Saint Anthony Park Lutheran Church, Saint Paul, MN

March 25, 2009 (Wednesday in Lent)

Matthew 22:1-14 (Part of a series on meal texts)

Frederick J. Gaiser

Come to the Ahr

A strange story! What=s with the guy without a wedding robe? And what about those people who get this invitation to the White House wedding dinner, for heaven=s sake, and refuse to come? Why? Not to mention the ones who kill the servants who bring the invitation!

Come on, guys, it=s a party! What=s the problem?

The Bible uses meal imagery from one end to the other to symbolize the kingdom and presence of God, because it works so well: communion, nourishment, joy, hospitality, thanksgiving, grace, inclusivity, abundance. But then we get this clinker of a text where it all breaks down.

Of course, if everyone had just come as invited, I suppose this wouldn’t be a Lenten text. It would be the Easter text that Pastor Glenn gets in a just a couple of weeks: the banquet with all the rich foods, with no downside, no refusals, no conditions, just celebration.

That=s the feast God wants, of course. That is the vision of the kingdom. But, somehow, God’s people make it hard. What does this story mean? Are the folks who kill the messengers God=s ancient people who killed the prophets that came to speak the truth? Perhaps. Are the new invitees the Jews and Gentiles now brought into the kingdom through the proclamation of Christ? Probably.

But it won=t do to blame those who refuse and pat ourselves on the back. They text is about us, like all words from GodCboth the challenge and the promise. Isn’t our whole generation going in the direction of the first folks in the text, the ones who turn up their noses? Like them, we get an invitation, no strings attached, but we want to see the list of invitees on e-vite before we commit. Or we want to wait to see if we get a better offer. It’s pretty much what we do now. We’re shoppers, shopping for the best party in our quest for entertainment and for the most successful techniques in our quest for spirituality.

But, this is God=s party. What better offer are we going to get? So, suppose we lay aside our skepticism for a moment and take a peek inside the doors of the banquet hall. Yes, the offer sounds too good to be true; and, yes, there are people in there we may think twice about associating with. But, never mind, let’s give it a shot. What’s God got in store for us?

But then the text scares us again. What if we do enter in, but then just get bounced back out into the outer darkness for not having a wedding garment. Do we have one? What is it? Where do we get it?

The text doesn’t=t say, alas, as is so often the case in the Bible when questions get interesting. So we’re left to think about it, which, I suppose, was the point. Not surprisingly, people have thought about it. For many, the wedding garment is obedience. You can come in, just as you areCno conditions, no invitations carefully checked at the door, no metal detectors or social register requirements. God’s party is for all, butCguess what?C you’re not allowed to be a jerk, or, at least, to stay a jerk. Makes sense. Be an obedient disciple. Don’t break the china. Don’t shun the other invited guests because they’re the wrong kind of people. Don’t scam all the best food for yourself. The outer darkness is waiting!

Or, for others, the wedding garment is repentance: You can come, as you are, but then you need to ask forgiveness for what you have been. You need to be made new. That makes sense, too.

But here’s another option that might help explain things. I’m sure you’ll quickly agree. Here it is: “Wer an der Ahr war und weiss dass er da war, war nicht an der Ahr.” It’s an old German proverb. Ask Christine. Whoever was on the Ahr, and knows that they were on the Ahr, was not on the Ahr. And the proverb continues: If you were on the Ahr, and you don=t know you were there, then you were there.

The Ahr River is a tributary of the Rhine, and Germany’s northernmost wine-growing region. That’s what you go to the Ahr for, especially for the Spätburgunder or Pinot Noir, for which the region is famous. You go to the Ahr to drink the wine. Why else? Thus, the proverb: If you go to the Ahr and you know you were there, you weren=t really there. Wer an der Ahr war, und weiss dass er da war, war nicht an der Ahr.

Is that the problem with the guy who refused the wedding garment? That he never really was there; that he never wholeheartedly entered into the festivities? Did he want to remain an observer, uncommitted, even at the party, soberly sitting in an aisle seat so he could get out quickly if it got boring or if his cell phone rang? Not really involved. And might that be us?

The wedding party doesn’t work for people who won=t dance because they might look foolish, who pick at their food and worry about their cholesterol, and who refuse to cover their expensive and carefully chosen suits and dresses with the white robes provided by the host. They’re there, but they’re not there.

Now, to be sure, there is good reason to be careful about a lot of things at a party this side of the kingdom of God: too much wine or too much fat on the prime rib can take its toll for weeks. Fine, go to the Ahr, but don’t drive home. But this is the kingdom of God, where all the rules go away at last, and you can just give yourself up. Which is the point, of course, as Jesus says elsewhere: to lose yourself is to find yourself. To give yourself up is to become your true self. To commit yourself fully and totally to God is to become at last fully and totally free. You can’t really test those waters (as you surely should in this secular world). You just have to jump in and see what happens. It’s called faith.

So, heed the hawker in Isaiah 55: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Isaiah had been on the Ahr, and he opens the offer to all: it=s all here, it=s all free. “Eat what is good,” he says, “and delight yourself in the rich food.” Eat the food, drink the wine, put on the robes, have a blast. It’s the kingdom of God!

The author of the (perhaps) first-century Jewish (?) book of Second Enoch understands God’s kingdom in a similar way. In that parable, Enoch is gradually ushered up higher and higher through the various levels of heaven until, at last, he sees the Lord God, face to face, and all God’s angels as well.

And the Lord said to [the archangel] Michael, “Go and extract Enoch from [his] earthly clothing. And anoint him with my delightful oil, and put him into the clothes of my glory.” And so Michael did, just as the Lord had said to him. He anointed me and he clothed me. And the appearance of that oil is greater than the greatest light, and its ointment is like the sweet dew, and its fragrance myrrh; and it is like the rays of the glittering sun. And I looked at myself, and I had become like one of the glorious ones, and there was no observable difference. (2 Enoch 22:8-10)

No observable difference. Intriguingly, that’s what the psalmist said about us already in Psalm 8: “What are human beings that you [God] are mindful of them?...Yet you have made them little lower than the angels” (Ps 8:4-5)Clittle lower than those glorious ones Enoch met in his figurative journey heavenward. No observable difference.

It’s the very image of God, from the first page of the creation story, and it is that image into which we are now being fully re-created through Jesus Christ. It’s who were made to be; it’s who God has always seen us to be, despite the image we now see in our mirror, distorted by sin and brokenness; it’s the new being God is creating in us through the gospel and the forgiveness of sins. It’s a party. Come to the river. Come to the Ahr. Drink the wine. Put on the wedding garment of righteousness and faith that God wants to give to you. Put on the new image that is Christ himself. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. You have nothing to lose but the you that resists. You have everything to gain: the you God wants you to be.

So, this time, don’t sit on the sidelines. Don’t test the water with a timid toe. Dive in. Others who have gone before will tell you that it is safe and good and sweet, refreshing and cleansing and renewing. Have no fear. No crocodiles, no sharks, no e-coli. The pool is deep enough; the life guard is Christ.

The only danger is that we may not be ourselves when we emerge and towel off. We might notice that, and, better yet, so might our neighbors. When I can shed enough of my genetically programmed reserve to admit it, I am happy to add my own witness that all of this is true. So does the whole host of heaven who sing with us at every communion meal. They are Enoch’s glorious ones, and they are waiting to welcome us to God’s party. They will share their robes. AMEN