Psalm 23
In
the middle of the night, Jan and John Pascoe rushed over to their neighbors’
pool.
The fire was coming closer and at
the end of their drive in Santa Rosa, the road was blocked with a wall of
flames, forcing them to turn around and drive back to their home and look for
safety. For the next 6 hours, they
huddled in the pool, going underwater and holding their breath when
necessary. The water was cold but it
saved their lives. Their home, and their
neighbors’ home, were both obliterated.
 |
| Jan and John Pascoe leave their pool refuge |
Yesterday
morning I heard a story on a woman who evacuated 200 horses from her stables
and moved them to the county fairgrounds when the fire got too close. With the amount of volunteers who showed up
to help, they had them out in just over an hour – and feed donations were
flowing in from farmers and feed companies alike.
All
week long an old high school friend of mine who has moved out to northern
California has been posting updates; directions on where to donate, guidelines
on how to respond to someone in trauma, notices of where fire evacuees can go
to sleep, telling local people when there are fragile elderly seniors who could
use some company, even offering to personally deliver sifters to anyone who
needs to sift through ash to find their belongings.
When
I read the Isaiah scripture or the Gospel and hear words about burning cities
or who nations in a heap of rubble, I find it hard not to think of the
wildfires happening right now in California.
In
the last 2 months we have had FOUR hurricanes, and there’s another one forming
on the Eastern Seaboard… In the last two weeks we had 58 people killed
by a madman… For the last week we are staring in horror at
deadliest wildfire in history… not to mention the threat of nuclear attack …
it’s getting scary to turn on the news!
And now, with two beloved members of our congregation with dire health
situations and others waiting on diagnoses, it may seem like the world is
collapsing around us.
It’s
a lot. It’s a lot to shoulder right
now. It is heartache on many levels.
But each of our readings this morning reminds us
of a feast, a reason to celebrate, an audacious feast to come. Psalm 23 –
Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou
art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Preparing
a table to feast in spite of the presence of ones’ enemies – that’s some
audacity. To trust God, to trust the
shepherd, enough that you could relax, sit back, and engage in a joyful meal
while enemies watch is what God desires from us.
When
do we feast? In biblical days, the days
before measurements and money, a feast was how you would show abundance and
good fortune. If you were privileged
enough to have fruitful trees and productive labor; if you were lucky enough to
have brought the harvest in without a drought, or a flood, or a swarm of
locusts or insects devouring it first; if you were prosperous enough to have a
fatted animal you could slaughter, then you could display your abundance in a
show of gratitude to your creator. A lot
of factors had to happen just right for a feast. A small difference from our feasts of today,
eh? A feast was a demonstration of
wealth and blessing, a demonstration of having the means to treat your family,
friends, and neighbors to the way God has shined on you.
But
still, we echo that with feasts in our
lives today – Homemade holiday feasts, restaurant reunions with old and new friends,
patio parties with family and Memorial Meals after services. Why do we feast? We still have a day where we feast with
gratitude in our hearts – and it’s named for that exact thing, Thanksgiving
Day. The day we give thanks for our good
fortune. Or a birthday! We often feast to mark important occasions in
our lives, to spend time with loved ones that helps form the ritual we need to
enter into the next phase of life. Field of Dreams is a movie that made famous
the saying, “Build it and they will come…” but I think - and I believe most of Women’s
Fellowship would agree - that a better American motto would be, “Cook it, and
they will come.” The meal is often what
brings people into the ceremony of our lives.
Weddings. Funerals. Birthdays.
Anniversaries. We come together to
retell our stories of the past, to treasure our present, and to create a shared
future. Feasting together is often what
binds us together. Marking the
beginnings and the endings in life that are so very important to us, with loved
ones, and good food.
In
today’s Gospel reading, we have just such a meal, a wedding feast in this
unsettling parable from Jesus. The kingdom of heaven is like a King who gave a
wedding feast for his son, but the invitation was ignored by busy, rude, and
even violent invitees. Therefore others
were invited to fill their places and partake is rich food and drink. But one person was not dressed appropriately,
and was bound and cast out into darkness.
Somehow,
the violent reactions in this story seem all out of whack. Why would a person beat up or kill a
messenger simply inviting them to a feast?
And why, if you invited unassuming guests, would you be so offended if
they did not dress properly? Was
everyone given a robe, or were they expected to come dressed in their
best? What if this person didn’t have
wedding attire? Like a good parable, it
brings up more questions than answers – and I don’t have any secrets to share
this time.
