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This Week's Sermon The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost 12 October 2008 "Will You Drink the Wine of Celebration?" Matthew 22:1-14 LSB Series A Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

There is a great celebration that has already begun. It began when our Lord Jesus Christ became man and lived among us. It continues even to this day as the invitation to the feast of salvation is proclaimed from altar and pulpit in countless places. This celebration is the best ever, complete with the best of foods and the finest of wines. It is everything of which the prophet Isaiah spoke centuries before, as you heard in the Old Testament reading: "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined." (Isaiah 25:6, ESV) Today the same vineyard imagery that we heard last week in Isaiah's vineyard song and in the Parable of the Tenants continues as it advances to the reason for the vineyard-celebration at the marriage of the king's son.

It is impossible to deal with all the nuances of this parable without spending hours. So much is packed into this marvelous parable that there is not time to unpack it all. This is now the third parable which Jesus told when the Jewish leaders challenged him. Parable after parable is told in order to call the Jewish leaders to repentance. These are parables of judgment because the anger of the father [two sons], the vineyard owner, and now the king is kindled by the rejection of his gracious invitation.

Our parable is a mixture of joy and warning. Picture a wedding feast for a king's son. No expense will be spared because it is an event worthy of the very best. You understand many of the images that Jesus uses here. The king and the king's son are clear references to God the Father and God the Son. The servants sent to summon the invited guests are the prophets. The invited guests are the Jewish people, the ones God had chosen to be his special people, but here in the midst of Holy Week the Jewish leaders are trying to find ways to arrest Jesus. Yet, Jesus continues to reach out to them to get them to repent, but they will hear none of it.

When we have marriages the bride and groom send out invitations to the guests they want to celebrate with them. With the invitation comes an RSVP card. The letters represent the French words "Répondez s'il vous plait," literally, "respond, if you please." It asks us to state "yes" or "no." The host needs to know. Response is not optional.

The Apostle Paul writes:

". . . . God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," (1 Timothy 2:3-5, ESV)

But not all respond to the Gospel invitation, not even all the Jews. The very people who were to be the guests of honor refused the invitation! In the Parable of the Two Sons both sons refused to work in their father's vineyard, yet one of them repented and went. In the Parable of the Tenants, the tenants rebelled against the owner and tried to seize the vineyard for themselves. In this parable the invited guests refused the king's invitation and went so far as to kill the servants who had been sent to invite them to this happy occasion!

Yet, the king is not deterred by their refusal, sending his servants out to find any and all to fill the marriage hall. The king and his son are going to celebrate, even without the invited guests! Many have been called but only a few answered the invitation.

A marriage feast is the best picture of salvation. It will be repeated later on in Matthew's Gospel when we hear the Parable of the Ten Virgins on the next to last Sunday in the Church Year. When the Apostle Paul writes instructions about the proper conduct of husbands and wives in his letter to the Ephesians, he likens marriage between a man and a woman to the relationship which Christ has with his bride, the Church. Husbands are to act like Christ, the heavenly bridegroom, and wives are to act like the Church, Christ's bride. Paul concludes:

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

In the Offertory in Lutheran Worship, our previous hymnal, we often sang, "Grace our table with your presence, and give us a foretaste of the feast to come" [LW, p. 169]. The connection with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus and salvation becomes clear when we understand that the body and blood of Jesus distribute his forgiveness of our sins. Without this forgiveness we cannot enter the feast of salvation. Thus, Jesus pleaded with those who had been invited to repent, confess their sins, and receive God's forgiveness. At this marriage feast of the Lamb and his Bride there is fellowship with the Father. That which separated us has been removed by Christ's death. Peace with God once more in made. And there is fellowship with each other because the dividing wall of hostility has been torn down by Christ.

In the parable there is a surprise after the invited guests refused to come and the servants went out and brought in all whom they found. There was a man who had no wedding garment. This image may be a bit hard for us to understand. In the ancient world, wealthy people would furnish the celebratory clothes for the wedding guests. That way, everybody's status was covered up by what the host provided. All were equal. But here is a man without the required wedding garment. He sneaks in without it, thus insulting the king who has provided for all his guests. Just what is the garment that God provides to get into the feast of salvation? Some of the Church fathers tried to link it to love, but that would infer that man was able to contribute something toward his salvation. Once we hear the words of Psalm 139.9, it should become clearer.

"Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints shout for joy." (Psalm 132:9, ESV)

The clothing you need to be admitted to the feast of salvation is righteousness, but you know that you have none of your own. Isaiah describes our righteousness:

"We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away." (Isaiah 64:6, ESV)

And then Isaiah makes this beautiful connection between righteousness and a wedding feast:

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." (Isaiah 61:10, ESV)

In Holy Baptism you receive another garment, the robe of Christ's righteousness. Again the Apostle Paul speaks of putting Christ's righteousness on like putting on new clothes:

"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." (Galatians 3:27, ESV)

The person without the robe of Christ's righteousness will be found out, but too late for any remedy. That the king calls this wedding crasher "friend" is a bit of dramatic irony. "Friend" seems to indicate that the person is not known to the king, that he is not one of the king's friends. "Friend" is never used in a kindly manner, but denotes criticism. Maybe it is like our colloquial expression, "Hey, buddy . . ." No personal relationship exists with such an individual. It could be that it refers to the unbaptized, one whose name is not known to God because such a person is not in Christ through Holy Baptism. Such a person does not bear the name of Christ. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warned:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' (Matthew 7:21-23, ESV)

God does not cease to send out his servants to invite all people to the feast of salvation. It is happening right now in your hearing and in the hearing of any person anywhere in this world where Christ is being preached as the only Savior from sin.

As always, this parable has a very personal connection to you: "Will You Drink the Wine of Celebration?" Indeed you will because the feast of salvation has already begun and those who in Christ participate by receiving his true body and blood. Here at this rail you will again celebrate the marriage feast of the Lamb and his Bride, the Church, even if only by foretasting the immense glory and joy which shall be yours when Christ comes again in glory. We speak of it being "already but not yet," a paradox. Here there is every bit a feast of salvation! Christ our Lord comes to you and the celebration begins anew every Divine Service. We continue rehearsing in this earthly life until the final consummation and the never-ending feast in the nearer presence of Christ.

"Will You Drink the Wine of Celebration?" All is nearly ready. It is time to drink the wine of celebration! Here death has been swallowed up by Christ's resurrection! Here God wipes away the tears from all faces! Here the reproach of your sin has been taken away! In his wonderful hymn on this text, a hymn not included in LSB, perhaps because of the difficult tune as well as a very peculiar meter, Martin Franzmann has this wonderful refrain at the end of each of the four stanzas:

The feast is ready.
Come to the feast,
The good and the bad.
Come and be glad!
Greatest and least,
Come to the feast!
[LW 346, refrain]