Matthew 22:1-14

Georgetown Presbyterian Church

Rev. Stephen H. Wilkins

October 9, 2005

After reading this passage about the wedding feast, and the clothes, and all, I’m reminded of the congregation that decided to reach out to a family who had visited their church for the first time. Someone from the evangelism committee did a home visit, and when they arrived at the doorstep they were surprised to find that the family had 12 children and were for the most part poor. The evangelism committee folks invited the family back to church and said goodbye. Later that week the deacons responded to the need of this family. They delivered a package to the family and said, "We want you to know that you and your entire family are welcome at our church anytime. We have bought you these gifts and we want you to feel comfortable and at ease in our congregation. We hope you can use these," and they left. The family opened the package to find 14 brand new suits of clothing, beautiful clothes for every member of the family.

Sunday came and the deacons and evangelism folks waited for the family, and they waited. The family never showed up. Wondering what could have possibly happened, later that afternoon they returned to the family’s house and found them just getting back, all dressed in their new clothes.

"We don’t mean to be nosey", said the deacons, "but we would like to know what happened. We had hoped to see you this morning in church." The father spoke up. He said, "Well, we got up this morning intending to come. And we sure do appreciate your invitation. But after we showered, shaved, and dressed, why we looked so proper we went to the Episcopal Church."

Don’t you think it’s strange that in the midst of a confrontation with the religious leaders, Jesus starts to talk about fashion issues? Of all the things for Jesus to single out for exclusion from the kingdom, why on earth would he tell a story about somebody who was kicked out because he wasn’t wearing the right clothes? In a world where we deal with serious moral issues like fraud, or sexual misconduct, or racism, or environmental issues, or child abuse, or murder, or rape, why do you think Jesus would call attention to the kind of clothes a person wears?

Yet that’s exactly what Jesus does in this morning’s parable. You can’t miss it. The man who comes to the wedding improperly dressed stands out like a sore thumb, and he is unceremoniously thrown out into the street. Now we all know that the biblical image of the wedding is a metaphor for the kingdom of God, and so we might find it disturbing that the one person who is kicked out of the kingdom is excluded not on the basis of some moral issue or some grave sin that he had committed, but on the basis of the clothes he wears. He wasn’t an adulterer or murderer; he just had poor fashion sense. Why would he be punished for that?

I think you know and I know that the issue is far greater than making the wrong kind of fashion statement. As is the case with most parables, this one is full of symbolism, and the ill-clad wedding guest is but a representative of one way in which some people treat their invitation into the kingdom. Clothing is an issue, but only in the spiritual sense that clothing represents significant attitudes concerning participation in the life of the kingdom.

For one thing, clothing represents a form of identification. What you wear often identifies you with some particular group. When I was in college, there was a group of people called preppies. They wore button-down shirts and khakis, penny loafers without socks, and a sweater draped over their shoulders. Hard-core preppies made liberal use of the colors pink and green.

The clothes they wore identified them. It’s not a judgment for or against preppies, because I dressed that way myself; it’s just a fact that clothes were a way of identifying a group of people.

If you see my son Stuart outside the church setting, there’s a high likelihood that he’s wearing a shirt that’s burnt orange and white, with a University of Texas Longhorn on it. It’s his way of identifying with his favorite college football and basketball teams. It also indicates that Stuart identifies himself with a group of people with superior intelligence.

You might think that people who wear the powder blue and white colors of the University of North Carolina are Tarheel fans. That might be the case, but it’s also the case that team attire that has the letters "NC" on them are also the identifying clothing of the Neighborhood Crips, one of the oldest, largest and best-organized gangs in the nation.

Clothing is a way of identifying yourself with a particular group.

Do the clothes you wear identify you with Jesus Christ?

I’m not talking about the shirts and jackets and blouses and dresses that you have on right now. I’m talking about the spiritual garb you have on. I’m talking about the kind of fashions that Paul commends to each of us when he says in Colossians, "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility and patience. . . And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."

You see, the clothing to which Jesus refers in the parable consists, not of cotton or silk or polyester fibers woven together and worn on our bodies, but of a different kind of fabric, woven into our very lives. It’s a way of life that defines not just who we are, but whose we are. And as guests at the wedding banquet, we are to clothe ourselves in the righteousness and holiness of Christ. The invitation to the feast is a call to rise to the occasion and live into the new way of life we have been given through Jesus Christ.

Among the parade of reality shows that we have on our TV sets is a show called "What Not to Wear." It’s a show that ambushes some individual who embarrasses their friends and family with their lack of fashion sense, and over the course of several days the show’s hosts convince the individual of their fashion folly and encourage the individual to transform their wardrobes into something more up-to-date and trendy. And at the end of the show, there’s the unveiling, and the individual gets to declare with pride, "Look at the new me!" In my mind, sometimes the "new me" that we get at the end of the show is not really an improvement at all, though that might just be a factor of my conservative fashion sense.

What does your spiritual wardrobe say about who you are? The clothes we wear say a lot about us. When you say as a follower of Christ, "Look at the new me", do the clothes you wear identify you with Christ?

When people look at the spiritual clothing you wear day in and day out, what kind of Christ do they see?

It matters how you live. The invitation to the wedding feast of the kingdom is more than just a ticket to get you in. When you accept the invitation, you are accepting God’s call to a new way of life. "Whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old has gone, and the new has come." The fact of the matter is, it’s disingenuous to accept the invitation without accepting the change in life that the invitation brings with it.

The wedding guest who was kicked out is the person who refuses to change his or her life as a result of accepting Christ’s invitation into the kingdom. Barbara Brown Taylor notes that the parable speaks to our tendency to show up to the wedding feast "without thinking much about it. We have showed up with our spiritual shirttails hanging out, lining up at the buffet table as if no one could see the ways in which we too have refused to change." It’s a reminder that there are areas of our own lives that we don’t want to remove and replace with the righteousness of Christ. Sometimes our wedding clothes are inappropriate to the occasion.

The emphasis during our Wednesday night FOCUS programs this month is on the kinds of choices we are called to make. As people of faith, we agree that the most significant choice we can make is the choice to make Jesus Christ our Savior. But we also know that the choice to make Jesus Christ our Savior is but the first critical choice in a series of choices we’ll make for the rest of our lives. Faith always has ethical implications. What we believe always has implications in what we do, in the way we live out our lives. Being a Christian means more than getting your card stamped. Jesus wants more than just warm bodies at his banquet; he wants people committed to a new way of life. For Jesus did not just invite us to believe in him, as if the moment of belief is all that matters; Jesus also invites us to follow him, and that means living a new way of life.

There are some eating establishments and clubs that require men to wear a jacket and a tie. In today’s world, even fancy, expensive designer fashions don’t always include a coat and tie, so people we would consider well-dressed still won’t be admitted to those places that require a jacket and tie. People who come to those establishments not properly attired, though, are often given the chance to wear a coat and tie that belongs to the restaurant. That way they are allowed to enter and enjoy the privileges of the club.

Jesus does that for us. When we’re invited to the banquet, the truth is, we don’t even possess the right clothes to wear. The clothing of righteousness is not something that we have in our own wardrobe; but it is something that Jesus custom tailors to each of us. We call it "imputed righteousness"; we’re not righteous, but Jesus gives his righteousness to us. But we have to put it on if we’re going to eat with him.

Jesus Christ invites us to the banquet. Saying yes means more than getting in the door and enjoying the festivities. Accepting his invitation means that you must be willing to take off an old way of life and put on a new way of life.

Proper attire is required.

Are you willing to put on the clothes of Christ?