It’s election season.
In case you didn’t notice, I’ll say it again.
It’s election season.
And one of the hottest topics and most debated issue is one that might surprise you.
It’s taken from a page right out of the gospel of Matthew.,
Yes, this hotly contested issue is not whether you are Christian left or Christian right, it’s not drill or solar, it’s not even pigs or lipstick.
One of the hottest issues both in our Gospel text and on the national political platform is fashion.
You see, all the bloggers estimated that the cost of Cindy McCain’s dress on the night of the Republican Convention came to about 313,000.
Now, I think that’s a lot of money.
But, it sure seems that Cindy McCain takes seriously putting on her finest garment when it comes to arriving at the GOP wedding feast.
Maybe she has something to teach us.
After all, we hear in the Gospel text this morning that there was a guest at the wedding banquet who arrived without a robe.
Poor guy was not dressed to kill.
Instead, he was killed because he failed to dress.
Maybe Cindy McCain knows something we don’t.
The fashion issue has plagued the church for centuries.
Remember how Paul used to go on and on about what we should wear in church?
Well, we, isn’t really the royal we in this case, but we women.
We shouldn’t braid our hair and if we do in any event, we should cover our locks.
For years, and even into present time, it’s anathema for men to wear hats or caps in church, but women are encouraged to wear hats—and especially bonnets on Easter Day. Fashion in church divides us culturally as well.
White, middle-class people are less likely to put on their Sunday best than African-Americans in church.
Most mainline-Protestant churches and Catholics are just happy to see young people in church regardless of what they are wearing.
Hence the whole flip-flops and acolyte robe look.
Yet, in the black Protestant tradition, as studied by a sociology professor of mine, Dressing for church was dressing up for God.
It was physically showing God that you were standing both clean and respectful before the Almighty.
This concept of dressing for God brings us smack dab into this parable.
This parable comes at the end of three parables about the Kingdom of God and this one comes right before Jesus starts his journey through Jerusalem and to the cross.
Where this parable is situated is important because Matthew reminds us that Jesus is a teacher and that this parable has something to teach us.
This parable focuses on discipleship as Jesus models the ultimate discipleship to us.
That wedding robe is not just a fashion statement; it is actually a discipleship statement. How we attend the wedding feast, for Matthew, is just as important as showing up at all.
You see first all of the people of Israel were invited to the wedding banquet, but most just didn’t bother showing up.
So, then the master invites everyone in the streets, essentially broadening his invitation to Jews and Gentiles.
And he gets a pretty good response.
People show up and feast and dance and admire the newly married couple, but then there’s that glitch.
The glitch is that somebody showed up without a wedding robe.
This fashion faux-paux turns out to be catastrophic.
The king expected his guests to not just show up for the feast, but to be dressed and ready for this feast.
Poor guy was judged and thrown out into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We Episcopalians tend to shy away from preaching tough texts like these.
Nobody wants to hear them.
Or sometimes we would rather just let the lectionary editors cut out the last bit of the parable.
As a priest, when I’m trying to get a sense of a parishioner who has died that I didn’t know, I like to talk to the person’s mother and father if they are alive.
A child or children.
And a sibling if at possible.
That way I can hear who this person is from lots of people’s perspectives.
Well, when we listen to this parable from Matthew, we focus on the call to discipleship. If we listened to Luke tell the tale, we would know that it is our job to seek out the lame and the hungry and the sick and invite them to a feast.
And we should, and need to do that.
But, Matthew wants to teach us something else.
Matthew wants us to go away with an important lesson that will help us be better guests in the kingdom.
And that lesson is that dressing up for God still matters.
And it matters because dressing up forms us as disciples.
So, here’s the funny part of this sermon.
I volunteered to preach on this text for Andy knowing that he and Susan would be at clergy convention all week and would probably be exhausted.
The last thing he needed on his plate was to have to prepare a sermon, too.
After I committed to preaching this text I got a sheepish phone call from Andy.
Melissa, by the way, it’s the kick-off for stewardship season.
Can you say something about stewardship??
I told him better me than you, right?
What are they going to do, fire me?
Ironically, my mind had already gone to stewardship.
You see, over and over Andy has said, we are all at the table together.
That we’re all welcome to that table to that feast.
