Dress Code

Sermon by James W. Crawford

June 1, 1997

Matthew 22:1-14

Gerald Kennedy tells of a spat taking place at the Yale Divinity School some years ago. It centered around a dress code. At the time the issue split the faculty and the students: the faculty believing there to be a certain decorum in the dress of students for the ministry at Yale University; the students, of course, lobbying for casual and informal attire. The struggle made its way to the school's bulletin boards, each side quoting the scriptures to its own advantage. The faculty would quote Isaiah:

Awake, awake,
   put on your strength, O Zion;
 put on your beautiful garments,
   O Jerusalem, the holy city . . .

A day later the bulletin board carried the students' reply:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on.

This issue, along with the quality of the food in the dining hall, could drive a campus crazy. I remind you of it this morning because of the incident taking place at a wedding feast when a guest shows up who, in the eyes of the host, fails the dress code.

A dress code? Well, that seems to be the focus of the passage we read just a few moments ago. There is a party, not at the divinity school, not in church, but at the wedding of a prince. It is a blast. And, we need remember, the king invites everyone--everyone. The host sends invitations not simply to his friends, though he begins with them and they say, "Thanks, but no thanks."  He then invites all the citizens of the realm, bar none, to share this fabulous banquet, to join in the joy of his life. The grace of the king's invitation to participate in, to know, and to rejoice in the revelry and merriment of a wedding reception lands in everyone's mailbox. And, friends, that invitation, allegorically speaking, comes to me, to you, to this church, to all of God's children on this good earth. No one excluded.

But now look at this. Who is this clown come to the party? Who is this joker come to the classy reception? In what? In his backyard barbecue shorts? His early morning jogging duds? In his seedy tweed ready for the trash heap? Just who is he? That is what the host wants to know at the wedding party. And so he asks the question. And although our Bible lesson seems to ask the question deferentially and with courtesy, "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?", the tone in the original language is much different. "Hey Buster, how'd you make it in here with those glad rags, and wipe that smile off your face!" The guy is speechless. The bouncers arrive, throw him out, and he lands in that mythical dump where we weep and gnash our teeth.

What is going on here? Well, this is an allegory too. And it essentially tells us showing up for the kings' party isn't all there is to it. We here at Old South, for instance,  have got that wonderful sign over our portico extending an open invitation to this church. "Behold," it says, "Behold I set before you an open door." That is the invitation not only to Christians, that is the invitation to the whole world: Come on in and join the party. Well and good. But with that dude crashing the party in his shocking chartreuse leisure suit, we see there is more to the party than just coming through the open door. And the rough treatment he gets--cast out, consigned to some tortuous and miserable existence beyond the pale--is the Bible's way of saying the invitation you receive to party at God's place is no laughing matter, no casual affair.  Coming through the door is not enough. The Gospel, the Christian life, this matter of rallying around and serving the Gospel can be a question of life and death, the most important issue on our own agenda.

I

Do you get that? There is a dress code that comes with the Gospel. You are all invited to the party. But, to truly honor the invitation, we put on garments, if you will--we put on garments of courage, of compassion, of grace and magnanimity, garments of forgiveness and kindness, garments of vision and justice. The Gospel is good news. God loves you. God loves you through thick and thin, through time shot and life wasted, through inexplicable and undeserved illness, through failure, bad judgment, mistakes, stupidity. That is good news and it is worth throwing a party in celebration.

But with it, and out of gratitude, comes enthusiasm and a deep commitment to honor the invitation with a spirituality of service, reconciliation and healing. This little allegory tells us we dare not take the Gospel lightly. It tells us that it means time, energy, imagination, money and patience. As the little verse urges,

 Lord, help me not be a taker, but a tender,
 not a whiner but a worker,
 not a getter but a giver,
 not a hindrance but a help,
 not a critic but a catalyst for good.
That is the fashion appropriate for celebrants at the party of the Son.

 II

 Before we are finished, just one final note. We come to this table this morning to join in this marvelous sacrament. If you will stretch your allegorical imaginations just once more, what we do here illustrates the fabric of the garment of discipleship. We share a common meal. We share it across our differences of race, our differences of opinion, our differences of gender, our differences of sexual orientation or of nation or of religious heritage. Welcome to this table because Jesus Christ is host here. This is Christ's party and the garments we wear bear the signature of reconciliation and healing.

But more, we break and we pour, and in these acts we see what love costs, what love risks, what compassion may elicit from us, what forgiveness may look like. Our own brokenness, our own weakness, our own risk of denial and rejection, our own pain as we hazard our love-- this costly love--the brokeness at this table is the very warp and woof of our Gospel garment.

So this morning, as we gather around this table, I invite you all in the name of the One whose meal this is, whose grace for you stands without condition behind the invitation, I invite each of you to gather around this table for this glorious common meal. I beg you, in exultation and gratitude, to don the garments of joy and service, grace and courage fit for this fantastic celebration.