A Trinitarian
definition of righteousness would sound something like living in the love of
the Father freely given to us through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in the
communion of the Holy Spirit.
Righteousness, this right relationship to God, is given to us freely in
the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ made real in and among us
through the fellowship building work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, the incarnate Son of God has done it
all for us with respect to getting humanity, indeed us, right with God and
therefore God has placed his Spirit, himself and his way of relating, into a
particular community of people, including us, that stretches across every place
and time and race and nation. This is
what Paul means by the fellowship with/of Jesus Christ in our reading from 1
Corinthians. Jesus Christ is in his
church, in his body, and that means that we are organically different than any
other communion, community, group, or organization on earth. We are where God himself is. We are his temple. It has been the pattern of the church
throughout history to lose site of this or just be flat blind to it and be
something other than God created it to be.
Jesus told his
disciples “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his
friends (Jn 15:13).” “This is my
command: Love each other (Jn 15:17).” He
said this because this is who he is. God
is the Trinity, the communion of self-giving and reciprocating love within
mutually constitutive relationships, i.e., the loving communion of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit who gives himself for and to us. In the giving of himself to us he creates a
community, a communion, a fellowship that is to be in his image. The question the Gospel asks is primarily
whether we will participate now in our future glory by reciprocating God’s love
to God and to one another. Let this
loving communion permeate worship and our relationships.
To draw an analogy to
the parable of the wedding feast this is what it is to be properly attired for
the wedding feast. There is a proper way
to come to the feast and a proper attire.
Salvation is the kingdom of heaven given to us now, growing in our midst
as the proof that Christ will come with the fullness of the kingdom when the
Father says its time. Salvation is Jesus
Christ present in our midst…the fellowship with/of Jesus Christ…in the Holy
Spirit. We are the living body of the
living Lord Jesus Christ. The wedding
feast that the King has prepared is here, right now, in our midst, the question
is will we participate in it.
This parable explains
that the Trinity has prepared a feast for us and has invited us to it. The Trinity has placed his salvation in our
midst right now and we are invited to come and feast, to come and
participate. There is an immediate
consequence if we do not, the obvious thing being that we just don’t get the
feast. We opt out of living in the life
of God through communion with/of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit opens us up
him.
Jesus spoke this
parable to the chief priests and the Pharisees in Jerusalem just after his
triumphal donkey ride into town days before he was to be crucified and it
angered them to the point that they began to plot to kill him. The chief priests and Pharisees were the
temple authorities and a particular sect of the Jewish faith known for being
rigorous in observing rules of conduct that would keep them from transgressing
the laws of the Old Testament. They were
not representative of all Jewish people or of Judaism as a whole back then or
today. The chief priests and the
Pharisees back then were blinded by their assumption of religious authority and
the false faith they had created. They
knew the Scriptures and therefore should have known who Jesus was, but thier
desire to have power and control over the things of God had gotten the best of
them.
In this parable Jesus
indirectly refers to them as the “invited ones”, the ones who had received the
invitation prior to the feast being ready.
These “invited ones” knowing the Law and the Prophets should have been
waiting with great expectation for this feast to occur. So, it is mind boggling to see what their
response was. When the wedding feast is
ready and the summons sent, these invited ones just don’t want to come. Again the king sends his servants with a more
adamant summons, “the food’s on the table.
You don’t need to bring anything.
Come. Celebrate.” This time they just didn’t pay
attention. Went to their farms and
businesses to do what they do. Too busy
for the feast I guess. Yet, there were
some who took notice of the messengers and treated them shamefully and killed
them. So, the king destroys them for
their insolence. The response of the
“invited ones” makes no sense. It’s like
expecting God to do something all your life and then when God does, you don’t
want it. The point of this parable to
the chief priests and Pharisees was the kingdom of heaven is here, at hand,
with and in Jesus Christ…and they gobsmackingly don’t want it. They were living in expectation of that
kingdom and here it was. God was acting
with the fulfillment of his promise that he gave through his prophets. “Ho hum,” they said. “What’s going on in our lives is more
important than your silly little kingdom.”
Some got belligerent.
