Thursday - Pentecost 7
Readings
Numbers 23:11-26
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 22:1-14
Meditation
The parable in the reading today can be unsettling. We track through the early part. Ok, Jesus, got it, the original invitees are the Jews. They rejected the invite and killed the prophets. God sent Babylon, His soldiers, to take them into exile. It could also be prophetic that God sent Rome and leveled and burned Jerusalem in 70 AD. Paul & the early apostles went to the highways and invited everyone. We track with that. Its the next part the brings unease. The king spots a man at the wedding banquet without the proper clothes. He asks the man, where are your wedding clothes? The man has no answer and he is thrown out. Not just into the street where he supposedly came from, but into the outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth. The parable is not in Kansas anymore. It has moved from the stuff of the everyday to the stuff of the eternal. And what is the wedding garment? Do I need a tux? Do I have such clothes? Where can I get them? My natural sinful mind wants to keep asking questions like that - questions that quantify and qualify. And that is the law. You could be wearing an Armani tuxedo, and it wouldn’t be right, the lapels might be too wide. The wedding garment is free. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. My natural self says that rag, but what do I have to do? And Jesus replies, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. What do I have to do? Nothing. In faith put on Christ. That is a beautiful garment.
May you find peace in your wedding clothes as we watch for the bridegrooms return.
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