the spaces is something that I think we can relate to. I always used to want to be in charge of a church which welcomed the riff-raff of the world….well, you should be careful what you wish for!
It is that last nasty bit that sticks in my craw – the story of the person not being dressed for the wedding being flung out into the dark.
On everything connected with this congregation we put the words “Open, inclusive welcomingâ€. There is no dress code here. This is a place where you can come in from the highways and byways of the world and just be present with God. You won’t be flung out for not knowing the routine or not wearing the right robe. We even provide great big pillars for you to hide behind, for as long as you chose. And that’s OK here.
A parable with a story that ends like this pulls us up short. Can that really be in the gospel, we think. Can that really be what God is on about in the world today?
I want to suggest to you that the answer to that question might just be “noâ€. And I also want to bring this all up to date by talking in a moment about the big current question about marriage – after all – there are people who feel very much excluded by God or God’s representatives from the institution of marriage. This little parable might be all too contemporary.
I’ll come back to that in a minute, but first, what on earth did it ever mean that allowed its hearers to hear it as Gospel.
Well, in a few week’s time we will turn the page and start to read Mark’s gospel on Sundays. We’ve been reading Matthew since last Advent. This parable is part of the stark black and white tone that Matthew strikes. The parable of the wedding feast that we have today is part of the old sheep and the goats, the saved and the damned stuff that permeates this gospel. I struggle with it every time we go through it. I’m not the only one who does. Though it has to be acknowledged as we read it that it makes perfect sense to many a religious community who need high barriers to entry and participation and who have a desperate need to see themselves as living in opposition to the ways of the world.
The most sense I can make of this parable is to go back to the theory that Matthew’s people were frightened people. The remnant of people who collected this parable were the ones trying to live as Christians without abandoning too much of their Jewishness. Issues of identity and probably dress were absolutely crucial to them.
I was reminded this week of seeing persecuted Christians in Egypt showing tattoos on their wrists to doorkeepers of churches in order to gain entry. They have crosses tattooed on themselves – something that Muslims would never ever do. These marks act as essential symbols of who they are and the faith they profess. You show a tattoo to gain entry – to prove who you are.
Matthew’s people may have had their own religious code – their own religious dress, their own tight religious world to preserve. In that context a parable about throwing someone out for wearing the wrong thing makes all kinds of sense, even if we may not like it now.
And coming back to now, what does it mean today?
Well, as I alluded today we would do well to remember that there are those amongst us (including me) who are cut off from the institution of marriage. Not quite thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, but outside the fold of respectability. Gay folk can’t get married and the government are consulting about whether the time is right to change that. I think it is and it is a change that some of us from this church have been working towards for quite a while – quietly writing letters and gathering signatures and speaking to politicians.
I believe that religious people have as much right to influence politicians as anyone else. Heaven knows I try to do so often.
However, I think that there is a danger that the influence of goodhearted, godly people is being undermined by some within the Christian community.
It vexes me greatly to say so in public, but at such a time as this, there seems no alternative but to speak up. The behaviour of our brothers, the Roman Catholic Bishops in recent days, has been so unpleasant and so ill judged that it risks harming the good influence of the whole Christian community.
To behave as though bishops carry some kind of block vote to Holyrood, to threaten politicians and to decry those who want access to the dignity of marriage as unnatural…. to say these things seems to me to go too far.
Such comments from the leaders of the Roman Catholic church have left me feeling embarrassed as a Christian. There is a risk that all of the churches will appear to be out of touch, arrogant, conceited and rude. We don’t all have to agree but we are all called to behave charitably and there has been an absence of love in this relentlessly bitter campaign and it diminishes us all.
One of the great things about living in Glasgow is that you can find out fairly quickly that one’s Roman Catholic friends and neighbours don’t all share all the views of the hierarchy of that church. Indeed a good many share that sense of embarrasment.
I hope that you were embarrassed and outraged by the parable told in this morning’s gospel. If you were not – go and read it again until you are. It may well have made sense to the people amongst whom it was first told but we must be frank, we must be bold and we must be clear – it has very little in it to edify us now.
The words of Jesus to cling onto are the words which nourish and the words which heal. The stories that inspire, the sayings which embrace. Those ways of thinking which enfold the weary like that shepherd we sang about in the psalm – those are the elements of Gospel which the whole world craves.
