Trinity 20 – Wear your wedding garment

Ephesians 5:15-21       St Matthew 22:1-14

Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding-garment?

We are reflecting in these last weeks of Trinity season on the highest stage of the Christian life – union with God.  It is fitting that we are celebrating All Saints at this time.

This higher life which we are invited to by God, is the marriage of God with our soul or of Jesus with His Church – it is the language found throughout the Bible – from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation.  It is the particular subject of Song of Songs and other books of wisdom, and it is found in the prophets.  And it is found in many parables of Jesus.

We began Trinity season (Trinity 2), with an invitation to a marriage feast – it was a call to respond to God’s gracious invitation that we might “taste of [His] supper”. [St Luke 14:16-24]  We were warned about worldly preoccupations and responsibilities.  Don’t be so enthralled by lesser goods that we refuse the invitation to seek the ultimate Good.

Three weeks ago we were reminded that when invited to a marriage feast, we are to humble ourselves and take the lowest seat until we are asked to come up higher (Trinity 17).  It was a reminder that as we seek to be united with God, we must wait in prayer, we cannot force God to reveal Himself to us.  We must prepare ourselves humbly and then be patient until God chooses to lift us higher.

And our Gospel this morning is another of those parables about the marriage feast.  But it adds a focus on what to do once we arrive at the wedding.

In the Parable, like we’ve heard before, God invites many.  Some refuse the invitation, but in this invitation, some murder those who are sent by God to do the inviting.  The Church through the ages has understood this as Jesus speaking of God’s continual invitation to his people Israel through history in the Old Testament to rest in Him.  It was a call which was heeded by some and rejected by many; a call made through God’s prophets, many of whom were put to death for calling people to repentance and to seek the higher life.  It led to the exile of Israel and Judah, by foreign armies, something we’ve read about in our Old Testament lessons over the past month.  And Jesus description of the sending of “troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city” has been seen as a prophesy of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  [St John Chrysostom] [Of course this must be understood in the light of Romans 11:16-36.]

The king’s call next to his servants to “Go to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find”, has been seen as the great commission Jesus leaves with his disciples before he ascended: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” [St Matthew 28:19]

We have heeded that invitation, we know we are welcome here and that God desires that we be here to feast at his supper.  The invitation, is, of course, not just to attend Church, but most importantly to attend to the Lord in our hearts.  Our outward actions here at church are to be accompanied by an inward movement towards God, to enter into the inner man, the inward person – it is there that we will meet God face to face.

Are we ready today to encounter the living God

Next in the Gospel this morning, there is a strong warning for us:

When the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding-garment: and he said to him, Friend, how did you come in without a wedding-garment?  And he was speechless.  [he had no excuse] Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  For many are called, but few are chosen.

This is hard to hear.  It is a clear warning by Jesus of Divine judgement to each of us who are here, to be ready for this high calling: we must put on a marriage garment.  It is a warning which appears in several places in the Gospels.

Two questions may come to our mind: So what is the wedding garment? and how is it fair that God could cast us away if we don’t wear it? 

First, let’s consider the second question, because it seems so unfair.  Usually we don’t want to even think about God’s judgement.

The reason it is not unfair for God to cast us out, if we don’t put the marriage garment on, is because throughout the Bible it is clearly God who gives us the garment:

Near the end of Isaiah (61), the prophet says,

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 with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Jesus tells his disciples after he was raised from the dead… [St Luke 24:49]

Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Revelation 3:5

The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments…

Who are these who dressed in white robes?...these are they who have washed their garments in the blood of the lamb  Rev 7 [i.e. purified their lives]

Revelation 21

I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Prepared by whom?  Adorned by whom?  God has given the robes, it is not as if we had to provide them.  He has given us the right clothing, so we are simply called upon to wear it.  The man in the parable refused the adornment that God provides.

And what is that garment?

Paul says, As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. [Gal 3:27]  And we read last week that he also calls on us to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God. [Eph 4:24]

Put off the old self and put on the new self.  It is a call to return from our absorption in the world through the senses, and to be recollected and turned towards Christ.  It is to no longer be drawn out of ourselves through disordered passions. But I also suggested that the call includes in our time a call to restrain ourselves from being absorbed by useless information pouring into us through the internet and our phones.  To become recollected and God focussed.

That garment was given to us in our baptism – it is the Holy Spirit – that power from on high that has been given to us.  And we are to live in that new garment, enjoying it, living in accord with it, cooperating with that grace given to us.

What does it look like when we have put on that garment?

In today’s Epistle St Paul says…

be not drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit [that is, be filled with Love, and then return that Love to God and neighbour]; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord [this is the garment of praise]; giving thanks always for all things  unto God, even the Father, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  [it is a garment of thanksgiving for God’s providence that has led me to this place, at this time, and with these people]

So there will be a certain quality of our experience of life in Christ.  It is not that we will no longer experience sorrow and grief, sometimes depressed spirits, sadness at our suffering and the suffering of those around us.  But we can expect there will also be an underlying joy as we taste something of the sweetness and goodness of God.

If we are not experiencing this, we can take steps: fasting, retreats, times in silence eagerly asking God to warm our hearts once again, to know Him in the midst of this “troublous life”.

The last line of the Epistle reading today is “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ”.  And this is really tied to the next part of the Epistle which is all about the mystery of marriage – about the mutual submission of wives and husbands to one another.  Paul says that the love a husband has for a wife is to be like the Christ’s love for the Church: “He gave himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”  And he says this is what God promised us from the very beginning.

Jesus has and is adorning us with the garment of salvation, with the Holy Spirit.  We are to allow ourselves to be beautified by Him as we accept His calls to put off the old and put on the new, to cooperate with this grace, by not holding His grace at a distance but embracing it and being remade in His image and likeness.

Here’s an example of one of the English mystics  - Richard Rolle – who knew something of what it was to put on that garment and to enjoy the feast God is preparing for us:

“Rarely in fact have we found a man who is so holy or even perfect in this earthly life endowed with love so great as to be raised up to contemplation to the level of jubilant song.  This would mean that he would receive within himself the sound that is sung in heaven, and that he would echo back the praises of God as it were in harmony, pouring forth sweet notes of music and composing spiritual songs as he offers his heavenly praises, and that he would truly experience in his heart the genuine fire of the love of God… [does this sound like the Epistle? we can imagine people like Bach in purity of soul hearing these songs and sharing them with us] the psalmist, speaking in character as the typical contemplative, exclaims, I will go into the house of the Lord, with the voice of praise and thanksgiving. [Ps. 42:4]  The praise of course is the praise offered by the banqueter, one who is feeding on heavenly sweetness.”  [The Fire of Love, Chapter 2]

Let us prepare ourselves now, through repentance and faith, wearing the garment that we have received from God in our baptism, and to “feed on that heavenly sweetness”, to eat of the bread of eternal life and to drink of the cup of salvation.  Our call is to respond with melodies in our hearts, giving thanks always, being filled with the Spirit of love towards Jesus and all His people – to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen +