Proper 22A+ Check Your Bells + 10.15.23

 

Check Your Bells
Exodus 32, Psalm 106, Matthew 22

St Mike’s, Isla Vista
The Rev. Alene Campbell-Langdell

A long time ago, when I was in college for my undergraduate, I was part of the college handbell choir.   If you can imagine a bunch of mostly music majors (and even a music teacher or two) playing bells together, there was always a bit of striving to play more bells and push the techniques to the limit.  We wanted pizazz, sparkle, and maybe a bit of recognition for playing 8 bells at the same time with only 2 hands.  So, it’s probably no surprise that one of our conductor’s favorite sayings was “You’re never too good to check your bells.”  In other words, don’t be the person who is so sure you know what you’re doing that you play a sharp or a flat where there shouldn’t be one.  Don’t be the person who failed to look for the little line inside the bell that tells you which way it’s intended to be hit and, when it’s your turn to play, no sound comes out.  You’re never too good to check your bells. 

I thought of that saying this week as I wrestled with our parable for today.  It’s an outrageous story filled with exaggeration and hyperbole.  One of my favorite comments along this line was written by Lance Pape who notes, after discussing the strangeness of people refusing to go to a royal wedding and the destruction that follows,

But it gets stranger still.  With our heads still spinning, we learn that the dinner is still on (verse 8)! Now the invitations go out again, this time to commoners on the “main streets” of the (destroyed?) city (verse 9).  Apparently, while soldiers pillaged and slashed—all the while as great flames devoured the buildings outside the palace walls—little Sterno burners toiled away silently under the sumptuous dishes in the great hall, keeping the meal hot for the eventual guests![1]

 

It’s a ridiculous story, with imagery almost as exaggerated as the story of prophet who predicts the destruction of a city only to have the entire city of 120,000 people from the top all the way down to the lowliest animals repent.  In the story of Jonah, it is God who demands the right to be merciful even when our human sense of justice demands otherwise.  The reversal of that here, as a city is destroyed rather than spared, is enough to make your head spin, or to decide like some early Christians, that maybe we’re talking about two different gods! 

But maybe that head-spinning, gut-check is the point of this parable.  In Matthew’s gospel this story comes at the height of Passion Week drama.  Jesus has made his way to Jerusalem, he has confronted the money-changers in the temple, and now the religious leaders are questioning his authority: “Who gave you the right to do these things?” (Matthew 21:23, paraphrased). Interestingly, in Luke’s gospel this parable comes much earlier in the story and responds to quite a different statement.  There, Jesus is gently pushing back at the idea that surely everyone will be thrilled to come and sit at the heavenly banquet.  In Luke’s version, there is no pillaging, burning, or other violence.  There is simply an invitation given, excuses made, and the doors opened wide to others who never expected to receive such an honor. 

Here in Matthew, however, the context is violent.  Jesus is about to be crucified, and scholars tell us that the gospel itself was most likely written not too long after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Matthew’s readers are most likely devastated and terrorized by violence, perhaps not unlike some of us have been this week as we watch what is happening in Israel/Palestine.   In Matthew’s version of the story, the servant messengers are killed and the king responds with destructive rage.  And, in an additional piece of the story that continues after Luke’s story ends, we the listeners are taken inside the banquet hall itself.  Here, there is one person who stands out from all the other guests.  Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh provide some context for understanding what may be happening here: 

 

From the later rabbinic period we learn that people formed festive kinship societies…which came together for table fellowship and works of piety.  In order to avoid pollution [these groups] would not accept an invitation from ordinary people….
If they invited such a person to their own home, they required the guest to put on a ritually clean garment that the host provided.[2]

Here we have a guest whom the king addresses as friend.  Perhaps this was someone who was part of the same social circle as the king.  Unable to get home fast enough after making his excuses for not attending the wedding feast, he has been caught in the public square and compelled to come in with everyone else.  However, he is indignantly aware that he is not like everyone else there.  He has no need of a special garment to cover his impurity!  Surely the king will recognize his righteousness. 

Put in that light, it is an astounding impudence.  You’re never too good to check your bells.  Dare I say that Moses recognizes that?  At a moment when it would have been far too easy for Moses to accept God’s pronouncement of judgement on others and take the covenant promise for himself, Moses checks his pride.  Like a bell player handling far too many bells, Moses manages to hold on to God’s mercy, God’s promise, and God’s justice all at the same time.  There’s no room for pride or an insistence on one’s own righteousness in that mix, and Moses knows it.  In the face of impending destruction and disaster, Moses prays with a trust in God’s faithfulness.  There is a Jewish tradition that when God tested Abraham with Isaac, God was disappointed in Abraham’s response.  Abraham had argued with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but Abraham failed to even protest the sacrifice of his son. 

Perhaps if the guest at the wedding was truly a friend of the king, they would have been there earlier arguing against the course of violence and destruction.  Everyone in the story was invited to the wedding feast, but a few had the opportunity to change history.  Many are called, but few are chosen.

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[1] Lance Pape (Oct. 12, 2014). “Commentary on Matthew 22:1-14” available on WorkingPreacher.org at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-28/commentary-on-matthew-221-14-7

[2] Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh (2003). Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Fortress Press: Minneapolis, MN).