As the apostle said, “So beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.â€
And in the name of God, forget all the rest.
You speak of some members of the Church being embarrassed by the words of others within the Church.
Do you ever consider it a possibility that the God in whose name you claim to speak – as you recite at the end of your sermon, no doubt Sunday by Sunday! – is embarrassed by many of the words which you speak.
It really is not open to any of us, especially ordained clergy in the Church of Jesus Christ, to decide, by ourselves, what this Jesus Christ would or would not have said, and then declare that is what He meant.
I ask you in the spirit of the frustrated Oliver Cromwell as he addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland – “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
Bowels or no bowels, I’m very happy to admit that I may often be wrong.
I also stand by what I said this morning.
Well said – glad the LGBT letter writing paid off!
Depressingly, St.Silas has already sent out an egroup message encouraging people to attend what amounts to a Glasgow Evangementalist Homophobia Rally (which I suspect – or at least hope – will, most evangelicals being normal, have the same pathetically poor attendance that past “Christian” Institute/Flat Earth Creationism@ICC/Homophobic Church egroup advertised events have had) . At a time like this, it’s very encouraging that clerical voices like yourself are willing to put themselves out there (you should get yourself in The Sun again ;-))
I’ll settle for that, Kelvin!
But if you really mean that you believe you could be wrong in what you say Sunday by Sunday, could you not give evidence of that by saying before and after each sermon – instead of in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who never get wrong what they say!! – I may or may not be wrong in what I say here today, but this is how I currently see things.
The discerning in your congregation at least would then hear your words for what they really are, rather than the godly sandwich in which you seem presently to envelop them.
No WIlliam, I’m content to say that I do speak in the name of God, just as we do everything we do in the name of God. The invocation of the Trinity isn’t merely a declaration but more a prayer and quite common in the tradition in which I work.
The deal at St Mary’s is always that the congregation get to discern what God is saying to them through the worship. I quite often give several different and completely contradictory interpretations of scripture in my preaching and suggest that people try to work out for themselves where they discern the voice of God. I do even that in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The sermons at St Mary’s are given in God’s name but make no pretence to be the voice of God.
Invoking the Trinity is also a sign of how seriously I take the responsibility of the preaching task. Nothing I ever say in the pulpit is said without a greate deal of thought.
As regards the parable – it seems pretty clear the parable of the wrongly-dressed guest has got tacked on to another feast parable to which it does not belong. However, is it really really impossible to turn up for the feast with one’s attitude so very very wrong that although one SAYS one wants to be there, one IS in fact just making trouble? Or spoiling for a fight? Because I strongly suspect that in its origins, that is what this is about. It is, of course, story-telling hyperbole. Nobody WOULD go to a royal wedding in their gardening clothes. But do some actually turn up so disrespectful of their fellow guests, so unforgiving and accepting … ? May this not be a story told – not to encourage us to exclude, but to think of how grudging we ourselves can be? Are we looking for the wrong kind of teaching, and should we be looking at Jesus more as a provocative teacher, rather than a guide-lines-laying-down teacher?
P.s. the late great Jim White used to say that God always spoke to him through the sermon, usually be encouraging him to disagree with the preacher.
Thanks Rosemary – yes, the end bit is very clearly tacked on.
Yes, I think that your interpretation could fit nicely.
I’ve another one to add into the mix which is to ask who God is in the parable. Might it not be that God is the one being thrown out of the feast?
That I like as well – I suppose I am by temperament always more inclined to play around with these powerful stories than to dislike them – in my version of the Importunate Widow, the widow turns out to be God. I THAT way THAT story works for me. But like you, I do no more than offer readings, and do not seriously think my versions the only ones.
In my preparation I came across the theory that wedding garments would be provided free and for everyone as they entered the feast. This meant that it didn’t matter what you were wearing, as a wedding garment would be provided. A bit like God’s free grace?
The man not wearing the garment, then, would be someone who had rejected the free grace which God is giving, and was therefore casting himself into “darkness”. I suppose we all get the chance to choose whether we want to accept God’s grace or not. However, whether we be good, bad or indifferent, we are given the wedding garment anyway!
Kelvin, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that I feel somewhat uncomfortable with all of this. In my ministry I have always recognised couples who live together in a loving monogamous relationship but who don’t have a certificate of marriage as acceptable to God as those who do. I also fully support civil partnerships as being fair and just.
