"No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" - The Rev. Dr. Kurt Gerhard, October 9, 2011

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Matthew 22. 1-14

“No shirt, no shoes, no service.” I saw this sign at many of my favorite establishments when I was younger and shorter (they always seemed to be at about three foot eye level). I don’t remember them, more recently, but they may just be out of sight and mind. As a kid, I didn’t get it. I always had shoes on, so that didn’t seem to matter, and I also wore a shirt. The only time I didn’t have shirt or shoes was when I was swimming. But why would someone be turned away if they didn’t.

Thanks to the Civil Rights movement, most public establishments have very few restrictions on who can frequent their businesses (Costco membership cards excepted). What a blessing. Businesses generally want people with adequate funds to feel welcome. As for dress, people venture out in public with barely enough on to meet the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” mantra.  (My dad thinks this is unfortunate as he often commentates on people wearing hats to a sit down restaurant, a phenomenon resulting from a shift in our cultural norms.) No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service? How does this work in Berkeley, California? If you don’t see the requirement as a public decency, isn’t it exclusionary of those who don’t like shoes? If a person were willing to pay the money, why would a business owner throw them out for being shirtless?

I bring this up because of our Gospel story today. Let me tell you that this parable has some twists that make us uncomfortable. It may be because we don’t want to make judgments on what someone is wearing. If it was me, I would much rather preach on this parable as it appears in Luke (14.15-24). In that telling, the parable ends with more and more being invited, even forced, to attend the banquet, the heavenly banquet. That is great! The blind the lame and all the marginalized are invited to the kingdom of God. Yeah! Those who were too busy for God are forgotten. It is all wrapped up nicely.

As I have said before, I am not in charge of choosing the readings for each Sunday. The lectionary is created by the wider Church to provide an opportunity to explore much of the Bible in a three-year cycle. What that means is that I can’t just change this passage to the one that better matches my style and makes me happy, I am forced to struggle with a parable that tells of a king who throws a guest into utter darkness because he is not dressed, appropriately that is.

There is something good about that because Jesus caught people off guard when he told these stories (people had to reflect on their lives and how his teachings might change them), so why shouldn’t we be caught off guard, today.

So lets look at this parable from Matthew. It begins with a king hosting a wedding banquet for his son. The Christian parallels between God the Father honoring Jesus, his son, seem easy enough.

Jesus’ story continues with the king sending out servants to invite those on the list (we might read: the chosen), but those invited were too busy to attend, they even mistreated and killed the messengers. (Ok. We can see these messengers as the prophets and Jesus who made many invitations but were persecuted for trying to change the status quo).

So the king gets rid of those who persecuted and instead invites people off the street to this amazing banquet with the finest of foods. (Ah! This makes us happy because God’s heavenly banquet is reserved for everyone, not those who are most likely, but the marginalized and the outcasts. That is a message we can believe in. It makes sense with the moral value of loving our neighbors.)

 This is where it gets rocky for me. The king then sees that one of his guests isn’t dressed in a wedding garment. He asks him, “How did you get in here without a wedding robe?” The guest was speechless. I could think of some great responses, and I know you could, too. If he had a little American sarcasm, he could have said “Your servants practically dragged me in here.” “What, a dress code, I didn’t realize.” “I didn’t see the ‘no wedding robe, no service’ sign on the door.”

But this guest was speechless. So, the king instructs his servants to bind this guest’s feet and hands, and throw him out into “utter darkness,” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” WOW! That is over the top. What happened to the hospitable king who wanted a grand celebration for his son that included people who were willing to accept an invitation?

Lets look at this more closely, and maybe even fill in some of the cultural turns that we miss because we are not in 1^st century Palestine.

First, the king invited everyone to join the banquet. It didn’t matter if they were a saint or a sinner. The good and bad were invited to attend without having to prove anything. There was no litmus test for entry. That is an invitation filled with grace. How often do we open our doors in such a radical way? Trying to live into this grace is why we model our church on an open door policy. No matter who you are, you are welcome in our house and at our table.

But there is a cultural norm we overlook when hearing this story in today’s context. We think of a wedding banquet in our world where we put on our best clothes, if it is extra special, we buy a new fancy outfit. In England, you might buy a crazy looking hat. Not in Jesus’ time! Back then; the wedding robe was given to the guests as they entered. So, the invitation, the extraordinary food, and even the right clothing were all an unearned gift provided by the king. It is like the sacrament of baptism. Those who enter the waters are cleansed and born again. Back in the day, those who were cleansed in baptism were wrapped in a white robe to mark their new righteous state.

This puts the parable in a new context. The king wasn’t asking why he hadn’t purchased a robe, or why he couldn’t afford the robe, or even why he forgot the robe. The robe had been given to him, and he chose not to wear it.

Of course this a parable, not a true story, but it points to something deep within each of us. We want the spoils, the invitations, and the great food. We want to sit at the heavenly banquet. And through baptism, we are invited. But at the same time, we have to accept that change will be part of this equation. We might have to make a change in our public life. We can’t shrug off the change because it doesn’t fit us.

We cannot afford to be arrogant about our place in the kingdom of God. It is a free gift, it is given to everyone, but it does require us to put on a new garment. The inner grace that we receive depends on taking on a new life, on the outside. Putting on a new garment, so that we can participate fully in the heavenly feast.

Those who were expected (the religious elite) rejected the king’s invitation. The king didn’t lose heart. The feast was not reserved to those who consider themselves perfect, or too busy with work. The feast is reserved for those willing to turn toward perfection. This invitation is not to make us feel arrogant, or proud of our greatness, it should cause us to feel humble, knowing that we haven’t earned or even deserve our invitation.

“For many are called, but few are chosen” are the final words of Jesus’ parable. This verse reminds us that being part of God’s kingdom is more than checking off a few liturgical boxes. Although, baptism opens for us perfection in God’s family, that doesn’t mean that our work is done. We are asked to put on a new robe, to change our outward life to more closely resemble the example Jesus provided.

The parable of the Great Banquet may sound offensive, even exclusionary. Just like “No shoes, no shirt, no service” once felt to me.  What it asks of us is that in receiving a freely offered gift, an invitation, we must accept it by living into the life to which we are called by God.

The Rev. Dr. Kurt Gerhard (kurt@stpatrickschurchdc.org)

St. Patrick's Episcopal Church (www.stpatrickschurchdc.org)

Proper 19A

October 9, 2011