Sermons:
God's Party, Matthew 22:1-14 (see below)
by Rev. Karen A. Goltz
Psalm 23 Worship Resources
(includes video, prayers, 3 sermons and 2 children's sermons)
-
Unlikely Guests, Matthew 22:1-14,
Rev. Randy Quinn
-
The Thirst and the Quenching, Psalm 23 and the Exile, Rev. Christian Neill Skoorsmith
-
Why
Golden Calves Don't Work,
Exodus 32: 1-14,
by Rev. Thomas Hall
- Whom God Calls, Mat.
22:1-14,
Rick in Va,
-
Who Is invited? Mat.
22:1-14,
by DGBradley
-
The Invitation of Jesus' Parables, Mat. 22:1-14,
by Doug
in Riverside
-
Party-Time, Mat. 22:1-14,
by jg in nj
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God's Party
A sermon based on Matthew 22:1-14
by Rev. Karen A. Goltz
I think the worst
job in the world, or at least in the Bible, is to be a slave in Jesus'
parables. Last week they were in the service of a vineyard owner who
sent them to collect the harvest from his tenants. They were beaten and
killed. This week they seem to have an easier job: invite people to a
wedding. Again, they're beaten and killed. I guess being a slave in
one of Jesus' parables is just plain hazardous to your health.
But that's OK. I don't think we're
supposed to relate to the slaves in either one of these parables.
So who are we supposed to relate to?
That's a tricky question, and not one
to be answered lightly. Because these parables weren't written for us.
That doesn't mean they don't apply to us, or they don't tell us
something we need to know, but, in their original form, these parables
were not written directly to us.
Matthew's gospel was written for the
Jewish community around Jerusalem not long after the city and the Temple
were destroyed. Up to this point there were a number of Jewish sects,
lots of different ways to 'be Jewish,' kind of like all the different
Protestant denominations we have today. Each denomination is different
in some ways, but at our core, each and every one of us is Christian.
Back a little before Matthew's time, Judaism had been sort of the same
way, with Temple worship at the core, but the destruction of the Temple
changed all that. The Temple had been central to Jewish identity since
the days of Solomon, about a thousand years earlier. Now the Temple was
no more, and Judaism itself was in peril. There was a big push to get
everyone to agree on what it meant to be Jewish, to create a single,
unified Judaism, and the Pharisees and chief priests seemed to be
dominating. They weren't evil, they weren't malicious, and they weren't
trying to amass their own personal power for their own personal gain.
They understood themselves to be keepers of God's Law, and they
understood the key to Jewish identity to be in the keeping of that Law.
In order to ensure that people would keep that Law properly, they had to
set themselves up as authorities on God and God's will. And there was
no room in their understanding of God's will for recognizing some guy
named Jesus as the Messiah.
At the time Matthew's gospel was
written, Jesus had been executed some forty years earlier. In those
forty years, a segment of Judaism had recognized him as the Messiah, and
saw him as the fulfillment of the prophets. They too were trying to
save Judaism; but unlike the Pharisees, their understanding was centered
on Jesus as fulfillment of God's Law. They still considered themselves
to be Jewish; it's just that their understanding of what Judaism was
differed greatly from the Pharisees' understanding. [continue]
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