But when it comes to marriage between a same sex couple I am afraid that I find myself somewhat in agreement with the RC hierarchy. That is my honest opinion based on scripture and tradition. Am I ‘arrogant, conceited, rude and out of touch’ for daring to express such an opinion? (I heard one gay commenter referring to an MSP as evil for holding such views.) I accept I may be wrong about this but I have yet to be persuaded.
By the way you were quoted in ‘The Times’ this morning.
Shalom!
Hi Ross, thanks for your comments.
I think if you look carefully you’ll find that I was commenting on something more broadly than the particular view of the RC Bishops which you may share. I was very clear in saying that I didn’t think we all had to agree on this particular issue.
The quote was this:
Rather broader, I think, than simply a comment on what view any of us might take about the future of marriage.
I’ve just got hold of a copy of today’s Times and am very pleased with the coverage.
I’d be interested, Rev. Ross, if you take all of the scripture seriously, or just the bits which fit your views. What about Jacob’s polygamy, or Abraham having a child with another woman just because his wife was infertile. This last point might be an alternative view of the procreation point so beloved of the RC hierarchy? If your wife can’t have kids, have them with the cleaner, or the nanny or au pear, as Abraham did with his wife’s servant. What about Levirite marriage or forced marriage, all sanctioned in the bible? Polygamy is still practiced by some Muslim men who are allowed up to four wives, I believe…
Surely one can see from the scriptures that the concept of marriage has evolved over the years as indeed has just what is acceptable. After all, do you enjoy shellfish or pork, or mix the fibres in your clothes each day, or keep slaves? Yes, yes, yes and no, probably. Isn’t that an evolving understanding of tradition?
Biblical precedents set by the relationships between Ruth and Naomi and David and Jonathan surely cover both the tradition and acceptability of same sex relationships? After all, Ruth and Naomi’s relationship is described in the original Hebrew with exactly the same word as that of Adam and Eve…
Jaye – it’s good to ask one another, do we take all of scripture seriously?
I trust the answer of all ordained clergy is a resounding yes!
Kelvin’s response – nothing I ever say in the pulpit is said without a greate deal of thought – does not have that resonance!!
I note your references to Jacob’s and Abraham’s sinful behaviour – all such behaviour, and there are many other examples of failure among God’s people, does not receive biblical approval [contra “all sanctioned in the bible”] – God does not always spell out His disapproval of our behaviour; in His grace He covers His people’s sins in His Son, as the NT reveals, or ultimately will require us to bear that punishment ourselves.
I also note, Jaye, your comment – “Surely one can see from the scriptures that the concept of marriage has evolved over the years as indeed has just what is acceptable.”
Well – what do you make of Jesus’ comments in Matt 5 & 19 on marriage? The utter amazement of the disciples to His teaching reveals their surprise that their Master’s understanding of marriage had not evolved!
The precedents you quote to suggest biblical acceptability of same sex relationships
surely owe more to a contemporary cultural reading of scripture, than the result of careful exegesis.
All members of the clergy that I know take the Bible seriously.
Don’t forget, William that it is grown up discussion that is welcomed by me and by those who form a community around this blog.
Ad hominem attacks, endless repetitions of the theory of substitutionary atonement (which we’ve covered plenty of times before and which we know I don’t believe) and generalisations about what all Christians should/must/ought believe are better placed elsewhere on the internet.
…but Willam, didn’t God command Abraham to take Hagar to bear his child? And as I said, the similarity of the relationships of Adam/Eve and Ruth/Naomi owes nothing to contemporary interpretation and more to translation of the original Hebrew…wouldn’t you say? And didn’t Christ argue against divorce, previously, and still permitted under Jewish law? He certainly said nothing against faithful same-sex unions.
I’m encouraged with words ‘grown up’ – although it strikes me your last blog hardly fits that category.
Is it your conscience that takes you to the theory of substitutionary atonement – I would like you to point me to one reference I have made to that, far less many. I certainly did not know “which we know I don’t believe” !!
Is it in order for only one side of this blog to make ‘ad hominem attacks’;from my perspective my comments are always reactive.
I’m sure we all have tender consciences – but we must live in the light, which leaves us all fairly exposed!
Well, I don’t believe in substitutionary atonement because it is is not at all in tune with the biblical view of either sacrifice or of covenant.