As a parent, there are only so many times I can ask my children to do something nicely before a flip is switched inside of me, and I feel I have to raise my voice. I don't like to be that dad, but sometimes it feels like the only way they will take me seriously.

In today's gospel, we meet a Jesus who seems to be done saying things nicely. In Matthew’s telling, this is Holy Week. He has ridden into Jerusalem, overturned the tables in the Temple, been challenged on his authority, and told parable after parable to the religious leaders who just don't get it. You can feel the exasperation rising in his voice.

He tells them a parable about an enraged king who binds a man hand and foot and throws him into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why? Well, because he isn't wearing the right kind of clothes. I wonder, does he have their attentionnow? Does he have ours?

What happened to the Jesus who takes little children into his arms and blesses them? That's the Jesus we grew up hearing about in Sunday School. That's the Jesus we want for our Lord and Savior, not the one who turns over tables and gets angry. Like it or not, that is not the Jesus we get this morning.

When I raise my voice at my kids (justly or unjustly), a part of what is underneath that frustration is a desire for connection. I want them to come to the table. I want to know how their day was. Their joys, their challenges, their questions, their insights. I want to know how I can help. I want to be in relationship with them.

I wonder if the urgency we hear in Jesus today is born of that same love. He has life-saving news for his people, if they will just take him seriously. He wants them to know that life is meant to be a gift. That there is abundance and joy and belonging in his loving presence.

And to convey this truth, he tells them about a banquet.

A king throws a wedding banquet for his son. He sends his servants to tell the invited guests, it's dinner time. But they do not come. So, he tries again. He sends more servants. Dinner's ready, he says again.

But they send their regrets. One goes to his farm. Another has to leave town on a business trip. And the rest simply kill the mailman. Can you imagine that? Why would you kill the mailman over a wedding invitation?

At this point, I'd have already canceled the party. But the king does not. He tells his servants to invite anyone and everyone they can find, good and bad alike. The banquet hall is filled.

Think about the last time you put together a guest list. Maybe it's a simple get-together for the football game. Maybe it's a wedding. Maybe it's a big birthday. Who gets invited? Who gets left off? If you invite Aunt Jane, you have to invite Uncle Joe too. And do you really want to invite Uncle Joe? Is Aunt Jane even worth the invitation?

But this king sends his servants out to gather everyone they can find. Rich or poor, good or bad. There is no application process. No background check. No credit check. No cover charge.

Nobody is asked to explain why they deserve a place at the table. Nobody is asked to prove that they belong.

So why is it so hard for us to accept the invitation?

For the same reason most of us have a hard time accepting grace. Grace is love we did not earn and cannot pay back.

We live in a culture that has taught us we have to work for everything we get. We don't want it if it's free. Free is for people who can't help themselves. Which is exactly the kind of people we would rather not admit we sometimes are.

And if we're honest, that is the part we want to reject. Not just because we're a proud people, but because we don't quite trust grace. If it's free, what's the catch? If I didn't earn it, can I keep it?

We would rather pay our own way, even when the host has already paid for everything. If we pay for it, we can keep it. We can control how it is used.

But think about what it means if love has to be earned. It stops being a gift and becomes a payment of sorts. And if I have to earn it, I have to keep performing to make sure I don't lose it.

Worse, if I earned it, then I can look at the person who hasn't and say to myself, "Thank God I'm not like that sinner." Paul puts it plainly, if we could make ourselves righteous through our own efforts, Christ died for nothing.

Before the parable concludes, though, there is one more guest the king must deal with.

The king comes in to greet his guests, and he notices that this man is not wearing a wedding robe. "Friend," he says, "how did you get in here?" The man is speechless.

He was invited like everyone else. Nobody screened him at the door. And yet the king's response is severe. This is the part of the story that is hardest to reconcile with the generosity of the invitation.

Robert Capon, an Episcopal priest who trusted grace more than most, offers a way of thinking about this tension. The tragedy of the story is not that someone failed to earn a place at the banquet. It is that someone could be welcomed into the feast and still fail to live into the gift he had been given.

The robe is not the price of admission. Everyone got in the same way, by invitation. But the invitation is more than permission to enter. It is an invitation into a new life.

We don't put on the robe to make the king love us. We put it on because we have been welcomed into the feast.

Grace is free, but it is not inconsequential. God's welcome does not depend on our transformation, but neither does that welcome leave us unchanged.

The robe of grace may feel too big at first. We might not feel worthy of these new clothes. But the more we come to the table and receive the gift of grace, the more we grow into the life we have been given.

We begin to see other people as God sees them. We become more generous with what we have been given. We make room for people we might otherwise leave out.

Maybe this is what Jesus is so angry about. Not that people have failed to be good enough, but that they have failed to receive the gift. They keep acting as though they have to earn their way to the table, and in doing so, they miss the life God is offering them.

And perhaps this is why Jesus is so persistent. His anger is not the opposite of his love. It is what his love looks like when he refuses to give up on us.



He wants us to come to the table and accept the gift. We can stop trying to earn our way in, stop keeping score, stop wondering if we belong. The invitation has gone out.

So what does that mean for us as we begin this annual giving season? It means we give from gratitude, not obligation. Don't think of your pledge card as the price of admission. Rather, think of it as your response to what made it possible for you to have access to this table, that is the sacrifice of our Lord. Christ gave his own life on the cross so that you and everyone else could belong.

We give so that this table will continue to be set. And that table looks like the carpet in the Godly Play room where our children grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord. That table looks like the feeding tray in the hospital room where a beloved member of this parish takes their last communion.

That table looks like the Pickleball court where the body of Christ grows when new connections are made. That table looks like the parking lot in Avondale where the body of Christ is fed by bringing people who are worlds apart together. That table is set for anyone and everyone who wants to draw closer to the Lord.

My kids don't have to earn a seat at our table, and neither do we at our Lord’s. So, come. Gather round beloved children of God. Dinner’s ready! Amen.