And that’s true.
But, being welcome doesn’t mean just showing up and doing nothing else.
We are all welcome at God’s table.
We are all welcome as God’s guests at that table.
But God doesn’t expect us to remain guests forever.
This Swahili proverb says it all:
Mgeni ni mgeni badda ya siku tatu mpe njembe.
That’s where discipleship comes in.
The Jesus of Matthew’s gospel is truly a teacher.
And one of the things that I would be remiss in teaching us is that God demands we contribute of our financial resources to the church for the coming of the Kingdom in this world.
Now I know during pledge season, all kinds of people will convince you to pledge in an NPR kind of way.
See what fine programs we have.
Hear what beautiful music.
Notice how we care for the sick and the elderly.
You can even get a free tote bag..I mean polo shirt.
But I’m here to say that in order for us to move from being guests in the kingdom of God to being disciples we need to give back to the church.
You see, the church is a tangible physical reality of God’s presence in a broken and hurting world.
Now this may sound strange to you, but I love the fact that it is explicitly stated that we are to tithe back to the church.
I love this because this commandment is so clear to me.
I can really sit down and see what income comes into our home and then know what to give back to St. Andrew’s and other charities committed to God’s work in this world. Tithing is a command that I can actually feel quite certain about.
The adage to tithe is a relief compared to the commandment to honor the Sabbath.
I tell you honoring the Sabbath in my household is always hit or miss.
For a while I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off doing laundry, vacuuming, and preparing food so that on Sunday we would do no work…
Well any of you with small children will know that you just can’t tell your kids no diaper changes today or no wiping up the applesauce on the kitchen floor.
So, I modified our observance of Sabbath to look something like this.
Sabbath supper. Eli and happy birthday candles. Addie bowl on head. Now once a month. You see, Sabbath commandments are a true slippery slope for me. Let alone loving my neighbor.
But, giving back to our church is so clear. 10% is so straightforward.
And another reason I want to be so explicit about it is that sometimes people just don’t know that it is our responsibility to pledge.
I may be preaching to the choir here.
In fact, I hope the 40% of the parish that is not pledging may just be unaware that a pledge is a part of our Christian life.
It is what we do.
But if no one teaches you that you can’t be blamed for not doing it.
When my husband was a bachelor, his parents never told him that if he received a wedding invitation he should send a present.
He didn’t learn that until we were married and so they are probably a few befuddled brides out there who are still trying to figure out how to write a thank you note to him for the mystery present.
So, yes, all of us, younger and older, single and married, male and female are all required to put on our wedding robes.
In fact, the canons of the Episcopal Church state that those on the vestry must be baptized, be a regular communicant, which means come to church to worship, and be known to the treasurer.
So, in other words, those that have reached a level of leadership model for the whole congregation our Christian responsibilities.
Where I served as a curate, the church directory only included members of the church—not guests.
Everyone who made a pledge, no matter of course the size of that pledge, was included in the directory.
Essentially, the difference between a guest at the banquet and a member is the pledge—the wearing of the robe.
The parable of the wedding banquet leaves us thinking about what we wear.
It seems that making the effort to put on your robe leads us to a new level of disciple ship in the kingdom.
It’s what is expected once we become baptized members of this body.
Getting dressed is quite a skill for all of us.
Lately my three year old has been obsessed with putting on clothes—and taking them off. When I release him from his quiet time I never know what I will find.
He has usually rifled through his closet and his drawers and put on whatever t-shirt has flashy writing or even changed from one pair of Elmo underpants to another.
I think the best look, however, was the heavy yellow winter coat, his winter boots, and bright turquoise Elmo undies.
Instead of getting frustrated that he has chosen to mess-up his closet and find his winter clothes, I had to remind myself that he is working hard .
He is trying to learn how to dress himself—and it takes practice.
Lots of practice and hard work.—even if his room looks like a used clothing store when he’s done parading his outfits.
We are all about the task of moving from guests to disciples in Matthew’s kingdom.
One way we get there is through our dress.
We don’t have to be Cindy McCain, but we do need to dress in something at the wedding feast.
Come and join Elias and work at dressing for the great high feast.
Yes, we’re all at the table together.
Let’s hope that we come to that table with something on—even winter boots and Elmo underwear will do.
