This Is the Feast

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 22:1-14                                     

October 11, 2026

Proper 23A                                 

Dear saints of our Savior~

        It’s sad scene to imagine:  A lavish party …with no people to populate the party; or a wedding feast with no guests to eat, drink, or be merry.  A feast requires feasters and a party requires partiers.  Now, imagine it’s your party.  You’ve invited all your contacts and no one shows.  All the planning and purchasing, all that fuss about the food and the place-settings, the decorations and the DJ—all that work and anticipation for nothing!  A sad scene, indeed—a scene that today’s parable causes us to ponder.

        The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.  I don’t know whether you picked up on this or not, but in Bible times, weddings were run by the men, not the women.  The central character at the wedding was not the bride, but the groom.  And you can tell that men were in charge because the most important thing about a wedding was lots of barbequed meat and fine wine to drink.  “Rich food full of marrow,” says Isaiah, “and well-aged wine.” 

        So in this parable a king throws a wedding party for his son.  All the kingdom’s A-list celebrities have received their invitations; but it quickly becomes painfully clear that everyone has other plans.  The king even sends his servants door-to-door to say, “The steaks are on, the prime rib is smoking, the wine is poured, the feast is ready, come to the feast.”  And you would think that an invitation from the king, followed up with a personal reminder—would cause people to drop whatever they were doing and come running to the feast.  But you would be wrong.

        They paid no attention.  One went off to his farm to work, another to his business.  Some actually seized the king’s servants, and beat them up and killed them.  And all this from the invited guests!  Remember now, they had a place reserved at the feast.  The king had invited them; he was expecting them; he had prepared for them.  And the only reason they wind up being destroyed is that they would not come to the feast.  They would not.  It’s not that the king wouldn’t have them, or didn’t want them, or never invited them.  They would not go.

        Pastors can identify with this king (in a small way).  Every Sunday morning the invitation goes out to all, “The feast is ready; come to the feast.”  And every Sunday pastors come to terms with the fact that many, many of those invited to the feast have made other plans. I have also learned to give thanks for the many who have heard and heeded the invitation—who have come to the King’s feast of victory—a foretaste of the feast to come.

        Or think about it from God’s perspective.  The Divine Service is a party, prepared by the King.  The feast is ready.  The Lamb is slain.  The wine is poured.  Come to the feast.  But all the invited guests have more important things to do:  brunch, golf, soccer, sleep, work, leaf-raking, you name it.  Free food and drink, free forgiveness, heaping helpings of life and salvation for all who believe to receive—what’s not to like?  And yet, judging by all the invited who don’t show up, you’d think we were giving away free colonoscopies.

        Well, in the parable it turns out that you don’t want to get on the bad side of this king.  He’s so nice and so incredibly generous; but he’s not so easy-going when you blow him off and beat up his servants.  So the king sends out his troops and destroys them and their city.  See what happens when men run a wedding?  Things get blown up, fights break out, and it turns into a battle scene from Braveheart.  And whose fault is it?  The invited guests become enemies—even though they have a place setting at the table.  And it’s all their own fault.  They refused the king’s goodness and so they get the king’s wrath.

        Now let’s be clear about this:  You don’t earn your salvation by your perfect church attendance.  But you do rehearse your “being saved” by coming to church to hear the Word of forgiveness and by receiving a foretaste of the feast to come.  Similarly, you don’t earn eternal condemnation by your absence from church.  But by your absence you are rehearsing for the day of damnation.  So, be careful about saying “no” when the Lord’s gifts are offered to you.  Those “no’s” to God’s grace are little rejections of God that can culminate in the big rejection on the Day of Judgment.  Or to put it another way, what are you rehearsing for?  Salvation or damnation?

        Now, in the parable, the A-list invitees, well, that’s Israel and her religious leaders. They were actively rejecting Jesus—and, in so doing, forfeiting their seat at the feast.  Jesus “came to his own, but his own did not receive Him.”  

        The king now has a bit of a dilemma.  The A-list celebrities are not only not coming to the feast, they are also quite dead.  The feast is still ready.  The only things missing are the guests.  And so the king sends out his servants again, this time out onto the highways, byways, and alleyways, and he has them invite anyone and everyone, the good and the bad and the ugly—the least, the lost, the lowly, the good-as-dead—you name it.  The feast is ready.  Come to the feast.  And wonder of wonders, the wedding hall is filled with guests. 

