Every year my wife throws a Halloween party for which she goes “all out”; and every year she tries to persuade me to dress up in a costume, which I always resist. And so every year I feel like the man who in Jesus’ parable in Matthew’s gospel came to the wedding feast without a proper wedding garment, about whom the king said to his attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The controversy in my house is not about who is going to be thrown out into the outer darkness—not really-at least I hope not--as much as it is about what is appropriate for the occasion—but more on that later.

With regard to this reading from Matthew’s gospel, we often focus on that “weeping and gnashing of teeth” part. The other verse we focus on is the concluding summary, the real crux of the issue, where Jesus says that “many are called, but few are chosen.” This declaration is troubling because it seems to contradict the point of election. “Election,” you recall, refers to God’s choice of a particular people to be his own, his selection of Israel and the church for a specific purpose, a particular mission, and as the special object of his love. But if we are called, then surely we are also chosen. How could we be called, but not chosen? To say that many are called, but few are chosen seems to be something of a contradiction a worst and a puzzling statement at best, whereby what should be a promise suddenly becomes a kind of threat. Yet there it stands, and somehow we must make sense of it.

One modern commentator on this passage has offered the following—and I think quite helpful—interpretation:

Two things here stand out: the comment about reluctant obedience, and the comment about the few who actually and visibly embrace their calling.

First, the matter of reluctant obedience: reluctant obedience is really no obedience at all. The parable talks about how the initial invitees turned down the invitation to the wedding banquet, even to the point of mistreating and killing the slaves who had been sent by the king to issue the invitation and to plead on behalf of the king for their attendance. What is the parable referring to here? The reference may be to God, who had sent his prophets to warn Israel to repent and turn from her apostasy, from her idolatry, and from injustice especially to the poor and to turn once again to her God; but the prophets were spurned, rejected, mistreated, and many of them were killed. God himself finally comes to his people in his only-begotten Son, who in his person sums up all the law and the prophets, but even he is nailed to a tree. So, just as Jesus had done when he gathered together the tax collectors and sinners and shared meals with them in order to demonstrate his proclamation of the coming kingdom of God and what that kingdom will look like, the king in this parable sends his slaves into the streets to invite everyone they see, both good and bad, so that the banquet hall would be filled. But the king spies a man who came without a wedding-garment. The man comes, but is not sure why he is there or that he really wants to be there. For his half-hearted obedience, he is treated by the king in the same way as those who refused to show up. Reluctant obedience is no obedience at all.

We are all aware of the fact that there are many nominal Christians. I’m struck by this every time we have a wedding or a funeral where most of the congregation refuses to participate. Nominal Christianity hardly is a new phenomenon, nor should we regard it as unusual, though these days it is I fear on the rise. Now it is true that nominal adherence to the faith, however, is not always what it seems. Some of it may be due to the fact that we are all on a journey and are at various points and locations along the way, some of us further along, some of us further behind, some taking detours, some running down dead ends. Let me emphasize that all are on a journey of faith, each and every one of us, and indeed each and every person who has ever lived; for everyone, every human being by virtue of our being created in the image of God, has some kind of faith. The question is never whether one has faith, the question is always what the object of that faith is, i.e., in what or in whom do you place your trust, give your allegiance, pin your heart? Thus a lukewarm or developing faith is one thing, but a truly nominal faith, i.e., a faith in name only, is something else again, and a big problem, because it is a misplaced faith, faith in something other than in the Holy One of Israel, the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In this sense, then, reluctant faith in the God of Israel may be faith, but not in God, and thus reluctant obedience to him is no obedience at all.

The other issue before us, one that follows on from the first, has to do with the declaration, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” We are tempted, of course, to do God’s choosing for him. We want to separate the sheep from the goats, the good from the bad, the elect from the reprobate, the insiders from the outsiders, the normal from the abnormal, friends from foes, allies from enemies, the deserving from the undeserving—and on and on. But God uses a different standard. He calls everyone, showing his true intention that all should come to his great banquet, demonstrating that his love is open and extends to all. With his invitation comes the unlimited extension of his mercy, whereby he shows no partiality and no prejudice. All are invited to his feast.

But not all will respond, or respond appropriately, to the invitation. Some will turn it down or ignore it, some will scoff at the offer, and others will respond either half-heartedly or inappropriately. A few will take up the offer gratefully and respond positively. These few are Israel and the church, whose faith and hope are in the Holy One of Israel. But even in Israel and in the church there are those on the margin and those at the center, those who embrace God’s call with all their heart, and those who can take it or leave it, those whose lives show forth God’s sacrificial love, and those whose lives are more a reflection of the world’s values and priorities. Yet it is that tiny minority that stands for the whole. They show the way and lead the way for everyone else, because it is they who have dressed appropriately through their faith and witness to the living God, who chose Israel to be his own and who raised Jesus from the dead, and they will lead the way for all to come into God’s promised future, a future foretold by Isaiah: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines…And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.”

-Amen-