Sunday Sermon Manuscript – October 11
Beyond Cheers, Toward Obedience
Matthew 22:1–14
Introduction
I have returned from the Korean Caucus gathering, and it went well. With the significance of the 50th anniversary, and with it being held in San Francisco, more than 300 people attended.
As many of you know, joint ministry events are set up so that the more people attend, the bigger the deficit. So as the one running the event, I carried a lot of pressure. Thankfully, we finished without any major problems.
But from the organizer’s point of view, I can see things I wish had gone better. I keep thinking about how lunch on the second day arrived more than an hour late. In a few sessions, the direction we had prepared did not come across well, and I could see a deep gap, which weighed on my heart.
Everyone tells me, “Good work, thank you for all your effort.” But when I ask myself whether it was meaningful, whether it was really all right, my honest answer is that I have many regrets.
For most events held under the name of a conference, I think the first purpose is the joy of seeing one another again and having fellowship. It is a time to share the struggles of ministry freely, to meet friends, seniors, and juniors in ministry, and to hear the wisdom of our elders. That is meaningful in itself.
At the same time, it is a place where we can share our concerns for the church more deeply. So I prepared it hoping it would also be a time the church truly needs.
But these two purposes point in such different directions that it was not easy to find where they meet.
One thing became clear to me. A pastor’s real strength is not many talents, powerful preaching, or a solid family background. It is the capacity for empathy, the ability to weep and laugh together with the congregation.
At events like this, a clear distinction always shows up. Some people try to run everything around themselves, and others speak and act with the community in mind. And that distinction becomes a mirror for me as well. So which side am I on?
Then someone passed by and said, “Pastor, you’re now leaning toward the senior pastors’ side!” I realized I am no longer in a position to call myself young, and I felt a sense of urgency.
Last Friday, for the sale of the Oakland church building, Kwonsa Byung-Joon Park signed as chair of the board of trustees. It has been a long and hard process, and I was grateful that it led to a good outcome.
To wrap this up, I had to take a call from our District Superintendent in the middle of the conference and prepare and send several documents. With urgency piled on urgency, I came to realize deeply that now is the time to stop hesitating and to give my time and strength to ministry.
In other words, time keeps moving, and we should hope that our faith grows in proportion to that passing time. So I came home from the conference thinking that this kind of urgency is needed, both for me and for our church.
As it happens, today’s text is the parable of the wedding banquet. Reading a banquet parable right after coming home from a banquet, the Word read to me in a special way.
The direction of the text is clear. If we understand that our worship together like this is also a banquet God has prepared, our hearts cannot help but be stirred.
Not ending with the grace of being at the banquet, but continuing into a life of obedience that resembles Christ: that is what I mean by “a faith that keeps growing as time goes on.” Please keep this in mind as we read today’s text together.
The Banquet the King Prepared
In verse 2, Jesus begins the parable this way: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”
This is a story about the kingdom of heaven. And to explain it, Jesus uses a wedding banquet as an example.
But this is not a banquet thrown by someone in the neighborhood. It is a banquet the king prepared for his own son. In other words, it is the greatest banquet in the whole kingdom.
In verse 4, the king says, “I have prepared the dinner, my oxen and fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Tell them to come quickly to the banquet.”
The king says everything is ready. That means there is nothing the guests need to prepare and bring. It is a banquet where all you have to do is come.
This verse shows well that the starting point of God’s kingdom is not our effort but the grace of God who calls us first. In our Methodist tradition, we call this “prevenient grace”: the grace by which God comes to us before we ever seek God.
So the image of this king, who is refused and yet sends his servants again, can be seen as the image of God toward us.
From a Life Held by My Own Business to a Life That Answers God’s Invitation (vv. 1–7)
But how do the invited guests respond? Verse 5: “But the invited guests paid no attention and went their own ways, one to his farm, another to his business.”
If you think about it, the places they went were not bad places. One went to his farm, another went to do business. Caring for a field and being faithful to one’s livelihood is not wrong in itself.
The problem is that their own work became their whole life, and there was no room left to hear the king’s invitation.
The text says they “paid no attention” and left. They did not rebel against the king; they simply were not interested. In fact, our faith collapses far more often not because we defy God, but because we lose interest and get busy like this.
In verses 6 and 7, this refusal spreads into violence, insulting and killing the servants, and finally leads to a severe judgment in which the king sends his troops and burns their city.
The parable of the tenants in the vineyard, right before this in chapter 21, is also a story about killing the servants the owner sent, and even his son. Jesus is telling us again and again how serious it is to refuse God’s invitation.
So what should we ask ourselves before this Word? I don’t think the question is how much church work we have done. I would like to ask it this way:
“When my plans meet God’s calling, am I giving God room to adjust my life?”
Immigrant life is always busy. Because of work, children, health, and making a living, every day we “go our own ways.” Yet even in those busy steps, God is still sending servants and calling, “Come quickly.” Are we hearing that voice?
We can look back on the Korean Caucus’s 50th anniversary the same way. So many people have labored over these 50 years, and we must be grateful. But before that labor, what comes first is confessing the grace of God who called us to this land and led us this far.
If we said we got here because we did well, that would not be an honest confession. We came this far because there is One who called us.
So this week, before you begin each busy day, I hope you will pray like this: “Lord, among the things I must do today, help me to understand Your will, and help me to respond to it.”
Remembering the Place Grace Prepared for Me, Let Us Open a Place for Our Neighbors (vv. 8–10)
When the invited guests did not come, the king said to his servants, “Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.”
And verse 10: “Those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both evil and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
“Both evil and good.” When you read it, the evil are mentioned before the good.
