When a Parable Doesn’t Make Sense

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First Lutheran Church, Detroit Lakes, MN

Pentecost 20 | 10.15.2023 | Matthew 22:1-14

Today’s parable from Jesus is a tough one. I’m going to take you on a tour of interpretations, so pay attention to the characters.

A king threw a wedding banquet, and told his servants, “Hey, call the people I’ve invited to come in for the banquet.” But they don’t come. There’s no reason given as to why.

Then the king says, “Tell them again” They still don’t come. They reject the invite, and they even mistreat and kill the king’s messengers.

Enraged, the king seeks tells his servants to go to the streets and invite anyone they can find to join the party, ‘both the good and the bad,’ the rich and the poor, and the polished and unpolished, and soon the wedding hall fills with guests.

Next, during the party, the king notices that one of the guests isn’t wearing a wedding robe, and the king is so offended by that mystery guest’s attire that he binds him and throws him into darkness! (22:1-14).

What in the world does any of this mean!?

One common interpretation of the parable is that we should think of the king as God, and that we have been invited to be in relationship with God, and better say yes, or we, too, will get thrown into the darkness. That’s a common interpretation, and at first seems logical…but that picture of God isn’t consistent with the rest of Scripture.  

Here’s why: all over the Bible God’s invitations are CONSTANTLY rejected by God’s people, but God remains faithful to them. If there’s a single narrative of Scripture, that would be it: God remains faithful despite the people’s infidelity.

Take almost any biblical book, and you’ll find that motif. For instance, in the early chapters of Genesis: the distrust of Adam and Eve and the brazen violence of humanity are ultimately met with the rainbow and the Abrahamic Covent. Unfaithful people, a faithful God.

Despite the Israelites worshiping a golden calf in Exodus 32, God still leads them to the Promised Land. Unfaithful people, a faithful God.

In Hosea, it says that the people pursued “falsehood and violence” (12:1) yet GOD, despite being intensely angry, still says, but “How can I give you up, O Israel?…my compassion grows warm and tender” (11:7-9).

Repeatedly, the people are not choosing God, and, still, God chooses them.

In fact, GOD in Christ Jesus even says, “You did not choose me, I chose you” (John 15:16). Yet the King in the parable wants the invitees to choose him.

It is GOD who pursues us, not us who pursue God as written in the 23^rd Psalm (v.6). Yet the King in the parable wants the invitees to pursue him.

Once more, the common thread of the Bible is of a humanity that constantly rejects God, and yet God responds with grace, so it seems odd that this petulant king in the parable would represent God! The king in the parable is quick to anger and fickle, yet God is described in the Psalms as ‘slow to anger and faithful’ (cf. 103, etc.).

Still, other interpretations maintain that the king in the parable does represent God, but these other interpretations make a different emphasis.

It isn’t so much about us having to choose God or say yes to God’s invitation…‘or else!’ Rather, other interpreters wonder if the people who rejected the king represent the rich and powerful, and the well-to-do; but they don’t identify with Jesus, so they reject the invitation.

So, in response, the king invites people of the streets to join the party, and the one who is thrown out for not wearing a robe represents someone who is uncomfortable hanging out with and being made equal to poor and outcasted people.[1]

Therefore, the lesson would be that God is going to include people that you could never imagine, and if you’re uncomfortable with that…tough luck. Could that be the meaning of the parable?

I don’t know, maybe; but this interpretation, too, as problems, because the people of the streets that were invited, weren’t actually invited until the initial guests declined; in other words, they were afterthoughts! –so to interpret this parable as a lesson on God including the poor and the outcast seems pretty spotty at best.

If that isn’t confusing enough, here is another radical interpretation: what if the king doesn’t represent Jesus at all?

A closer look at the Greek might reveal something interesting. The Greek words used for king are the words, anthropo basilei: meaning, human-king (Anthropos is where we get the word anthropology – the study of human cultures]).[2]

Here’s the point: since the word for king here really means human-king, perhaps the king in the parable doesn’t even represent God! Perhaps the king in the parable represents the evil political powers in Jesus’ day, and, therefore, maybe the one without the robe who is bound and cast into darkness…represents Jesus himself, and this parable is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death, as he, indeed, would be rejected and killed by corrupt political powers.

Or, maybe all the above is overthinking it, and this parable is captured by my favorite interpretation: maybe the one without the robe who gets kicked out was wearing a Chicago Bears Jersey and that’s why the king threw them into the “darkness” where he belongs! Seems as good an interpretation as any!

It’s all hard to say who represents whom in this parable and what it means exactly. This is a long way of saying to all of us: sometimes we run into parts of Scripture that don’t provide a clear understanding.

And that’s uncomfortable. Perhaps that’s even part of it. Perhaps it is supposed to make us uncomfortable and uncertain –and that wouldn’t be anything new: Jesus often told the disciples parables where they were left confused.

In any case, wrestling matches like this with text ought to caution us into humility; we Christians like to use our interpretations of the Bible to bully each other or others, but texts like this ought to caution us into humility. Just because we’re religious, or spiritual, or claim to follow Jesus, we don’t always and cannot always understand him or the entire Bible. Perhaps in confronting this parable we walk away with the lesson that the Bible isn’t always obvious, and we don’t have all the answers, and we should be skeptical of certainty when people claim to have it, and walk humbly in our faith.

