Isaiah 25: 1–9 / Psalm 23 / Philippians 4: 1–9 / Matthew 22: 1–14
This is the written version of the homily
given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown,
Pennsylvania on Sunday October 22, 2026 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.
“THERE’S A DOWNSIDE TO BEING CREATED IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS
OF GOD”
(Homily texts: Isaiah 35: 1–9, and Matthew 22: 1–14)
“Old
Noah knew a thing or two. Because he knew a thing or two, he thought he knew it
all!”
Those
lyrics are from a 1906 Broadway musical, “Marrying Mary”. We used to sing an
arrangement of that song during my time in the U.S. Army Chorus.
I’ve
mentioned before a weekly gathering of pastors in a community in Illinois where
I served for seven years. Each Tuesday morning, this remarkably congenial and
widely varied ecumenical group of pastors would gather in one of our churches
for a time if sharing, mutual support, and common witness to our Lord Jesus
Christ.
One
Tuesday morning, it was my turn to host the meeting, Part of the task of
hosting a meeting also involved offering a devotional. On that particular
occasion, I started my devotional by saying, “You know, there’s a downside to
being created in the image and likeness of God”. Some of those gathered offered
expressions that indicated they were puzzled by what I said. So I added this: “God
has gifted the human race with memory, reason and skill. But those gifts can
easily lead us to think that, because we know a thing or two, we think we know
it all”. (Of course, I was quoting the song from Marrying Mary.)
Like
any gift that God gives us, the gifts of memory, reason and skill can be
misused. Down through history, God’s people have misused those gifts. The chief
priests and the Pharisees[1] who
heard this morning’s parable, the Parable of the Heavenly Banquet, were misusing
God’s gifts. (More about that in a moment.)
Let’s
look back into history to see some other occasions when God’s people misused
their gifts.
We
could begin with the incident of the golden calf. Moses had been on the
mountain, receiving from God the Ten Commandments, and when he came down from
the mountain, he heard a raucous gathering going on. Approaching the
activities, he sees a golden calf. He approaches his brother, Aaron (who had
been left in charge), and asks what’s going on. Aaron offers what must surely
be one of the lamest excuses in the Bible, saying to Moses that he simply threw
the gold into the fire, and out came the golden calf. The misuse of God’s gift
on that occasion amounted to being able to imagine an idol, to craft such an
idol, and then to worship it, saying, “These are the gods that brought us out
of Egypt.” If we think about it, it’s kind of amazing that God’s people who had
seen what God had done in bringing them out of slavery in Egypt, through the
Red Sea, and into the wilderness, could turn away from the worship of the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to the worship of a golden calf.
On numerous
other occasions during the Old Testament period, we find the prophets warning
God’s people not to fall prey to the worship of idols. In some cases, idol
worship existed right alongside the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. There’s a term for this: Syncretism.
Now,
let’s turn our attention to the setting of today’s encounter between Jesus and
the chief priests and the Pharisees.
For
some time now, in Holy Week, Jesus has been countering the wayward ways of the
chief priests (who ran the Temple in Jerusalem), the scribes (the lawyers of
the day) and the Pharisees (a lay group who were dedicated to maintaining the
identity of God’s people).
These
leaders of the people acted as though they had a relationship with God. But in
truth, theirs was an outward display, for their hearts were far from God. They
cherished their positions of prominence in the society of the day. They claimed
to be leading the people in the ways of God. They claimed to be following God’s law, but
their observance was an outward show. In time, as Holy Week unfolded, these
very same people would scheme to kill Jesus.
At
this juncture, it’s important to say that, perhaps the worst sort of misuse of
God’s gifts to humanity, those gifts that permit us to imagine and to created, often
come from people who claim to be in relationship with God. “Because we know a
thing or two, we think we know it all!”
Since
parables place something we can identify with and can grasp alongside a deeper
truth, how does today’s parable place the commonly-known situation of the king
who offered a banquet alongside other, deeper truths?
The
answer, I think, is that the king equates to God. The invitation to come to the
banquet echoes God’s call to be in relationship and fellowship with Him. This morning’s Old Testament reading outlines
the prophet Isaiah’s description of God’s rich banquet, prepared for His
people. (Recall that, in biblical times, eating with someone denoted being in
relationship with them.) Since those who were in relationship with the king
(God) spurned the invitation (as God’s people had, time and again, in Old
Testament times), the invitation had been revised to include those who were
formerly not in relationship with the king (God). This new group equates to the
Gentiles, who were folded into the Church.
This
is the classic interpretation of the parable, and I think it makes good sense.
Now
then, as the Church grew and spread out into the world, there have been times
when God’s people in the Church have strayed from God’s revealed will.
Consider,
for example, the time in the early fourth century when the Church came out of
the shadows of society once the Roman emperor Constantine had made Christianity
legal, Suddenly, large groups of people came into the Church. But their
behavior, in many cases, didn’t change from their former ways. The clergy, as
well, began to strut around in their robes (much like the Pharisees did in
Jesus’ day). It seems that the change brought about good things, but it also
created a situation in which there was an outward form of religion, but the
inner reality of the people in the Church was, in many cases, far from God’s
will and God’s heart. In response, the monastic movement got started, as an
attempt to preserve the essential character of the Church.
Fast
forward to the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. (We will
consider this in depth in two weeks as we honor Reformation Sunday.) Here, too,
the Church had an outward appearance of religion, but its spiritual character
was devoid of God’s ways and God’s truths.
Since
the parables, and – for that matter – all of the Bible’s accounts, have a
forward-looking aspect to them, what are the lessons for us to grasp today?
Perhaps
these things are important for us today, just as they have been important down
through time:
1.
We
should beware of the dangers that our own abilities to imagine and to create
can create. We can imagine all sorts of things, but in many cases, what we
dream up are of human, not divine, origin. Indeed, we can say that “because we
know a thing or two, chances are we think we know it all”.
2. The Church must be constantly vigilant
to ensure that we “keep the main thing, the main thing”. The Church can get off
into pursuing all sorts of things, some of which have merit and worth, but
which aren’t the essential purpose for the Church’s existence. We can easily
become religious busy-bodies, out doing “good stuff”.
So
then, we pray for the Holy Spirit’s guiding and refining presence, that we may
mirror God’s revealed will for His people, that we may be a bright and shining
light of God in the world.
AMEN.
[1] We have to back up to the previous chapter to find out that those to whom Jesus was speaking were the chief priests and the Pharisees. See Matthew 21:45.
