God Gone Wild

You can’t ask of a parable, “WWJD?”

Matthew 22:1-14

We can’t backspace our way away from the parable Jesus tells in this Sunday’s Gospel passage. As liberal mainline Protestants, we’ve all been conditioned into believing that Christianity boils down to being nice and doing nice; therefore, if we have any religious convictions at all it’s that God is nice too. And maybe at first you thought that’s where Jesus’ story was headed.

An evite goes out for a great extravagant party, but those in the VIP queue—the fat cats and country club set, the season ticket holders and the keto dieters, the cronies of the rich man—mark the invitation read and forget all about it.

So, the rich man says, “Hey, I’ve already paid the photographer. I’ve got a Costco’s worth of beef tenderloin under the broiler, and the DJ’s already started playing the Electric Slide. Go out beyond the suburbs and bring in the folks from the Halfway House—and don’t forget those guys who loiter around the 7-Eleven too. Let them come into my party. The 1 percent don’t deserve my generosity.”

Probably as Jesus’ story was being read at first you thought you liked it. You like the idea of God going out like Bernie Sanders to the marginalized and the poor and the dispossessed and inviting them to a fine china, cloth napkin, open bar party.

It’s a nice thought.

And it would be nice if Jesus just left it alone right there, which is sort of the way Jesus tells it in Luke’s Gospel.

But Matthew?

I mean—all this festival of death needs to be more terrifying are creepy twin girls, an elevator full of blood, and Jesus with a hatchet saying, “Here’s Johnny.” And maybe a ginger kid too—a ginger would make it scarier.

What gets you about Jesus’ story in Matthew is not the graciousness of the King esteeming the lowly onto his guest list, as in Luke.

What gets you is this King’s totally inappropriate and excessive behavior.

“Oh, the A-Listers couldn’t be bothered to open the Paperless Post? Some clicked ‘Maybe?’ Really? Well then, I’ll tell you what, Alfred. I want you get some of the hired help and I want you to cross them off the guest list permanently, if you know what I mean. No, that’s right, you heard me correctly, hand and foot. Send them to a place worse than Cleveland! They’ll regret sending their regrets when I get through with them!”

Then, as if the body count wasn’t already high enough, in a flourish only House Lanister could love, there’s Jesus’ finale. Among the good and bad gathered into the King’s party, this panhandling vagrant off Braddock Road makes it past the maître d’ only to get himself shipped off to one of Dick Cheney’s black sites all because of the way he’s dressed.

“You there—yeah you.”

Actually, the word the King uses in Greek is hetaire, which means, basically, “Buster.”

“Hey how’d you get in here dressed like that? We’ve got beluga on ice and Chateau Branaire-Ducru uncorked. This party is black tie and tails only, buster.”

“Well, sir, I was sleeping outside next to the Mission Center trash bins only an hour ago, and they don’t stock formal wear in the church’s coat closet.”

And the “gracious” King responds: “Really? Well then...Bind him, hand and foot! Throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!”

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible...

I know you—

It really bothers you that the formerly sweet baby Jesus in golden fleece diapers would tell a story like this to nice, well-mannered people like you.

It bothers you to hear the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world roaring like a lion at...

At what exactly?

Failure to RSVP? A party foul? What gives?