Jesus may or may not be the king in this parable, but we trust through the death and resurrection, through his grace and mercy, that at the very minimum, he is no mere human king; rather, he’s is the king of kings, who despite our imperfect humanity rules with perfect love. Despite an unfaithful people, we have faithful God. Amen.

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     [1] For a more in-depth look at this interpretation see: Chris Hoke, “Reading the Parable of the Great Banquet in Prison,” https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2015-01/reading-parable-prison.

     [2] Barclay M. Newman Jr., A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament (Germany: C.H. Beck, 1993), 15, 32.

A Community that Thrives

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First Lutheran Church, Detroit Lakes, MN

Pentecost 18 | 10.01.2023 | Philippians 2:1-13

In the passage from Philippians, Paul opens with a description of the community that he’d like to see his congregation mature into.

Now, I’m about to show clip of a speaker named Simon Sinek, who is an expert theorist in business management. His Ted Talk is about defining a genuine leader – and his definition of a genuine leader…is almost identical to the way Paul describes a genuine community.

Take a look: [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyZMtPVodo 9:58 – 11:47)]:

…

First, I love that Sinek makes this distinction between an authority or a boss, and an actual leader, because I think we live in a society that sometimes confuses the two: just because one is an authority, or has accomplishments, doesn’t make them a leader!

As Sinek maintains: leadership is about people; true leaders don’t actually value their rank or their numbers over their people; rather, their primary value is the wellbeing of ‘those on their left and those on their right.’

The virtues of leadership for Sinek are almost identical to the virtues of community for the Apostle Paul.

For Paul, true community is not just a grouping of people who have similar goals or interests; rather, it’s filled with people whose primary value is the wellbeing of ‘those on their left and those on their right’ (cf. Philippians 2:1). To quote Paul directly, community is where “each of you look…to the interests of others” (2:4).

Why am I emphasizing Sinek and Paul the Apostle on this point? Because I’m thinking about the community of FLC now and into the future.

Sinek is saying, if you’d like to be a viable organization, this is how your leaders must operate: with compassion in humble service for people.

Paul is saying, if you’d like to be a viable congregation, this is how our community must operate: compassion in humble service for one another.

And, friends, what experts are telling us, what the data are telling us, is that the future of church is likely going to look radically different, perhaps within the next decade, if not much sooner. The trends are full of either decline or major shifts in the way people are engaging church.

So what do we do? We may want to spend hours and hours on branding and marketing strategy, finding the perfect worship style for the future, or discerning material investments, or tactics of non-profit sustainability, or investing in technological advancement, …and we should! Those are all worthwhile endeavors to determine how to be the most sustainable and faithful congregation we can be in God’s mission for the world.

But at our core, if we want to survive and thrive, we’ve simply – but profoundly – got to be a community that cares for the person on our left, and on our right, because that’s what community is.

Whether it’s leading management theory from Simon Sinek or it’s the Apostle Paul in a letter to his congregation from 2,000 years ago, survival and thrival for First Lutheran Church is going to include this: showing up for one another, and being a place where people say, “They’d do the same for me.”

We are to be a people not obsessed with production, accomplishments, or getting our own way all the time – thriving is never achieved that way; rather, we are to be a people who supports one another.

That’s the way. And we know this way – not because of affirmations from business theorists alone, but we know this Way because we’ve learned it from our Savior. That’s why Paul closes his rally speech on community by describing Jesus:

5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he existed in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a [servant]…

Where we will sustain and thrive as a congregation will be where we genuinely show up for and support one another. Will we be perfect? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Will we fail each other from time to time, if not often? ABSOLUTELY YES.

Being healthy community when we’re all imperfect is difficult. It is difficult to emulate Christ Jesus. It takes valuable time and energy to volunteer for things. It is painful to share in one another’s burdens and grief. It is risky to lead and step up. It is inconvenient to help with programs and ministries. It takes sacrifice to give financially. It takes intentionality to be the nice kid or welcoming to the stranger. It is a monumental task to be the community that God calls us to be.

But we can be that community…because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it here.

I’ve seen it at funerals, visitations, and the support that follows.

I’ve seen it in your patience and flexibility.

I’ve seen it in every leadership body from the Personnel Team to the Building and Grounds Team to the staff.

I’ve seen it from the Adult Ed. Team to the Oasis Meal providers and cleanup crews.

I’ve seen it in our youth ministry from classroom teachers to small group leaders, to team members behind the scenes.

I’ve seen it in our committed and varied music ministries…

I’ve seen it in our kids who come to learn on their weekends or after long days of school, to do their best to engage and develop relationships with one another.

I’ve seen it in all of you showing up when and where you can.

Folks, we do none of this for the sake of being saved by our Lord; He’s already done that! We do all of this for the sake of being a community. And when we do, and according to leading business theory and our Holy Scripture, FLC – no matter the numbers – will be just fine.

Amen.