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Saturday, June 17, 2023

Not the Wedding Singer

Sermon for the second Sunday after Trinity

The Christian tradition
has had some
truly wonderful consequences.

One of those consequences
is the choral tradition.

Every church is blessed
by singing of hymns and psalms.

What is truly wonderful
about singing in choirs
and singing with choirs
is that we sing together all as one.

We might not sing in unison.

Choirs usually have
four voices singing in harmony,
but they sing together in harmony.

This way the church lifts up
one united voice to God
in praise, thanksgiving and worship.

What this means is that not only are we united in voice, but we are united in spirit. There is another way we can be united in spirit but not to our benefit.

 

[PAUSE]

 

In the parable,
Our Lord tells us about
the guests invited
to the wedding feast.

We notice that
they reject the invitation
with one consent.



They decline as one, literally.

That's rather striking, isn't it?

These people,
invited to a wonderful wedding,
decline it almost in unison.

What can this mean?

We notice that
they each bring an excuse
for not going.

Why would someone
turn down a wedding
to look at oxen?

Why go and see
a piece of ground instead
of enjoy a wonderful feast?

And why not relive
your wedding day
by attending someone else’s wedding
and bring your joy to share?

 

These excuses appear feeble
to say the least.

But they are all made in the same voice.

They form a choir of feeble excuses
effectively inviting other people to join in,
to join in rejecting the wedding feast.

There is something
deeply upsetting about their behaviour.

Being presented with
a beautiful opportunity
to truly enjoy themselves,
these folk together mumble their excuses
and run away.

It's almost as if
the wedding feast
is unpleasant or even frightening.

Why would anyone think that?

 

[PAUSE]

 

Clearly,
the Master of the Feast
is someone who
polarises opinion,
you either love him or you hate him.

The way that
Our Lord tells this parable
suggests that
the people who
reject the invitation
are the Jews who have rejected God.

This is why the Master of the Feast
beckons in people
who would not be thought suitable.

These represent the sinners,
the strangers,
the gentiles.

That's not to say that
all the Jewish people
reject the wedding feast,
for clearly the apostles
and ma6ny other people of Jewish background
willingly embrace the invitation.

But it is the Scribes and the Pharisees
who look at Jesus in horror
as they watch him
dismantle the hypocrisy
and lust for status unearned.

[PAUSE]

What seems to be at issue here,
is what we truly value.

There is something about this feast
that people don't want,
or that they prefer their comfortable little lives
to attending the feast.

These are people
who are not willing
to be transformed by God.

They do not wish
to be clothed with His wedding garment
at His wedding feast under His rule.

They want their own way in life,
and they see in the wedding feast
a threat to the rule of their own hearts.

 

So they reject the invitation
with one voice.

Just like the church choir,
they are singing the same song,
and it is not a song about God.

Their song is of themselves and,
although they sing it together
with that one spirit of rejection,
they excuse themselves in different ways.

This song is discordant and dreadful to hear.

 

[PAUSE]

 

The people who attend
the wedding feast
know that they are
unwashed,
unprepared,
unworthy
and yet they still come.

They come because
they know that the wedding feast
is now open to them
and that they will be clothed
in wedding garments
which will look resplendent.

They know that they will
have the fine food,
hear the fine music,
drink the fine wine and rejoice.

They accept because
they have no desire
to put such a wonderful invitation
below the silly cares of this life.

They accept because
they realise the poverty
in which they live,
and see the riches which are freely on offer.

They reject their lives as they are,
and see something better.

 

[PAUSE]

 

Those who reject God's invitation,
will never taste of the feast.

That's what our Lord says.

They shall never enter into his rest.

That is their free choice,
the offer is there for them
but they don't want it.

The same offer is open to us:
do we really prefer our lives as they are
to the life of perpetual joy?

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