First Presbyterian Church
Ready to be Chosen
Sermon for October 09, 2005
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Our reading from Exodus explains what's going on with the Israelites while they wait for Moses to return. We'll be reading from my translation, but you can follow along in your pew Bibles on page 78. Listen for the word of God as it is found in the book of Exodus, 32:1-14.

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled around Aaron, and said to him, “Arise, make gods for us, who will walk in front of us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.”

Aaron said to them, “Remove the gold earrings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”

So all the people removed the gold earrings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and made them a calf of molten metal; and they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

When Aaron saw, he built an altar before it; and Aaron uttered a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to Yahweh.”

They rose early the next day, and offered whole burnt offerings and they brought sacrifices of well-being and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel.

Yahweh said to Moses, “Go down at once! For your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly, have turned aside quickly from the way that I commanded them; they made for themselves a calf of molten metal and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.'”

Yahweh said to Moses, “I see this people, and they are a stiff necked people. Now let me alone, so that my anger may burn against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses appeased Yahweh his god, and said, “O Yahweh, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'?

Turn from your burning anger; change your mind and do not bring evil on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, who you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'”

And Yahweh changed his mind regarding the evil that he planned to bring on his people.

This ends our reading from the book of Exodus. What sort of a God is it, whose mind can be changed, who can repent when a mere human argues as Moses did?

And where did the Israelites get all that gold to melt down? Weren't they destitute in the desert? They weren't. They took the Egyptians jewelry (Exodus 3:22). They weren't poor. They just wanted a god they could see. A god who would stay still. But the message of the text is that god can't be captured into an object. God is not limited. God is alive and active and moving.

This is one of those stories that tells us God is alive and is in a relationship with us. Many of us Presbyterians don't want a God who bargains, reflects, repents, and turns. But that's who this story is about. Our story comes from the strand in the Bible that speaks of God in very human terms. We may not like it, but it's there. Moses was able to convince God not to punish the Israelites. Not because the Israelites deserved mercy, but because God's character warrants it.

Our Psalm reading tells us more about God's character. Please turn to page 554 for our unison psalm reading. We'll read verses 1-6 and then skip to verse 19. Psalm 103 reminds us what God is about, and reminds us to praise God. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Psalm 103:1-6 and 19-22.

1 Of David. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits--

3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

5 who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

6 The LORD works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.

19 The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.

20 Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, obedient to his spoken word.

21 Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will.

22 Bless the LORD, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul.

This ends our reading from the psalm. Please rise as you are able to sing hymn #167.

Please be seated.

In our text from Matthew's gospel, Jesus is still teaching in the temple, overheard by the chief priests and some of the Pharisees. Jesus has been telling a series of stories condemning the priests and Pharisees, accusing them of not doing God's will and rejecting God's servant. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Matthew 22:1-14.

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, mistreated 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.

This ends our reading from God's word. May the same spirit who inspired these words interpret them to our understanding.

Anthem: Alleluia

Do any of you remember the Northwestern University women's lacrosse team going to the white house? They celebrated their championship season and posed for a photo with President Bush. It was a fine photo. The President is in the center. The young college women are athletic and beautiful, most of them wearing skirts or dresses. It was summer in Washington D.C., so some of the girls had on sandals, without stockings, and a few of them wore flip flops. The kind with real soles, not just flat rubber beach thongs. Still. Flip-flops. The headlines read “You wore flip-flops to the White House?” 1

That headline was taken from an e-mail written by the brother of one of the Lacrosse team members. 2 He was surprised to see a newsphoto of his sister in flip-flops, next to the president of the United States. Everyone knows you dress up to go to the White House. It is not a casual occasion. Meeting the president includes wearing real shoes. But to many teenagers and college women, flip-flops are real shoes, as long as they have real soles.

One columnist who wrote about this incident has a teenage daughter, whom he asked what she'd wear to the White House. She said “a nice skirt and blouse, maybe.” He wrote “I sighed in relief that I had not raised a Philistine. At which point she mentioned that she would top off her ensemble with these cool new shoes they have that look like high heels, but they're really sneakers. Or maybe she said they look like sneakers, but they're really high heels -- I was busy cringing at the time. Anyway, my point is, there are fates worse than flip-flops.” 3

Young women have fewer formal occasions now, and fewer high heels in their closets.

And then the columnist said, “As near as I can tell, about the only person who didn't raise an eyebrow was President Bush. I'm thinking this is because he has daughters roughly the age of the Northwestern students. So he's just glad they didn't drop by wearing low-rise jeans that showed off thong underwear and tattoos across their tailbones.”

Who decides what's appropriate to wear to what events? