Sermon: Matthew 22:1-14 (Proper 23A)

9 October 2005

Christ Church Riverdale

The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn, Rector

^NRSV Matthew 22:1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ² "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. ⁴ Again he sent other slaves, saying, 'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.' ⁵ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, ⁶ while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. ⁸ Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹ Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' ¹⁰ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. ¹¹ "But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, ¹² and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless. ¹³ Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' ¹⁴ For many are called, but few are chosen."

             Before the days that a stamped and addressed response card became a regular feature of most kinds of formal invitations, there was a different way of doing things.  I’m talking about a long time before even the “good old days” when a written invitation would be occasion to write a card carefully written in longhand:

“The Revs. Amy and Robert Lamborn

accept with pleasure

your kind invitation

for Saturday, the twenty-ninth of October”.

I’m talking about the custom in Jesus’ day assumed in the parable we just heard.  Well before the date of the royal wedding banquet, invitations would have issued and accepted.  Then, on the day of the event, the host would send someone to each guest who had accepted to provide a courtesy reminder.

             Now these days it’s hard to get people to commit firmly to an invitation, and expressions like, “I’ll try to make it,” are common, but you can see why it doesn’t take long for the king to get testy when people don’t show up after accepting and being reminded: “Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.”  The king is being dissed–disrespected–and he’s not happy about it. Why?  Because people are not being faithful to their identity--as royal subjects and to their relationship with the king--having already accepted the invitation.

             Stewardship, it’s been said, is about “who we are, and whose we are.”  In other words, it’s about our identity and our relationships.  I like to describe Christian stewardship as  “Aligning our calendars and our checkbooks with our deepest principles and the highest aspirations of our hearts in the service of God.”   How we use what God has given us is a component of our relationship with God, one that very much includes our relationships with one other. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength,” Jesus said when asked which commandment was the greatest, and “love your neighbor as yourself.” Love of God and love of neighbor each depend on the other.

             In her book, Breathing Space, Lutheran Pastor Heidi Neumark describes almost twenty years of ministry at the Church of the Transfiguration in the South Bronx.  According to Mapquest, Transfiguration is ten and a half miles from here by car, and the trip should take seventeen minutes.  I think that time estimate is optimistic, since part of the trip is over the Cross-Bronx Expressway!  But the distance between Riverdale and the Church of the Transfiguration in the South Bronx can’t be measured just in miles or in minutes by car. When Pastor Neumark arrived at Transfiguration in the mid-80s she and her husband heard gunshots most nights after going to bed, as she walked to work every morning her shoes would crunch the empty crack vials littering the sidewalk, and the front doors of the church were freshly tagged with graffiti each day when she arrived.  Neumark and the parish she served played an important role with other churches in the ongoing rebirth of the South Bronx and took part in some amazing work of transformation.

             One of the stories she tells is about Danielle, ten years old. Danielle’s mother was dead from an asthma attack brought on by smoking crack, and Danielle and four brothers and sisters were left to live with an uncle who was a compulsive gambler, and who seems to have wanted custody of the children because of their government support checks each month.  Danielle took part in the summer children’s program at Transfiguration and one hot morning she was brought to the pastor in tears.  The church planned a swimming trip for the afternoon, but Danielle didn’t own a bathing suit, and so she couldn’t go.  They went together to buy a swimsuit, and since they were still out at lunchtime, they stopped at McDonald’s and Danielle ordered a Happy Meal. When the food came, Danielle got extra napkins and started to divide her small bag of fries into five piles,  each on a different napkin.  When Neumark asked what she was doing, Danielle explained, “My sisters and brothers will feel sad that I got French fries and they didn’t.  I’m taking them home to share.”[1]

             Even though Danielle didn’t even own a calendar or a checkbook to align with her deepest principles she knew exactly what to do with her French fries.  Stewardship is about identity and relationship and this ten-year old girl being exploited by her uncle still she knew she was a sister, and cared about her brothers and sisters enough to give them 80 per cent of her French fries.  You could say that sharing as a way of life might have been forced on Danielle by the terrible circumstances she faced, but even if it was, how much more of an example is it to people who do own swimsuits, whose families can afford for each of their children to have a small bag of French fries?

             Next Sunday you and I are invited to express our identity and our relationship with God and one another by responding to an invitation, the invitation to turn in pledge cards for 2006 as we celebrate our parish anniversary.  If stewardship is about who we are and whose we are, about priorities and aspirations, then this invitation is as broad as all of life.  What things are truly, deeply important to us, and are our time and our resources directed there proportionately? It’s always my hope that stewardship season in the church will be the opportunity for us to reflect on  not just church giving or just charitable giving,  but will be an occasion to give thanks for all God has blessed us with.  At the same time it is an opportunity to cultivate sharing as a way of life, as we support not just the continuation, but the growth and flourishing of Christ Church’s ministries, so that we can make more of a difference: not only in the lives of church members–children and adults, but in God’s world that so profoundly needs our involvement.

            When it came to her brothers and sisters, Danielle knew what to do with her French fries.

            When it comes to our brothers and sisters in Christ, prayer and reflection in thanks for how God has blessed us   will let us know what to do with the gifts God has given us so that God’s work will continue more and more to grow and spread in and from this parish.