A young boy watched his mom, a pastor, writing her sermon.  After a while he asked her, “How do you know what to say?”  “God tells me,” his mom answered.  The boy looked thoughtful for a second and then asked, “Then why do you keep crossing things out?”  

If you could have seen me writing is week, you would have seen a lot of crossing things out.  I’m not fond of this parable. There’s blood and guts, lots of violence.  One could draw many anti-Semitic conclusions.  This story assaults our sense of justice.  It’s not a story that’s easy to understand and just when you think you have it figured out there is another twist or turn.  When you think you’ve made connections or interpretations they aren’t easy to swallow.

First when the king, who’s throwing a big party, sends his slaves to get the guests to attend they refuse.  Seriously?  If there is a big party going on, don’t you want to attend? Why do the slaves need to get the guests?  Well, maybe it’s a cultural thing… if they need to be told when things are ready, we’ll give them a break.  But when they are told all is ready some of them ignore the invitation, some make light of it and some even mistreat the messengers (like the messengers have anything to do with it!)  So I don’t get these guests…   they sure don’t take the King very seriously.  They have their day to day business to attend to, they have to take care of their farms, many much more important things to do than attend the party in honor of the king’s son.  Seems like they have an attitude.  This is the king’s invitation they are rejecting!

Look a little deeper and you realize that Jesus is talking to the Jews, the very people who will reject him and his ministry.  The first century listener must have been confronted by this story of the commoner rejecting the king.  What’s going on with these folks?  What were they thinking?

And then there’s the matter of this king.  When the guests won’t come and he finally gets it, he sends his troops to destroy the murderers and their cities.  I don’t like this king… he’s not very peace loving.  Maybe he redeems himself when he invites everyone who was not invited the first time to the banquet.   Or, maybe it’s my attitude… I don’t think people with power should push others around just because they can.  And, if this king represents God, I have some serious attitude issues.

Then there are the second invitations that go around.  The king’s slaves round up anyone who will come.  The banquet hall is full of all those street folks, good and bad.  I wonder who these people are and if they know they are second choice, filling in when the real guests don’t show.  How must they feel being invited as an afterthought?   Maybe they just appreciate having a good meal?  Seems like they would be grateful, after all, they weren’t really on the guest list to begin with.  Bonus no scrounging for a meal today, no cooking tonight!   And so… but good and bad?  Really?  Is there no criterion for entry to this banquet at this point?  Can the king be that desperate that he will entertain just any ole body?  Now I’m having second and third thoughts about the king again.  I know I have an attitude… but what can he be thinking?

Now the king actually shows up at the party.  Again, he appears to be a bully.  He invites the good and the bad, but when the one guest doesn’t have on the appropriate clothes he gets kicked out?  Not just kicked out but sent to the ‘outer darkness’ where there will be ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’, I’m not quite sure what that means or where that might be, but it doesn’t sound like fun to me!  For wearing the wrong outfit?! Seriously!  Is it the king with the attitude or does this guy have an attitude?  There is so much here that is hard to figure out and harder to explain.  Maybe it’s just my thinking is off.  

Finally there’s the guy with the jeans instead of the tux… what was he thinking?  All the other guests have on the appropriate garment, some even suggest he could’ve picked it up at the door, the host provided it for him.  Whatever, all the other street people seem to have gotten their hands on the right garb, but not this person.  Matthew is making it very clear that his response to the invitation is inappropriate.  How dare he?  Must be an attitude problem.  What was he thinking?!

So many questions…  so little time! 

So, instead of using the Gospel text for this Sunday, I’m thinking of choosing the Hebrew text for Sunday (and for those of you who don’t know, there are texts that are sort of assigned for each week by a resource that covers the Bible in three years. That way we pastors don’t let our attitudes and thinking determine what we preach and we cover the whole of the scriptures over a certain period of time).  The Hebrew lesson this week is from Exodus and, guess what… it’s about a bunch of squirrely Israelites who have a real attitude problem.  They can’t get it together that the God who liberated them from the Egyptians, the One who freed them from their 400 years of captivity, the One who rescued them from just about being annihilated, that very God will not forget them, is on their side.  That very God has been up in the mountain with their leader, Moses, the one who took on the Pharaoh and has bargained with God for their safety through the wilderness. This Moses is meeting with God to get some guidance, some helpful guidelines so the Israelites can make it through the wilderness in one piece and be preserved and strengthened as a community.  You’d think they could be a little patient, eh?  But no!  They get impatient and have to make an idol. They put the immortal invisible almighty God inside a golden calf.  They make something visible to worship out of something valuable, instead of acknowledging the value of God in their visible worship.   Can’t wait for a minute for Moses to come back?  Why not just worship God?  Maybe God will hurry up if there is some singing and dancing and cheering and worship in the background.   How will they ever get to the Promised Land with an attitude like that?  Walk and never tire carrying a golden calf?  What were they thinking?!    

