WEDDING CRASHERS

Matthew 22: 1-14

Unlike the sophomoric film with the name “Wedding Crashers,” where two desperate and immature men find out the times and dates of wedding receptions and come unannounced to eat food, drink booze, and meet women; today we have a story about a single wedding banquet crasher. Even before that story, however, we have the dilemma of people saying “no” to a king’s insistent request to be his guest at a banquet to honor his son. So let’s unpack these two stories starting with the last one first.

Author and minister Max Lucado is also an avid golfer. He tells the story of pro golfer, Scott Simpson, offering him a pass to the Master’s Golf Tournament. Here is how he oozed gladness about the invitation:

“A pass to the Master’s is the golfer’s Holy Grail. Tickets are as scarce as birdies on my scorecard. So I was thrilled. So off (my wife and I went) to Augusta National Country Club in Augusta, Georgia, where golf heritage hangs like moss on trees. There you find the green where Nicklaus sank the putt. The fringe where Mize holed the chip. The fairway where Saranson hit the approach shot. I was a kid in a candy story. And like a kid, I couldn’t get enough. It wasn’t enough to see the course and walk the grounds; I wanted to see the locker room. That’s where the clubs of Hogan and Azinger are displayed…. But they wouldn’t let me. A guard stopped me at the entrance. I showed him my pass, but he shook his head. I told him I knew Scott, but that didn’t matter. I promised to send his eldest child through college, but he didn’t budge! ‘Only caddies and players,’ he explained. He knew I wasn’t a player, and he knew I wasn’t a caddie. Caddies at the Master’s are required to wear white coveralls. My clothing was a dead giveaway….

Many people fear the same will happen to them, not in Augusta, but in heaven. They fear being turned away from the door.” WHEN CHRIST COMES, Word Publishing, 1999, pp. 55-56.] Some may be more disappointed than Max was at Augusta if they have grown up believing the twisted adage that “God accepts me just the way I am.” “No; God loves you just the way you are, but we are to “give of our best to the Master.” God welcomes you and me into heaven only if we have on the right clothing. Before you say that God can’t be that materialistic, let’s see how much spiritual clothing seemed to matter to God. Paul in Romans 13:14 wrote: “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and forget about satisfying your sinful self.” In Galatians 3: 26 he wrote: “You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ. This means that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” And Isaiah once proclaimed: “The Lord makes me very happy; all that I am rejoices in my God. He has covered me with clothes of salvation and wrapped me in with a coat of goodness.” (Is. 61: 10). When the prodigal son returned from his lostness, his father pronounces him “found” by putting new clothing on him: new sandals, a new ring, and new clothes. Not the filthy rags that he was wearing. Now don’t get excited: to hear that God rejoices when you get new clothes is not an invitation to shop! But imagine, if wearing a new outfit that you just bought changes your outlook on life, how much more does God want you to be clothed in a way that says to the world, “I have had a change of heart; I am living life differently from now on!” “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me,” David prayed to God. The stains on the clothes you buy at Kohl’s, Penney’s, Macy’s, Steinmart, or Target generally come clean with a washing machine and detergent. But how do the stains on the clothes we plan to wear to heaven come out? How do the lies and thefts of word or action come out? No Tide Stick will remove them. How does the perspiration caused by living always for self come out of the clothes that adorn our souls? How will the dirt, the marks, and even the blood come out of the clothes that we plan to wear for the Kingdom banquet? Evidently the man in Jesus’ parable didn’t know; do you? Do you think God accepts everybody as they are, or that God loves everybody but challenges us to become more like Christ each day? Why bother to change if God accepts your “I dress to please myself’ look? The standards of dress for dining, for cruises, for graduations seem to all be gone, which in my mind taint the experience and the specialness. What about attending the banquet for the King? Will you really try to get in with your “I really don’t care” clothes? Could it be that, like Max, you will not be admitted to heaven’s inner sanctum? By the way, on the last day of the Master’s week, pros were invited to let their guests caddie one game! Scott Simpson let the honor fall to Max. With gleaming white coveralls donned, Max Lucado walked past the same guard who didn’t even give him a second glance. Why? Because he was wearing the right clothes.

Jesus shows us that we need to be dressed in his righteousness to be admitted to the king’s banquet. We need the clothing of our baptismal gown, the purity that comes from confessing to God and leaning on Jesus. That mean’s that the filthy and bloody clothes that he wore from the Garden of Gethsemane all the way to the cross were stained with our sins, and his blood was shed for our sake! If you, through your belief and life patterned after Jesus, give him your “guilty stains” as the old hymn puts it, then your clothing will get washed in the blood of Jesus. Only Jesus can take blood and make a garment look white with it. Your mortal body will be clothed in whatever your loved ones decide to put on you when you die. But your spiritual body, the way it is dressed, is totally up to you. Jesus won’t make you change your clothes, but his messengers will urge you to change them in order to be dressed for the King’s banquet: clothed in a life of right choices instead of stained with a life of unconfessed and unrepented bad ones.

Of course the Kingdom is not just about Heaven; it breaks in now and then even on earth. How hurt and astounded the host of the Kingdom party must feel when we make lame excuses of why we cannot say “yes” to his invitation! If the stock market has us knotted up in anxiousness, Jesus would counsel us with his Sermon on the Mount not to be anxious about life and this world’s trappings. If there are conflicts in your schedule, he would counsel you to put first things first. We get to be part of this great Kingdom, along with its joys, because others first said “NO!” If we too say “NO,” then the King will move on to implore others to come, and the invitation to you, or to me, will be withdrawn.

There was much angst in our nation this past week. Hear the invitation from the King who wants to clothe you in your baptismal gown again: clean, fresh, unafraid, excited for a new life in Christ. Give your stained clothes to him. Heaven’s gatekeeper has orders to turn away wedding crashers.

Jeffrey A. Sumner October 12, 2008