TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
Readings:
*Epistle texts for the 19th and the 20th Sundays after Trinity have been switched in accordance with the themes of each Sunday.
Key Verses (using the World English Bible):
Eph. 4:25b-26 (quoting Psalm 4:4): “For we are members of one another. ‘Be angry, and don’t sin.’ Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.”
Matt. 22:12-13a: “[The king] said to [the man], ‘Friend, how did you come in here not wearing wedding clothing?’ He was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness…”
Reflection
Jesus chose to teach the Kingdom of God by telling parables, stories that challenge our regular way of thinking, opening our minds to things we can’t even explain. So how do we deal with today’s parable? Jesus likens the Kingdom of God to a king who prepares a marriage feast for his son, but massacres the invitees after they scorn and kill the king’s servants. Then the king opens the event to the public, but after discovering an intruder, he orders his servants to bind and cast him out into the darkness.
What do anger, coercion, and violence have to do with the Kingdom of God? “Nothing,” we might quickly say. And yet this is the way the parable has been traditionally interpreted. The king is God. The king’s son is Jesus, for whom the mystical union between him and the Church has been prepared. The king’s servants are the prophets, who suffered and were even killed by those whom they were sent to bring back to God. And lastly, the unfortunate man not in wedding clothes is the unbeliever who has not accepted Christ. He tried to sneak into heaven by another way that is not the “narrow door”, and now must be cast out into eternal separation from God. Yes, the pieces of the puzzles fit, but—my goodness!—do we really believe this?
I’ll tell you of another interpretation I learned last year in my church, in a sermon appropriately entitled “The King is not God,” which I encourage you to read in its entirety. To summarize, the story that Jesus crafted would have been all too familiar to his listeners. Kings really could be this corrupt and bloodthirsty (remember Pharaoh and King Herod?); entire cities could be wiped out on a whim; a person could get executed for offending the authorities. Yet right into this amoral scenario, a conscientious objector crashes the party, marching to the beat of his own drum, refusing to live by those rules. Who does that sound like to you? Exactly. The Kingdom of God, then, is more like the intruder, the man without wedding clothes, who staged a silent protest against the status quo.
The Church clearly noticed the theme of anger in this parable, for they assigned it to this Sunday, the union of wrath. So what else do today’s readings teach us about anger? The Epistle reminds us that we belong to one another, an idea clearly lost on the king in the parable. This murderous king with a volatile temper would be in union with others, as long as it was on his cruel terms, but—whispers the Epistle—“you did not learn Christ that way.” No, in Christ, we did not learn to harden our hearts, or act callously or selfishly. We learned to act for others, even and especially when others are not acting for us. “Be angry, but don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.” There’s a time for anger—we are human, after all—but we must always strive for reconciliation.
As with the other passions, we cannot, and probably must not, defeat anger. But we can resolve to make peace with it, to extend to it the loving hand of friendship, and incorporate it into our whole selves. Or, as the Epistle puts it: We put off the old man, the callous and corrupt king, and we put on the new man, Christ, who allowed a different kind of anger to take him up to the authorities and, ultimately, to the cross. We put away our former way of life and become renewed in spirit. That's how we prepare to walk into the fullness of God, the marriage feast of the soul and her Creator, the invitation to which is eternally open, and we’re welcomed however we’re dressed.
Prayer of the Day
Lord, we pray you,
grant your people grace
to avoid the infections of the devil,
and with pure hearts and minds
to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
—Original Collect for Trinity 20 from the 6th-century Gregorian Sacramentary.
Guard us, almighty God, by your right hand,
that neither alien sin nor our own
may prevail against us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.
—Collect #2 for Trinity 20 in the 5th-century Gelasian Sacramentary; translated and adapted from Latin by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015
Hymn: “From God, Christ’s deity came forth”
(Words: Ephrem of Edessa, 4th-century; translated to English by J. Howard Rhys, b. 1917; adapted and altered by F. Bland Tucker, 1895-1984, and by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015
Tune: ‘Salem Harbor’, by Ronald Arnatt, b. 1930)
From God, Christ’s deity came forth,
His manhood from humanity,
His priesthood from Melchizedek,
His royalty from David’s tree:
Praised be his Oneness.
He joined with guests at wedding feast,
Yet in the wilderness did fast.
He taught within the temple gates.
His people saw him die at last:
Praised be his teaching.
The dissolute he did not scorn,
Nor turn from those who were in sin.
And for the righteous, he rejoiced,
But bade the fallen to come in:
Praised be his mercy.
He did not disregard the sick.
To simple ones, his word was given,
And he descended to the earth,
Fulfilled his work, and rose to heaven:
Praised be his coming.
Who then, my Lord, compares to you?
The Watcher slept, the Great was small,
The Pure baptized, the Life who died,
The King abased to honor all:
Praised be your glory.
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