You are Worthy of the Wedding

In further response to them, Jesus told parables. “The Heavenly Reign,” he said, “is like a human ruler who throws a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his enslaved workers to call the invited guests to the banquet, but they wouldn’t come. Then he sent more enslaved workers and told them, ‘Tell the invited guests, “Look! My feast is ready! My oxen and fattened cattle have been prepared, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet!”’ But they didn’t care and some left, one to their own farm and another to their business. The rest who stayed seized the enslaved workers, mocked them, and killed them. So the ruler was enraged and ordered his soldiers to destroy those murderers and burn down their city. Then he told his enslaved workers, ‘The wedding banquet is still ready, but the invited guests weren’t appropriate for it. So, go out to the city gates and invite everyone you find in the streets to the wedding banquet.’ So those enslaved workers went out to the streets and gathered everyone they found, both the corrupt and the good-hearted, and the wedding banquet was filled with guests. When the ruler entered, he examined the guests and saw someone was there not wearing wedding clothes, and he told him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ but the person was silenced. Then the ruler told the servers, ‘Tie his hands and feet and throw him out into the outer darkness! There’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth in anguish there.’ You see, many are invited, but few are selected.”
— Matthew 22:1–14 (LIT) https://www.litbible.net/matthew-22#v1-14

In the thirteenth year of my life, I traded my straight “A” report cards for packs of cigarettes.

Up until that point, I had been picked on and targeted by bullies in some pretty nasty ways. I had been ridiculed, isolated, and treated like a problem to stomp out. When I reported the behavior, the perpetrator got a slap on the wrist and came back, hunting me with vengeance.

My teachers didn’t help. When I became too bored to sit still in school, I was punished by moving my singular desk to the front of the classroom, where I wouldn’t bother any of the other students.

All in all, school was a place I dreaded going, except I liked learning, and I was good at it. I breezed through every grade in elementary school, getting the highest marks (making me a mark). Part of my identity was being smart, and I could prove I was smart by pointing to my grades.

I junior high, I decided that in order to be cool, I would stop caring about my grades. Overnight, my stainless report cards began to reflect this choice. I stopped turning in my homework—work I did but simply chose not to turn in for fear of that dreaded “A”. I gave up my identity of being smart because that identity hurt me through the choices of other people.

Freshman year of high school, I went to the smoking area with a new group of friends. Here, kids who got cigarettes and joints through various means would skip class, hang out after school, and just smoke.

Cigarettes became the marker of my new identity: a slacker. Chronic underachiever. Failure to live up to my potential.

But I still wasn’t accepted. Even in my friend group, I was the fifth wheel, often the brunt of jokes and pranks. Outside my friend group, I was still the target of bullies, ridiculed and physically humiliated.

Friends, let me tell you, the scares from this time still ache. They are still prominent and deep.

Maybe you can relate.

Maybe you have been targeted for who you are, who you love, what you believe, how you look…

Maybe you just never found a place where you can take off your mask, a safe place, because every time you begin to, you only experience more hurt, more pain.

Maybe you, like me, longed to be respected and loved, but simply never found that, especially during your formative years.

I see you.

I hold space for you.

I sit in solidarity with you.

So does Jesus.

Jesus comes to you, weeping with your pain, your rejection, your sorrow, your grief.

Jesus laments with you, sending a cry to the heavens to be freed from this hurt, to be healed from the loneliness, to finally, finally, finally be fully accepted for everything you are.

As the wails echo in the sky, Jesus begins whispering in your ear, tender, intimate. He tells you of a place of great joy, of great celebration, a place where everyone belongs. He begins telling you about a feast with enough food to feed the world ten times over, a place of abundance and embrace.

Jesus tells you about the table.

It’s the place where we all belong, where no one is excluded for who they are, who they love, what they believe, or how they look. There is a chair for everyone, a plate for everyone, a celebration for everyone.

Some people have already been invited to the table, but they choose not to go, not to celebrate, not to be part of the feast. They walked away from their invitations, choosing mammon, fear, violence, and complacency instead of joy, celebration, acceptance, and abundance.

But Jesus didn’t give up. He kept going, walking the streets, gathering people, inviting them to this table that’s beyond imagination. It doesn’t matter where he finds them or what state they’re in. It doesn’t matter if they are corrupt or good-hearted. Anyone and everyone have been invited to this place of belonging.

And now, now Jesus found you. Jesus wants you. Jesus invites you. Now Jesus remains with you, beckoning you, calling to you, “Come to the table! There is a place just for you!”

Jesus holds out his hand, the hand that is wounded from his time on the Roman cross, scarred from his time ridiculed and rejected in the uttermost way.

This is the hand he holds out to you.

Gently, fearfully, you take his hand, and gently, tenderly, he helps you up. You begin to walk the streets, growing closer to this celebration. You begin to hear the chaos of joy and revelry. Slowly, the darkness of the night begins to glow with the lamps of jubilation, casting golden warmth as they invite all the invited in.

Suddenly, you realize that you’re not dressed for such an occasion. You are in the sackcloth and ashes of morning, the cloth of grief. You are not dressed for joy.

Jesus giggles and asks you to look again.

What you see takes your breath away.

You are not in a wedding robe. You are in a wedding gown.

Intricate lace, sparkling pearls, dazzling white. This is the most beautiful wedding dress you have ever seen.

And you are wearing it.

You are the bride.

This wedding is for you.

Of course you belong; of course you have a place; of course everyone embraces you. This is your feast.

Your groom came and got you, inviting everyone along the way. This is a day of mirth and celebration, a day of joy and healing. This is where you belong, decked out in the finest of dresses, no longer grieving, no longer alone, no longer a stranger.

This table is for you.

Jesus comes looking for each of us, not to save our souls, but simply to be with us, to sit with us, grieve with us, be in solidarity with us. There is no ulterior motive, no surprise purpose. Jesus simply wants to be with us, with his bride, the beloved.

And that is you.

You are the beloved. You have been washed clean. You are made new. There are no two ways about it: you are Jesus’ love.

As the beloved, you belong in the beloved community, a place where the table is full, the drinks are many, and the joy is made full. This is your community.

This seems like a good story, but what about here? What about now? In real life, where I have to live with a disability, where I have to go to a job that kills my soul, where I have to make a choice between food and rent. What about sorrow, the harm, the oppression we live under? Where is the joy?

Beloved, we belong to each other, and there is the joy.

We don’t belong to the machine, to capitalism, white supremacy, or patriarchy. We don’t even belong to the harm that was done to us, what binds us up. Here, in the beloved community, we liberate each other because your liberation is my liberation.

Here’s what this looks like in practical terms:

Those who have, support those who have not. Mutual aid. Found family. We let people into our circle, perhaps living as a family under one roof, or existing as extended family that cares for the children as if they were our own. We feed each other. We help each other craft resumes. We clean each other’s houses. We grieve with each other. We laugh with each other. We live by the truth that in order for me to thrive, you, my beloved neighbor, must thrive.

Take what the empire has told us is the way we have to live and flip it on its head. We don’t have to live in grief, in helplessness, in sorrow.

We can live together; we can love together; we can belong together. Within our communities, we can imagine a new way of existing, of living, of thriving.

If all things are being made new, then let us be a part of it, together.

Because we are the bride, and the feast has been given for us.