This means the banquet was not a gathering only for admirable people. In other words, the reason God calls us is not found in our moral report card.
This Word gives us real strength. In life there are times we say, “Someone like me…?” But just because I am lacking does not mean God does not call me.
But here we need to look at ourselves. Having come in by grace, am I now checking other people’s qualifications?
How strange would it be for someone brought in from the street corner to ask another person standing at the church door, “Are you the right kind of person for this place?”
When you think about it, the 50-year history of Korean United Methodist churches is also the history of people called in from the street corners. Starting from the sugarcane fields of Hawaii, God gathered people who struggled with the language and had nothing to lean on, and made them into the church.
So the joy of celebrating 50 years must go on to ask to whom we will open our place in the years ahead. Our place must be open to the next generation, to those not comfortable with Korean, to those for whom church feels unfamiliar, and to those whose lives are not yet in order. Isn’t our church’s name Yeolin Church, the Open Church?
A person who remembers coming in by grace can invite others too. Because that is how I came in as well.
So this week, I hope you will take just one step beyond the familiar people around you. Greet someone who is alone first, and listen to their story. Just as the king’s servants went out to the street corners.
Clothed in Christ, Let Us Live Out the Grace We Have Received in Everyday Obedience (vv. 11–14)
But this story, which had been flowing so graciously, suddenly changes in verse 11: “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe…”
Until now it was a story about those who refused the banquet. Now it is a story about someone already inside the banquet. In other words, it is not about people outside the church, but about us inside the church.
Let me ask you something. What is this wedding robe?
People usually say it means “being well prepared” in offerings, devotion, service, and obedience. That is not wrong. But when we look closely at the text, a question arises.
These are people brought in from the street corners, whoever the servants met. Would they have had time to go home and change into a wedding robe? Yet all the other guests were wearing one.
So it seems right to understand that this robe was not something the guests brought with them, but something the king who gave the banquet provided.
Verse 12 says the man “was speechless.” In the original language the word is ephimōthē, which means his mouth was shut, as if a muzzle were put on an animal. The same word is used in verse 34 of the same chapter, where Jesus silenced the Sadducees. Why would he have nothing to say? Not because he had no robe, but because he did not put on the robe he was given.
Think of a Korean wedding. Some people just hand in their gift envelope, barely glance at the bride and groom, and head straight to the dining hall. They eat the banquet food, but they have no interest in the ones the banquet is for.
We can see this man that way. He wanted the banquet food, but he refused the new clothes the king offered, and sat there in his own clothes, his own way.
To understand what this robe is, we need to look together at the parable of the two sons just before this, in chapter 21, verses 28 to 32.
When the father tells them to go and work in the vineyard, one son says, “I will go,” but does not go. The other son first says he will not, but then changes his mind and goes. And Jesus asks: Which of the two did the will of his father?
Read this way, the robe can be seen as a life that actually responds to God’s calling. Being at the banquet, having confessed our faith, is not the end of it.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, people cheered, “Hosanna!” But a few days later, the same people shouted, “Crucify him!” Cheering is easy. But obedience is hard. That is why today’s sermon is titled “Beyond Cheers, Toward Obedience.”
Then what does it mean to put on that robe? Galatians 3:27 says that those who were baptized into Christ have clothed themselves with Christ. It means we have come to belong to Christ, and now the standard and direction of our lives are joined to Him.
And Colossians 3:12 shows what that robe looks like: “Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”
But notice what Paul first calls the believers. He calls them “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.” Only then does he tell them to live that way.
In other words, we do not pile up obedience in order to be loved. Because we are already loved, we respond to that love.
John Wesley also preached on this text and called the wedding robe “holiness,” that is, a holy life. Receiving the robe by grace and living each day in a way that fits that robe: this is what we Methodists call justification and sanctification.
So when we talk about the robe, we must not measure it by how much we have given or served. We must ask how our words, relationships, and choices are changing as people who belong to Christ. Offerings and service are precious responses that come from that love, but they alone cannot replace the substance of faith.
Of course, the words of judgment in verses 13 and 14 cannot be taken lightly: “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.”
This is a stern warning against a faith that rests comfortably on the mere fact of being invited, while turning away from God’s will.
But we must not read this as telling us to live trembling with fear that we will be thrown out for a single small mistake. In the parable of the two sons, the son who first said no, when he changed his mind and went, became the son who did his father’s will.
So this Word is not so much meant to frighten us as it is a call to turn again today and respond to God.
So this week, I hope each of you will choose one act of obedience. It doesn’t have to be grand. Holding back once when harsh words are about to come out toward your family. Apologizing first for something you did wrong. Listening to the situation of someone in need and actually helping them. I believe this is what it means to live clothed in Christ.
Closing
The 50th anniversary banquet of the Korean Caucus is over. Looking back, what has carried us through the past 50 years was the ordinary obedience of the many people who quietly held their places. The next 50 years, too, will be carried on not so much by the applause of the banquet day, but by the small acts of obedience we offer every Monday morning.
I think again about the urgency I mentioned at the beginning. Time passes, and we grow older. But to me, what is more regrettable than growing older is our faith not growing as much as the time that has passed. So I do not intend to let go of this urgency.
God called us first, made room for us though we are lacking, and clothed us with a robe we could never provide ourselves. Now, relying on that grace, let us live clothed in Christ.
Let the Word we received today become a word we speak tomorrow, a posture of welcoming someone, a choice to practice love. When we fall, let us return to the Lord again; when our strength runs short, let us ask for His help and walk one step at a time.
The banquet is ready. The robe has already been given. Now I hope that you and I will move beyond cheers, toward obedience.
Beloved members of Yeolin Church, I love you.
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