Of course, this crowd represents the church—the New Israel of the New Testament—a motley crew of all sorts and all nations, the good and the bad, sinners of every stripe—including the likes of you and me—you and me for whom the King’s Son suffered and died and rose again.

        Let’s pause the parable for a second, as the wedding hall is at capacity.  At this point, is there anyone who wasn’t invited?  Anyone who didn’t have the opportunity to be there at the feast?  No, for all intents and purposes, the whole kingdom has been invited.  And how many of the gathered guests deserve to be there?  Not a one.  It’s all grace, all gift, all gospel—unearned, unmerited, undeserved.  The worthy are found unworthy; the unworthy are declared worthy.  The kingdom of heaven is like that.

        Now back to our parable.  The king surveys his gathered guests who are all having a grand old time.  But then he spies a man in the corner who’s not wearing a wedding suit.  Now remember, since these guests were just rounded up off the street with no time to change clothes, we have to assume that the king himself was handing out Armani suits and Dior dresses at the door as each guest arrived.  He’s generous that way.  But for some reason, this man isn’t wearing the attire he was given.  “Hey buddy,” asks the king, “How did you get in here without a suit?”

        Our translation says the man was “speechless.”  But what it actually says is that he was “silent.”  Being speechless implies that he was stunned at getting caught, like a wedding crasher being confronted.  But silence suggests that this suit-less soul was blowing off the king—ignoring him—snubbing the father of the bridegroom!  Now, what should the man have said?  Maybe something like, “I’m sorry.  Please forgive me.”  That always tends to work in this kingdom.  But instead, he stays silent, insisting to be at the feast—but on his own terms.  Not a good idea.

        He winds up being tossed into the outer darkness, where tears flow and molars grind for all eternity.  And to all this, Jesus adds the clincher:  For many are called, but few are chosen.  The “called” are the many—the multitude from the east and the west—who have heard the great good news that Jesus Christ died to save sinners and that by His resurrection, death has been swallowed up forever. And the “chosen” are those few who in faith are gathered at the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom, who are clothed with the wedding garment of His righteousness in holy Baptism.

        To be included—to be a feaster at the feast for the least—is all by God’s grace, His gift to you.  To be excluded is entirely your doing, your refusal, your turning away.  God will invite you, compel you, lavish His gifts upon you, clothe you with wedding attire, seat you at the table and feed you the finest of food and drink.  But He won’t force anyone to stay.  His guests are free men and women; they are not held against their will.  Luther once quipped that the doors of the church swing in both directions so that those who wish to come in to feast may come, and those who wish to leave can leave.  But be careful.  The alternative to this wedding feast is the outer darkness and separation from the God of all grace.  And it’s so entirely unnecessary.

        But you, you are invited—called and chosen.  You are clothed and loved—fed and forgiven.  The feast is ready.  Come to the feast. 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

Go and Work Today

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 21:28-32                               

September 27, 2026

Proper 21A                        

Dear saints of our Savior~

        Hark, the voice of Jesus calling:  Who will go and work today?  Good question.  Not son number one.  And not son number two.  And certainly not the elders and chief priests.  After all, it was Holy Week, and they had murder on their minds.  The Parable of the Two Sons is one of the briefest parables Jesus ever told.  It’s the second of three “vineyard parables” served up by St. Matthew: Last week it was the workers hired first and last.  And next week it’s the “wicked tenants.” Today “two sons” are on tap.

When the first son is asked to “go and work in the vineyard today,” the first word out of his mouth is “no.”  Now, as shocking and disrespectful as that is, at least we have the comfort of knowing that this son ultimately did the right thing.  Later on, he changed his mind and went to work.  Now, whether he went to the vineyard mumbling and grumbling, or whether he went with tears of repentance in his eyes, we do not know.  All we know is that he eventually did what his father requested.

        As for the second son, he does the exact opposite of his brother. When his father asks him to go and work in the vineyard, he responds with a pious-sounding, fourth commandment-keeping, “I go, sir,” accompanied perhaps by a respectful bow or a snappy salute.  But then, this son promptly turned on the Packer game, which, four hours later, left him too depressed to do any work at all.

        “So what do you think?” asks Jesus.  “Which of the two did the will of his father?”  Which was the good boy, and which was the bad boy?

