Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC, 15 Oct. 2017, Proper 23
Year A RCL: Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23; Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14
“Many are called, but few are chosen.”
What
a challenge we hear in our Gospel!
Our
Gospel's challenge reminds me of the confrontation in our 1st
lesson. [Did
you notice how God says to Moses “YOUR people” & Moses says
to God “YOUR people”?] You'd
think by now the people with Moses would understand God is with them
& will take care of them. But we humans worry, focus on what we
lack, give into fear & make
a mess.
If I
were to ask you to stop by our house & check on our Mercedes &
Jaguar [if we had them] while we're out of town, where would you expect to find them? [Both congregations' responses: The garage!]
Former
neighbors asked us to stop by their new house to check on their
Mercedes & Jaguar. We hadn't noticed fancy cars when they lived
in the condo above us. So I ask about a key to the garage. The wife
says:
“Use the front door key. They'll be in the living room.”
 |
| It's been years since the Mercedes & Jaguar encounter, so our cats will substitute. |
My
mind races....Cars? Living room? She
says check their water... Huh? ...&
food. Huh??
Mercedes
& Jaguar are their cats!
How
had we lived so near & not known this?
What
are the Mercedes & Jaguar Jesus wants us to check on in our
Gospel so they
can feed & water us?
I
wonder if our Gospel reflects how people with Moses so quickly get
out of touch with the hope & miracles they have experienced.
The
excuses we hear in Jesus' wedding parable may seem believable. Yet,
in Jesus' time people were invited to a wedding not knowing the date,
so these
invitees don't take seriously God's invitation to a joyful
relationship.
Jesus
makes it clear: more than our work, our life in relationship with God
our King is important. The invitees miss living the fuller life we know
in Jesus, the Son, whose bride, the Church, is
us!
Notice
what Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians: “beloved,
whatever is honorable,...just,...pure,... pleasing,
...commendable,...any excellence,...anything worthy of praise, think
about these things” & do the positive things you have learned,
received, heard, seen.
This
is how to have the God of peace with us. This is how to have what the
people with Moses fear they don't have.
As
one of my seminary professors1
says in her sermon about our lesson from Exodus: “...that
thing we have made from Egypt’s gold...may symbolize strength &
power...But as close as we draw to it, as much as we celebrate it &
place it at the center of our lives, it did not lead us to freedom &
will not lead us to our promised inheritance. It will tether us to
slavery, to a worldview in which people are expendable,
interchangeable commodities. It will moor us in the impatience of our
ignorance & fear....”2
Trusting
in Jesus, we can overcome ignorance & fear & have courage to
do what he tells us
to:
Invite
others to share the fuller life he offers.
God
sends an open invitation to everyone.
God's
open door3
policy lets everyone come celebrate with God & God's Son.
As
Bible commentator William Barclay says: God
invites us to join the celebration of joy4
& abundant life.
This is reason for rejoicing.
Like
some invitees, we can get distracted & forget to rejoice. May we
have grace to remember “God's gracious invitation needs to be met
by our committed response.”5 “[We] can be so busy making a living...[we fail] to make a life;
[we] can be so busy [organizing] life...[we forget to live] life...”6
What's
important in Jesus' parable is not how we will be punished but “what
we will miss.”7
“This
parable has nothing to do with the clothes...[&]
everything to do with the spirit
in which we [live & worship God].”8
God
loves us. God loves you.
No exceptions.
God's
love never goes away.
It is always with us.
We get a taste of it at
this Holy Table.
By
Jesus' dying for us, we receive a wedding robe so that we can come to
this banquet, robed in the Light of Christ's Love.
Bibliography
Barclay,
William. The
Gospel of Matthew: Vol. 2 .
Revised Ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. 1975.
Brueggemann,
Walter. The
Prophetic Imagination.
2nd
Ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2001.
Harper’s
Bible Commentary.
General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1988.
Holy
Bible with the Apocrypha.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Hughes,
Rover Davis III. Beloved
Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian Life.
New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group. 2008.
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation.
New York: Oxford
University Press. 2004.
McKenzie,
Alyce M. Interpretation
Bible Studies: Matthew.
Louisville: Geneva Press. 1998.
The
New American Bible for Catholics.
South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
Ortberg,
John. If
You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan. 2001.
Portier-Young,
Anathea.
“Commentary
on Exodus 32:1-14.” Accessed: 17 Oct. 2017.
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3442
Note: Dr. Poitier-Young, Associate
Professor of Old Testament at Duke
Divinity School, Durham, NC., taught the class on Old Testament
Prophets, which I took at The School of Theology, The University of
the South, Sewanee, TN.
Troeger,
Thomas H. Ten
Strategies for Preaching in a Multi Media Culture.
Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1996.
1
Dr.
Anathea Poitier-Young, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Duke
Divinity School in Durham, taught class on Old Testament Prophets I
took at The School of Theology, The University of the South,
Sewanee, TN. 1st
lesson. Commentary at
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3442.
2
Ibid.
6
Ibid. Barclay. P. 268.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid. P. 270.
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