Matthew 22:1-14

Pentecost +22 – Year A

Matthew 22:1-14

Might we be looking at a different kind of parable here – one that rehearses a bit of history? Imagine a stained glass kind of re-telling of Creation, Eden/Babel, Flood, Exodus, Exile by one understood to be a prophet who is raising an important question.

The presence of G*D may be compared to Creation. Is not a wedding a celebration of creation? (Mind, a wedding can become quite trivial in its cultural manifestation.) The honoring of differences in the context of a larger unity, sparks much that is new.

However it happens, celebrations do formally end. A drifting away happens when one celebration doesn't morph into a next celebration. Great is the fall thereof – whether in Eden or at Babel – when my difference is more important than your difference and there are better things to do alone.

O, the Flood of rage, as sending folks away grows and grows into murder most foul – into genocide.

O, the remorse, the rebound, to settle for a new people and an Exodus from our mutual crying and loneliness.

O, the heightened sensitivity when the new folks don't play according to the game and we are still not back at the joy of creation. A trial separation, an Exile, grows from any slight or disappointment.

Yes, we have here a slam of the religious leaders of that and every age who forget their place in this ongoing story of Paradise Lost and Paradise Yearned For. But, also a rehearsal of a vision of every prophet to reconnect Creation and Present.

Where was your emotional connection to this snapshot of G*D? Were you overjoyed to be included in with the good, the bad, and the ugly? Were your fears engaged that you would be the next one to make a slip or get caught by an unrepentant Miss Manners, one with no sense of comedy?

After the little moral at the end, did you find yourself feeling glad you were among the few? Was there a little niggling thought that you had one more opportunity to bargain to increase the few, to more, to many, to all? If feeling the former and recognizing the latter, what are you doing to advocate for those being told to go to hell in today's world?