        The fact is both boys were bad boys!  Both sons were sinners!  Both disobeyed and disrespected their father.  Both brothers broke the fourth commandment.  Neither served, honored, and obeyed his father.  And what was so terrible about the father’s request?  Two times the father said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.”  That very first word, “son,” emphasized the loving relationship between them.  He didn’t say, “Get your lazy you-know-what out to the vineyard.”  He said, “Son . . . go.”  The vineyard was their vineyard.  It wasn’t owned by a corporation or by some wine-making conglomerate.  It was the family vineyard. 

And there was work that needed doing “today.”  Urgent tasks that needed doing—not next week—but now.  Perhaps the Pinot needed pruning.  Maybe the Malbec was maturing.  The father’s request was simple and sincere and reasonable; and neither son obeyed.

        Now, this parable was primarily told to the chief priests—the religious superstars of Jerusalem.  They were much worse than either son in the parable.  Not only had they rejected John the Baptizer’s ministry, so also they had rejected Jesus—and were about to do so in spectacular fashion. 

Jesus began this parable with a question:  What do you think?  I’ll tell you what I think.  I think this parable can also be applied to all of us.  We fit the profile of both sons.  There’s something here for all of us. 

        We’ve all got vineyard work to do.  Vocation work.  Work that flows from faith in Jesus Christ.  We’ve been baptized into the family of faith—made to be sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.  Having been adopted, an amazing inheritance awaits us.  But now we have our marching orders:  Go and work, God says.  Love and trust in me above all others.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  What do you say to that? 

        Sometimes we say what the first son said.  God says, “Go and work.”  And we say “no.”  God says, get to work:  “Go and lead a sexually pure and decent life in what you say and do.”  “Be content with what you have because the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”  And we sinful sons and daughters say:  I will not. 

        God says, get to work.  He tells husbands and wives to love and honor each other, that children should obey their parents in everything, that we should forgive those who sin against us, that we should be generous with all the wealth we call our own.  But all of us, from the greatest to the least, have brazenly said to our heavenly Father what the first son said: “No.  I will not.”  And for that there is hell to pay.

        At other times we are twins of the second son—the son who said, “I will, sir,” but did not go.  At least he said the right thing.  He talked the talk.  We’re very good at that too.  Today your heavenly Father is telling you to go.  Go and forgive your brother from the heart.  Go and live a life of sexual purity.  Go and trust in me above all else.  And we all say with gusto, “I will, sir.  Amen.” 

        But . . . then we start thinking—thinking about what it is we’re supposed to do.  We study.  We ponder.  We pray.  We go to Bible studies, we listen to podcasts, read books, talk to a counselor.  We ponder and procrastinate.  We evade and equivocate.  And as day turns to night, we realize that we haven’t gone and done what the Father has asked of us.  All of our pious-sounding promises have resulted in nothing—no change, no repentance, just the same old lukewarm living.  We haven’t done what we pledged and promised to do.  And for that there is hell to pay.

        Whether it’s the open, defiant rebellion of the first son who said, “I will not,” or the syrupy-sweet hypocrisy of the second son who said, “I will,” but then didn’t, we aren’t so different.  In fact, there is no difference. All have sinned.  All fall short.  All are rebels and hypocrites.  And “the soul who sins shall die.”

        What do you think?  I think that both sons need another Son.  I think that both sons need God’s Son—and so do we.  Jesus is the Son—the only Son—who said to His Father, “I will,” and then went and did what He had promised to do.  When the Father surveyed this world of rebels and hypocrites and disobedient children, He asked, “Who?  Who will go and buy them back?  Who will pay the awful price?  Who will go today and do the dirty work required in My vineyard?”  And His one and only Son said, “I will, sir.”  And He went and did it.

        Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  He made Himself nothing, set aside His royal robes, rolled up His sleeves, and put on the uniform of a servant.  He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.  Jesus was obedient to every law, every commandment, every aspect of loving God and loving neighbor. 

And best of all, He did it all for you—in your place.  The hard work of this Son counts for every wayward son and daughter.  He does all the hard work in the Father’s vineyard.  He labors, He toils, He works Himself to death—and you get all the credit simply through faith in Him.  His blood has the power to cleanse every bad boy, every sinful son and daughter.  And by His Holy Spirit He gives repentance to every rebel—gives a sure and certain hope to every hypocrite.

        What do you think?  I think this sounds like good news—the best of news!  When Jesus completed all the work His Father sent Him to do, Jesus said, “It is finished.”  At that moment, the sins of the world had been taken away.  At that moment, the road to heaven was blasted wide open for rebels and hypocrites and tax collectors and prostitutes and sinful sons and daughters, including you and me—all who confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.