Well, to unyoke the
burden of the analogy from the shoulders of the chief priests and Pharisees,
let me push closer to home. We, too, are
the “invited ones”. The word in first
Corinthians that we translate as “called” is the same word Matthew uses for
“those invited” both originally and after the king sent the servants out into
the streets with a blanket invitation. Paul uses the word to describe himself,
the people in the Corinthian church and all believers as the called ones, the
invited ones…called to be an Apostle…called into the fellowship with/of the
Son. This fellowship with/of Christ
Jesus that is in our midst is the wedding feast, the Kingdom of God, the
Kingdom of heaven, indeed Salvation. The
loving communion that is in our midst by God’s very self being here with us and
in us is what God promised for ages through his prophets and what he promises
to bring in its fullness some day hopefully soon. The church is to be a communion where we love
one another sacrificially and build one another up in love. The relationships that we have in this
congregation should be the primary person-building relationships that we have
in our lives. The love we give to and
receive from our sisters and brothers in Christ should be what defines us as
persons. The self-giving, cross-based
bond of love in our midst and how we share it is our small taste of salvation
now freely given to us, to everybody, good and wicked. When we shake each other’s hands in the
warmth of the bond of friendship in Christ and say “The peace of Christ be with
you” we are living in our salvation. How
deep are we willing to let this communion become? The bond in Chrisit of this church is freely
given to us. That is why we say
salvation is freely given. God freely
gives us himself so that we may participate in the ever-new, ever-renewing bond
of love as it exists in the church under his Lordship exercised in the way of
the cross. He lives for us and we live
for one another in him.
We are the “invited
ones”, called by the king through his servants to come share in the feast. How do we respond to the invitation? In the past, this question has been directed
to those outside the church as to why they don’t participate in it. I think it is more rightly directed to us in
the church. Do we respond with not
wanting to come to the feast meaning do we come to church not really wanting to
participate in the bond of love, not really wanting to leave the comfort zone
and get involved in the lives of our sisters and brothers in Christ who sit “you
in your small caorner and I in mine” from week to week? Do we come just because its our moral duty or
just wanting a little spiritual direction to get us through the week or the
next two or three weeks depending on when it’s convenient for us to get back
and decide we missed the place? After
all, things do get busy around the farm and the business and the kids keep us
hopping. Or, do we have our own idea of
what church ought to be and how Christians out to be and oddly kill the communion
with good intentions?
The church, where
salvation is manifestly present on earth, involves the relationships we share
here and now; relationships which are the means through gift of the Holy Spirit
of how Jesus builds us up in love to be persons in communion in him. Our response, our participation in the feast,
involves loving God with worship and taking time to get to know him and his
ways through prayer and studying and ruminating upon the Scriptures privately
and together and all this so that we may love each other and those outside this
fellowship as Christ loves that the testimony of Christ Jesus might be
authentic. This is what it is to be
enriched as Paul says, “For in him you have
been enriched in every way—in all your speaking and in all your
knowledge—because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.”
If we are going to
feast, then we’ve got to be properly attired.
God is here. Giving himself for
us to partake of, but we have to let him build his loving self in us by molding
us to actually visibly care for one another.
It is amazing in the church as a whole how we just don’t get it that
being a fellowship that loves one another is all we are called to be and strive
for. We seem to know this instinctively,
but we will come up with anything and everything for the church to be and do
other than strengthen our bonds of love.
We’ll focus on getting people saved or fun and fantastic programs to get
people in our pews. But, to look across
the room at these people we hardly know and say “I’ll be the best friend you’ve
ever had just because of what Jesus has done for me and I can’t help it…,” well,
that’s not so easy. It means we must
change in accordance with the transformation Jesus is working in us in the
power of the Holy Spirit or we miss the feast.
The love of God is
freely given to us through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in the communion
of the Holy Spirit to be our bond, but honestly, too often we prove ourselves
simply to not want it at all. Getting
saved don’t count if we have not love for one another. So, beloved friends, let us guard our unity in
Christ, our bond in Christ with every ounce of prayer we can muster. Let’s love one another deeply from the
heart. Let’s build this congregation
around building one another up in love.
We don’t need all those programs we think churches are supposed to have. We have each other and there is one really
wonderful feast going on here. That’s
all we need. Let’s just be the
church. Amen.
