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How to dress for a wedding is a complicated matter. For me, as a minister officiating it’s usually no big deal…either dog-collar and suitcoat or dog-collar and robe depending on what the couple wants in their pictures. On the other hand, the last wedding I went to as a guest a few years back was a bit more complicated. I had to go buy a shirt with a button-down collar that actually fit me. That shirt untucked, some khakis, and some uncomfortable shoes was all I needed as it was a casual outdoor thing. It was a good thing it wasn’t something I needed a suit and tie for. I don’t own such things and wouldn’t have bought one for those folks. I don’t think you really need a suit anymore as the definition of appropriate wedding attire has changed. When I was a kid, it was almost always a suit, but now…It’s different?
Seriously, what is appropriate attire for a wedding these days? I don’t want to sound like a prude, but I always thought that the bride was supposed to be the most beautiful and most beautifully dressed woman at the wedding; meaning, it’s about her. But…for every wedding I’ve been to the last twenty years, the modesty memo must not have been circulated. Apparently, when you go to a wedding these days, the dress code is dress like you want to leave there with somebody, wink, wink. And, it’s not just the gals, it’s the guys too. Why is it people can’t just come to a wedding to celebrate the love of the two being married instead of looking for love themselves. And for me, the minister, it’s difficult to enjoy a wedding when I’m having to either stare at the ceiling or at the floor lest I get accused of being “that minister” who keeps staring. Needless to say, I have been to more than a few weddings where I think some of the guests should have been asked, “How did you get in here dressed like that?”
Well, enough of my prudish, uptight, obsequious minister rant. I just want to say how we dress at a wedding is something we should pay attention to. We don’t want to upstage the bride and groom and we don’t want to look like we’re going barhoppping. The last time I checked, a wedding is a celebration of something that deserves our respect – God’s very good gift of the love and commitment that leads to family which is the cornerstone of human community. Okay, I’m ranting again.
Anyway, this parable is about a king who was throwing a wedding feast for his son and the topic of proper attire eventually comes up. Maybe a more appropriate analogy for this sermon would have been to talk about dress protocol for a royal wedding, but the last one of those was more than a handful of years ago now and from what I saw of it, it seemed that the dignitaries and especially the celebs missed the memo about not upstaging the bride and groom. …and talk about your guest list problems. When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex married, the primary problem with those invited was the father of the bride, but in our parable it’s the whole dang list and the king chooses a horrific way of handling it…Well, let’s talk about it.
The first people this king invited, the who’s who of power and wealth, the first time they were summonsed to come, they blanketly refused. The second time, some said they just had better things to do and walked away and the rest of them beat and murdered the messengers. So, what’s a king to do? He sent in the troops and permanently took them folks off the guest list.
This response is problematic. If this Parable is about the kingdom of Heaven which is supposed to be so wonderful and peaceful, why is the king killing people? That’s not what the Kingdom of Heaven is supposed to be like, is it? It might help to know that Matthew’s Gospel was written after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. Most scholars will say this parable has within it an attempt to explain how God could have let that happen or even made it happen – the political and religious powers of the Jewish people who refused Jesus and his Kingdom and persecuted and killed his followers and in turn sought power for themselves through revolutionary means, brought it upon themselves.
Returning to the parable, having a wedding feast ready and there no longer being invitees, the king expanded the guest list to include everybody and anybody, good and bad. He sent his servants out into the streets of the town to gather whomever they could. They did and they filled the hall. Of course, you will have surmised that this represents the work of the early church apostles, missionaries, and evangelists welcoming anybody and everybody to come and be followers of Jesus, citizens of his kingdom irrespective of race, status, wealth, sex.
The wedding feast in this parable, of course, is also an analogy for something. I like to think it represents the loving fellowship that is found in groups of Jesus followers; fellowship marked by people relating to each other according to a profound love that , is evident and felt among them because the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, is dwelling among them. It’s also a wedding feast marked by abundance – abundance of unconditional love which spills over into there being abundantly enough food and such for everybody. One picture that the first few chapters of the Book of Acts gives us of life in the early church, particularly the first few years, is that their fidelity to Jesus expressed in their love for one another blossomed into an elimination of poverty in their midst.
The wedding feast is present in the church, so to speak, but not the religious institution called the church that we have in our culture that carved its niche as definer and enforcer of public morality and the societally preferred venue for the public worship of something called God. The church that embodies the wedding feast is likely to be found among small gatherings of people who are loyal to Jesus above all other loyalties, who strive to live the way of self-denial and unconditional love that he lived, who are more concerned about how they are getting along and how they care for one another than they are even about worship. The fellowship of love embodied among Jesus’ people is the wedding feast.
Looking at the parable, how one dresses for this feast matters. This parable has two strikingly difficult things to deal with – the king annihilating the invited guests for their refusal to come and their abuse of his servants; and, this king kicking out one the guests for not being dressed appropriately. How to dress for the wedding feast deserves our attention?
There’s something we need to know historically speaking; it was likely the practice in the culture at the time that at such a shindig the person hosting the wedding feast would have likely supplied a robe for everybody to wear. Talk about your expensive weddings! It’s like getting a “Been there, Done that” T-shirt made for everybody. That there would be somebody there not wearing the supplied “special souvenir toga” would have been a surprise and likely an insult to the host and would get you kicked out. The meaning of the robe in the parable is that in the Kingdom of Heaven everybody is given the appropriate attire, the Holy Spirit who is evidenced in the way we get along.
This parable puts me to mind of a passage out of Colossians 3 that uses the imagery of the clothing change that took place at baptism. The person to be baptised would take off their old clothes, step into the water and be baptised, when they came out they were given a new white robe to wear. The baptism symbolized dying and rising with Jesus and the clothing change was metaphorical for divesting yourself of the old broken selfish self and putting on the new self who by the work of the Holy Spirit is coming to be more and more like Jesus.
Colossians 3:12-15 reads: “Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”
When God the Father looks at fellowships gathered in the name of the Son in whom his own Spirit dwells, he is looking for compassion, kindness, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiveness, peace, thankfulness, and most of all love. If God doesn’t look at us and see “the robe” in the way we relate to each other, well then…I’ve seen, worked with churches in which there were people who weren’t wearing the robe and on a couple of occasions it was the minister who wasn’t. They stuck out like sore thumbs in the midst of some peaceful, thankful people beautifully attired in love shown forth in humble, selfless service to each other.
In every gathering of Jesus followers there is a wedding feast going on and everybody gets a robe to wear, which is a personal taste of God’s presence that changes them. There are those who’ve been invited but don’t come and some of those get rather belligerent towards the host and those who serve him. The invitation is open to everybody. It’s a banquet of abundance. If we let the robe have its full effect, and one day it will, all the ills humanity can be healed in the loving presence of God. Come to the feast and wear the robe. Amen.