I’m quickly confronted with my attitude and thinking by the attitudes and thinking  of the various characters in the texts.   Like those Israelites I can easily get my value from the very tangible warm fuzzies of family or the satisfying result of good work rather than realize that my worth comes from being a child of God.  I can worship what I have control over instead of putting my trust in God, who is complete mystery to me.  

Like those first invitees to the party, I regularly choose to ignore the invitation to banquet on the wealth of God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness and love that I have been given; and choose instead to eat at the table of what I call “bigger, better, much, more, new and next”.   I’m aware that I’ve been given my very life, meaningful things to do, and inspiring people with whom to do them.  I’ve got clothes on, warm house to live in, mental capacity, the world is my oyster and I dare to ignore the god who blesses me so abundantly?  But I’m not the guest of first choice – and like those second choice banquet goers, I am invited into God’s grace again as I wander about on the street of ‘where is the best party I can find’.  Given a second chance to live into the freedom God gives I might even show up at the party but often I pick at the location or snipe at what’s going on, or grumble about who else is there or critique the food or decor.   I may be there but not in the spirit of the thing, with my bad attitude, wearing the wrong clothes and not even realizing it.  Given the circumstances I ought to wear my Sunday best and instead I show up in whatever grubby thing I may have had on to take out the garbage.    

It’s like being given a free meal and refusing to put shoes and shirt on to get in the restaurant.  Or being given a gift and tossing it aside.  It’s like being given your freedom and walking around wearing a ball and chain.   It’s like being given grace when we fail and still choosing not to act until we have all the answers neatly tied up in a bow, which is never.  It’s like being in relationship with the God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who promises us eternal life, and not being able to wait a couple days (or weeks or months or years) for God’s response.  It’s like being released from all that holds us captive and choosing to pay homage with our actions to anything else.  

Maybe you remember the tiny book by James Allen, As a Man Thinketh.  He wrote it in the early days of the personal development movement.  Allen’s premise was that you can think your way into whatever kind of life you want.  There is ample testimony that his little book saved many a person from despair.   I’m not sure that I believe that for everyone in every situation what we think can create our life, but I do believe that what we think matters.  Our attitude matters.  What is between our ears matters.  

Rob Voyle, a practitioner and trainer of Appreciative Inquiry spoke at the Michigan Conference of the UCC this past week about hope and healing.  Two ideas that he helped us wrestle with were hope and resentment.  “Hope” he says “is the ability to imagine a tomorrow that you would find worthwhile living and would not deprive anyone else of what is lifegiving.”  “Resentment” he says, “is the demand today that yesterday would have been different.”  These are things that exist in our heads.  We can choose to be hopeful or resentful.  They are not forced on us.  It’s a matter of our attitude, our way of thinking. 

I don’t like this king and to the extent that he represents God I like him even less.  I don’t like bullies and I don’t like anyone who uses violence or coercion to get their way or make their point.  And honestly, I don’t believe that God does either.  But I think Matthew makes the point very effectively that if an earthly ruler is incensed enough that he will kill when rejected to protect his image, how must the God of the universe feel when humanity rejects the abundant life God offers, when we ignore the God who extends such gracious mercy.  What we think about God matters.  Our attitude toward God matters.  If we imagine a God who offers a life abundant with everything we need or if we think of a God who is stingy offering this rich life only to a few, it matters. If we imagine a God who is graciously loving to all who are created or if we think of God who extends the invitation to the banquet table to only the deserving, it matters.  If we think we can fudge our way into God’s graces, show up with just a little bit of thankfulness, check out the party without really participating, it matters.  

What we think about matters according Paul’s letter to the Philippians.  Paul, who writes a letter of joy and encouragement from a prison cell – what an attitude!!  We might need an attitude adjustment; we might want to get our thoughts in order… Hear the words of Paul, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, anything excellent, anything worthy of praise, think on these things”.  Good place to start.