The King's Robe

Scripture: Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 28), A.D. 2014 A

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

Most of Jesus’ teachings come down to us in parables, which are stories that impart lessons via analogy. Yet unlike, say, fables or fairy tales, parables tend to be highly complex. Rarely do we find one clear, unambiguous message. Parables possess layer upon layer of meaning, and resist easy interpretation. This can be quite rewarding—because we return to the parables of Jesus time and again, always amazed at how much new insight we can mine from such familiar stories. But it can also be perplexing, even frustrating, as we fail fully to grasp just what the parable aims to teach us. Like Jesus Himself, His parables do not fit nicely into our neat little preconceived boxes. Like Jesus Himself, the parables always prove a bit too wild, too untamable. But then, what else can we expect from stories that express in mere words the ineffable mysteries of God’s Kingdom?

This morning’s parable seems particularly thorny. The Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus proclaims, may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. The king sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves to entice and to plead with the guests—only to see his messengers laughed off, mistreated, and even killed. Understandably, the king sends troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city.

Yet what of the banquet, and the feast he had prepared? This is a king determined to have his banquet hall filled. So he invites in everyone—everyone!—the good and the bad, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, and the hall is thus filled. This seems a happy ending, yes? But now what’s this? The king spots a man not clad in his wedding robe, and asks, “Friend, how did you get in here without being properly attired?” The errant guests is speechless, so the king has him bound hand and foot, and thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus thus ends his parable ominously: “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Well, that’s perfectly unnerving, isn’t it? A generous king, a just king, a king of superabundant grace—also proves to be a capricious and deadly king, it would seem. Such jarring contrasts appear quite commonly in Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew always seems to play up the dichotomy of radical inclusivity against harsh judgment. What are we to take from this? “Everybody is welcome, but most will get kicked out”? Yeesh. That’ll put a damper on our festal wedding joy.

Like I said, parables resist simple or easy interpretation; we, however, do not. It is an easy thing to hold this parable at arm’s length and start assigning one-to-one analogies. “Well, the king must be God,” we think. And the unworthy guests—those might be the Jews, perhaps? Israel, the people of God. The slaves would probably be the prophets, and when Israel ignored or mistreated or even murdered the prophets, God sent armies to destroy Israel and burn their city. That must be Jerusalem, then. And Jerusalem, we know, will indeed be destroyed within a generation of Jesus preaching this parable, so I guess that fits. Then, finally, God sends out new slaves, the Apostles, to invite in everyone, indiscriminately, and the banquet hall—the Kingdom of Heaven—is filled to bursting! Thus the wedding feast is saved!

But the parable isn’t over yet, is it? We can’t forget about that poor schlub whom the king finds improperly clad, and so has him bound and evicted from the party. He lacked the robe of righteousness. He wasn’t good enough, virtuous enough, and so even after being brought into the Kingdom he finds himself cast out into hell.

That’s an easy interpretation. It’s easy because every character has a one-to-one correspondence, and because it makes other people look bad while making us feel pretty good—at least at first. But it’s also easy, I think, because when we hear that last bit, about the unworthy guest getting the boot, well—we assume that’s us, don’t we? We’re all that guy. We all know what it is to feel like the poser, like the one who secretly, deep down, isn’t really called. We don’t follow the dress code. We don’t really belong. If we do have a robe of righteousness somewhere, it’s much too battered and tatty to wear to a royal wedding banquet, that’s for sure. Wouldn’t that be just our luck—to get invited into God’s own house, only then to be kicked right back out again when God realizes that we just aren’t worth it? It would figure.

So if we interpret Jesus’ parable this way, it makes a certain amount of sense. But it’s also kind of awful. Because it leaves us with a God Who seems to say, “Those guys before you sucked, but I totally love you now. Oh wait, no, it ends up that you suck too. Get out.” But take heart, dear Christians. For as I said, parables resist simple or easy interpretation. And in this case I’d call that a very good thing indeed.

Our first issue with the easy interpretation is the notion that God gave up on the Jews, set them on fire, and turned to the Gentiles as His last-minute Plan B. Folks, if Scripture makes two things clear, it’s that God never gives up on His people, and that you and I were never Plan B. We were loved and sought after from the start. We are neither God’s substitutes nor Israel’s stunt doubles. From the moment that Adam and Eve left the Garden, God promised a Savior to come for all peoples. From the moment that God elected Abraham to become the father of His chosen people, He promised that Israel would serve as a blessing to all nations. We’re all Plan A. If anything, we should focus on God as the King Who is willing to go to extreme and ridiculous lengths to fill His banquet hall with as many people as is divinely possible.

And then there’s that bit about the wedding robe. Traditional interpretation of this parable points to the wedding robes as garments of righteousness, as I mentioned. If you don’t produce a robe of righteousness, you get booted from the table. Hasta la vista.

But here’s the thing: in the ancient world, guests didn’t provide their own robes for a royal wedding. Nobody could afford that. It was the king who provided wedding robes for all of his guests. The king gave everyone a robe as they walked in the door! That’s why the king in the parable is perplexed when he sees somebody without one. “How did you get in here without a robe?” doesn’t mean “Why didn’t you bring your own?” It means, “Didn’t you get one when you came in?” And yes, in Scripture, white robes tend to represent righteousness—but as Christians we know that we do not rely on our own righteousness, but on that of Jesus Christ.

Every Sunday, in churches all over this wide world, pastors get up front wearing tunica alba, the “white robe,” or alb. Acolytes wear them too. Oftentimes assisting ministers and choirs and musicians all wear them as well. That’s because, in the early days of the Church, every newly baptized Christian would be given just such a white robe, to remind us that our sins have been washed away by the Blood of the Lamb and that we stand spotless before the eyes of God. Worshippers would then wear this white robe to every service, representing that we are all baptized into Christ Jesus.

Thousands of years have passed since then. Clothing styles have changed. But the pastors and acolytes of this church still wear the white robe up front to remind us that, spiritually speaking, we all wear such a robe: the unseen robe of Baptism, which cannot be removed or stolen or sullied in any way. Baptism is forever. And it is precisely because we rely on Christ’s righteousness rather than our own that we know the promise of Baptism, the robe of righteousness, can never be taken away. Do not fear that you are improperly clad for the wedding banquet of the Kingdom of Heaven. You are wearing the King’s own holy robe even now!

So take heart, dear Christians, and do not fear. It is true that we have no right to be invited into God’s Kingdom. It is true that we do not, of ourselves, deserve or belong at such a sumptuous and eternal feast. And it is true that, were God to challenge us, were God to ask to see our own righteousness, we would have no excuse and would deserve to be thrown into the outer darkness. But it also true that none of that matters—because what we cannot provide, Christ gives to us freely! And when you are the beloved guest of the Son, the Father will never reject you, never expel you, never condemn you, but welcome you in forever.

Regarding this parable, Matthew Skinner of Luther Seminary once asked: “What does the response of one who has no excuse before God sound like? It might sound like Psalm 23, which is not so much a self-justifying psalm, but a psalm that says, ‘Based on the character of Who You are, God, this is how I'm going to conduct my life. This is the confidence with which I'm going to live.’ And in the end I’m going to hope that God is merciful, because if God isn’t, we’re all wasting our time here.”

Thanks be to Christ, Who teaches us in parables, but forgives us clear as day.

In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.