Sermon for October 11, 2026
Pentecost 20 A
Matthew 22:1-14; Isaiah 25:1-9
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Last week Beth Ann and I drove down to Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio for our 25th seminary class reunion. Our seminary was hosting their annual “Trinity Days” conference, and our old professor of New Testament, Mark Allan Powell (who is retired), came back as the keynote speaker. We enjoyed hearing about his latest insights into the gospels, and also enjoyed spending time with some of our old friends.
Then we learned that one of our old professors of theology (his name is Don Luck) lived at a nearby assisted living facility, so a few of us drove over there, went up to his apartment and knocked on the door. He was pleasantly surprised to see us, and welcomed us into his living room. His speech had slowed a bit, but during our conversation found that his mind was just as sharp as we remembered from 25 years ago, and we asked him how old he was. “I’m 93”, he said, “93 and still alive—alive and cooking!” Not “kicking” but “cooking”. Don was proud to tell us about his cupboard full of herbs and spices, and how he likes to experiment with cooking new dishes. Lately he’s been into Moroccan food. And he even has a sweetheart who comes over on Sunday afternoons, and he cooks for her, too.
I don’t think he had today’s readings from Isaiah and Matthew in mind (though he might have), but even so, I couldn’t help but notice that Dr. Luck (through his choice of words and lifestyle) was pointing us towards a central theme of the Bible. God’s final hope for humanity, the goal God has for “all peoples”, is represented by “a feast of rich food and well-aged wines”. True life and healing are found as we come together to share a great feast with God and with our fellow human beings. Looking at it this way, the hope of heaven and the promise of God’s salvation are very well summarized by Dr. Luck’s little twist on the phrase: “Alive and cooking”.
When God is “alive and cooking” in the world, people find forgiveness for their sins, failures, and mistakes of the past; reconciliation with those they’ve been estranged from; and as a result gain new life—life as God intends, where no one lives in suffering, pain, shame, or disgrace; where all the tears of sadness and mourning are wiped away; where the poor and needy are no longer oppressed by the ruthless; where the most vulnerable are cared for, and peace prevails across the earth, and the powers of death are defeated forever. That is what the hope of heaven and the promise of salvation in Christ looks like, when all earthly powers end, and God (who is the true ruler of heaven and earth) will fill all things with mercy and grace.
This vision of the kingdom of heaven is what Jesus dedicated his life to proclaiming, and he fulfilled it by dying and rising again, when he became the “firstborn of God’s new creation”. Jesus was even inspired by today’s passage from Isaiah—and he reinterpreted it to become the parable we heard in Matthew 22: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a banquet for his son.” The king symbolizes God, and the banquet is the hope of heaven and promise of salvation. So far, so good…until Jesus gives it a twist at the end—a chilling twist.
People are offered a free pass to attend the king’s great wedding banquet—and they refuse to come! To be more accurate, not everyone refuses, just the people who appear most successful and virtuous in life! In this parable, they don’t want the king’s gift of grace, so they just head back to their farms and businesses without saying a word as to why. And the one’s who don’t go back to minding their own business are even worse—they seize the slaves who delivered the invitation, mistreat them, and kill them! What is going on?
Jesus seems to be offering an extended metaphor for the history of God’s mission in the world. That means in the symbolism of this parable the king is God; the son is Jesus; the slaves are the prophets (including John the Baptist); the invited guests are God’s people. The “good and bad” who get invited after God’s people reject God’s invitation symbolize how God reaches out to embrace all humanity, and therefore God’s church is called to invite anyone who wants to be part of God’s mission, regardless of whether society considers them to be “good” people or “bad” people. From a Lutheran point of view, we would even say that the “good and bad” guests in the parable really represent each one of us; nobody is all bad or all good—we are saints and sinners at the same time, in daily need of God’s mercy and grace.
The good news we find in this parable is that even after some people decline their invitation to the banquet, even so “the wedding hall was filled with guests”. Lots of people are still interested in growing their relationship with God, and many of these are people whom we might not expect.
With his mission accomplished, the king enters the wedding hall to take a look at all the guests—this is a metaphor for the Last Judgement. Apparently, the king requires everyone to wear a wedding robe at this banquet, and almost everyone in the wedding hall is wearing a robe. The obvious questions is, how did they get their robes if they were just invited in off the streets, and had not been planning to attend a wedding? It seems implied that the king gave everyone a robe, because he notices one man who is not wearing one. One man, out of this great multitude of guests, refused to accept what the king is offering. Even so, the king gives the man another chance saying, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” It shows us how, even when we decline God’s invitation, God keeps on finding new ways to try to include us in his kingdom.
How does the man respond to his second chance? He is “speechless”—similar, in his own way, to those farmers and businessmen who had been invited earlier, but went away with no explanation. He’s speechless, even though the king surely would have given him a wedding robe if the man had simply asked for it. Even though he’s in the wedding hall, he’s like those who refused to come in the first place, and were therefore found “not worthy” of the invitation. There is no happy ending to the parable, at least not for this man, as the king tells his servants to bind the man hand and foot and throw him to the outer darkness. Why does Jesus leave us with such a disturbing image? Maybe it’s because he wants us to reflect on our own lives, and to ask ourselves, “How do I become worthy?”
How do I become worthy to obtain the hope of heaven and God’s promise of salvation? How do I become worthy to take part in God’s mission to bless the world? As we see in this parable, everyone gets invited. The ones who get to stay and enjoy it are the ones who say “yes” to the invitation, and who accept the gifts the king gives them. They become worthy not by what they’ve achieved, but by the help they are willing to accept.
Likewise, we become worthy by simply being aware of our need for God. We can’t make ourselves worthy of God’s kingdom by the success we’ve achieved, nor by the virtues we hope to display. Christ makes us worthy when we simply present ourselves to God just as we are, and when accept that what we need more than anything else is Christ’s grace and mercy to cover us and change us, like a robe covers each guest at the wedding banquet and changes them from strangers into friends. It is Christ alone, by his grace and mercy, who makes us alive in God. And every week, Jesus “cooks up” a meal full of his divine love and life, which we call Holy Communion. And he invites whomever he can find, the good and the bad, to come by faith and taste the grace and mercy of God. Amen.