It
begins to make more sense if the feast itself is an invitation to dine with God
in salvation. The messengers, ignored or
sometimes beaten, are doing what prophets do; challenging the status quo with
the good news of a universal salvation in heaven. But people are not interested, or too busy
with their personal lives, or downright angry at the idea and react
violently. And the king responds in
kind; attacking the city and opening up doors for others to enter into
salvation.
This
wedding feast allegory for the kingdom of heaven is present in both Luke and
Mark, but only in Matthew’s gospel does the parable continue to talk about the
guest who is not robed.
Matthew’s
community has gone through hard times. This
is the fourth in a series of parables Jesus speaks to the Pharisees in the
temple the day after he has ridden into Jerusalem and overturned the tables;
they are very seriously looking for a way to bind him into incarceration.
Matthew’s
gospel is unique in that it holds all the Jewish traditions of Israel in
centrality. Matthew is the only gospel
to recite Jesus’ lineage, proving that he is descended from David. Matthew’s gospel relies strongly on law from
the Old Testament, and is insistent that the new followers of Christ are part
of Israel’s story. He is in a community
of Jews and Gentiles, and the antagonism toward the Jewish religious elite –
the Pharisees and Scribes – is the strongest in Matthew. All of this suggests that Matthew’s community
is living, and worshipping, and suffering harassment, persecution, perhaps even
violence, within the larger community of Judaism that has rejected Christ.
Being in such close proximity to those who reject you can create harsher anger,
which might explain the violence in the parable. What’s more, it’s thought to be written in
the year 85 or 90, which would be 15 to 20 years after the temple in Jerusalem
was destroyed – in the very memory of the people – causing emotional trauma and
causing people to search for an explanation, like perhaps Israel was being
punished for rejecting Christ.
But
why does Matthew’s Jesus care about the guest who is not robed?
In
Matthew’s gospel, action – that is, deeds of faith - are key to being truly
transformed by the gospel. In Matthew’s Gospel, members of the church will
be more faithful to the law than the temple elite, going above and beyond in
all ways to adhere to the servant life of Jesus. They are to be servants of their fellow man,
to radiate generosity and fidelity to a new way of life – what the Apostle Paul
likes to describe as ‘putting on the clothing of Christ’. This wedding robe reflects a robe of
righteousness and godliness – an outward appearance of an inward transformation. This new life was reflected in Jesus’ meal
times, with tax collectors and sinners and disciples chosen from the least of
men to become the bedrock of the church.
In
these open table events, each meal itself is a time to remember and re-center
on the mission by reliving the presence of Jesus. It may be that Matthew himself is one of only
a dwindling few who still remember what it was like to sit at those tables with
Jesus – how arduous was the journey that led to that upper room, how they continued
to dine on the reassurance and indelible grace of that meal through all the
hard time that followed. Remember how it felt at that table, he
seems to say, even as the threat of violence and the vagaries of community
continues to swirl around them. We will feast again.
Matthew’s
community is living in hard times, but even in hard times, eating together is
the time when we remember the past, treasure the present and create a vision
for the future.
In
good times, we feast. When we age a
year, we feast. When we finish a career,
we feast. When we say goodbye to a loved one, we feast. In hard times, we feast. When we cherish the
moment, we feast. When we want to honor
God, we feast.
The
feast is the event, literally and metaphorically, where we share our hearts,
our hopes, and our lives with God, and with each other. And so Isaiah reminds us that despite the
city in ruins, and ruthless nations, and the needy in distress, God will create
a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat – and God will make a
feast. On God’s mountain we will enjoy
rich food, and aged wine, and full hearts and joyful minds, and the company of
all whom we love, and with this God for whom we have waited, we will be glad
and rejoice in this salvation. God
assures us that, despite fires and floods and worries and worn-down hearts, God
will dry the tears of all his people, and prepare a feast on his Holy Mountain
where all people will saved from their pain.
At
times like these, challenging times, times with scary news and non-stop worry, we
remember how it feels to feast. Let us
remember, in times of heartache, to set a table with our loved ones and
neighbors; to retell our treasured stories, to gain strength in the presence of
those we love, and to eat. Because
there, in our feasting, we bind together and prepare for our shared future. In
those moments of remembering and cherishing the present, we create our future
feast. Because God assures us, one day a
table will be set for us, for our loved ones, for all peoples of all nations,
and surely, we will feast again.
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