In this Sunday's reading from Matthew 22:1-14 we hear the parable of the wedding banquet.
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.’
In all my years as an Episcopalian, I never heard a satisfactory expository sermon that tackled the second half of the parable in which the man without a wedding robe gets tossed out into a very bad place. An attempt to go there might mean mentioning the "H" word, and we know that place does not exist in the revisionist's vocabulary. In fact, the "H" word is not even in The Revisionist Dictionary. I checked. Help me come up with an entry.
When revisionists can't find a way to explain something, they usually simply ignore it.
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I think John Lennon's song "Imagine" has replaced the doctrine of TEC.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most depressing songs ever to become a hit. The fact that people love it makes it all the more depressing.
DeleteI have a dear friend, really a wonderful, kind person, who loves that song and says it represents what she thinks about religion. She blinked and stopped talking about it when I pointed out the consequences of anti-religious regimes -- 100 million dead people in the 20th century.
DeleteRight! No need to imagine there’s no heaven or hell because we have seen what hell on Earth ensues.
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