I Go To Prepare A Place For You (John 14:2)
Proper 23, Year A
In the collect for this sabbath we pray,
God let…your grace precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works (Collect Proper 23).
We are able to claim the dwelling place Jesus prepared for us by accepting God’s grace and responding to it with good works. God’s grace bestows life, love and forgiveness, sustains us, and gives us purpose. The response to God’s blessings is, or should be, gratitude. A gratitude so profound and profuse it generates thoughts, words, and deeds of love, justice, and mercy. A gratitude so enduring and irrepressible it can resist anger and anxiety, defy fear and prejudice, and reject vengeance and violence. God’s grace, if we accept it, is a super power. The good works of my gratitude for God’s blessings don’t earn my place in heaven or my foretaste of the heavenly banquet. I cannot earn my place in heaven or purchase my banquet ticket. God's incarnate self, Jesus, paid the price for me and everyone. Jesus said,
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In God’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you…I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, where God is (sic.), you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going. Thomas, one of the disciples, said, We do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus replied, I am the way and the truth and the life (John 14:1-6).
God incarnate is the way! God the Spirit is the truth! God the Creator is the life! The Gospels say, Jesus prepared a dwelling place for us. In his teaching and by his actions Jesus demonstrated God’s grace. Grace proceeds, follows, and surrounds us in sickness and in health, in life and in death. Grace proceeds, follows, and surrounds all our thoughts, words and deeds.
What’s up with today’s Gospel (Matthew 22:1-14)? Why would Jesus teach using a parable in which God is a tyrant and someone is ejected from heaven for a dress code violation? This parable is not a good reflection of what we know about Jesus and God’s grace. Jesus ejected money changers from the temple, not improperly dressed worshippers. Jesus supped with sinners, promised paradise to a criminal during his execution, and said only men who never sinned could impose the death penalty on women who engaged in sex outside of marriage. The people who retold and recorded this parable created problems. They added and omitted things to be helpful. Unfortunately, the things they added and omitted were more reflective of human priorities than God’s grace.
Let’s look at this parable. In most of the parables Jesus told, it is safe to assume the authority figures are God. The king in this parable is violent, unforgiving, and capricious. The king orders the beating and execution of people who ignore, injure, and kill his messengers. He invites good and bad strangers to the feast, then ejects and kills a guest who is not properly dressed. The parable’s wedding banquet is supposed to represent heaven, but reflects human imperial and hierarchical structures. The parable mentions the servants tasked with delivering invitations, but renders invisible the bride, all females, and the people who worked to engrave invitations, setup the hall, and cook the feast. Jesus who said, “let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14) sees and welcomes everyone. Even the Apostle Paul who said slaves should be subservient to masters and wives obedient to husbands, understood the radical equality created by grace. In Christ Jesus, Paul wrote,
There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
Paul accepted the inclusive and unconditional grace of God that is missing from this parable. The king invites everyone and then ejects one guest for a trivial reason. The king provides a lavish feast for the guests, but nothing for the servants.
In spite of, and maybe because of the omissions and additions to this parable, it conveys truth and good news. The king possessed one divine trait. He invites all sorts and types of people to the wedding banquet: good and bad, friends and strangers. If Jesus’ version of the parable included the removal of a guest, there had to be a good reason. God’s reign is to be expected and greeted with gratitude: feasting; celebration; fancy dress. Gratitude displayed with thoughts, words, and deeds of joy and justice, abundance and advocacy, love and liberation. Could the person ejected have failed to cloth themselves with gratitude? Was he not wearing a smile of joy? Did she did not enter the hall with an attitude of gratitude? She was indignant because she was not on the first guest list. The ejected guest had not washed with mercy, put on the perfume of forgiveness, or clothed herself with love. That guest looked down on the servants, was insanely jealously of the bride and groom, and hated the king.
What garments are you wearing? Are you responding to God’s blessings with gratitude? God’s grace precedes, follows, and surrounds you. Do your thoughts, words, and deeds reflect gratitude for what God has done for you? Does joy in the Lord flow from your thoughts, words, and deeds? Do not let the ways of the world, the missteps of the people in authority, or the losses of life taint your responses to God. An attitude of gratitude will allow you to inhabit the dwelling place Jesus has prepared for you and have a foretaste of God’s heavenly feast.
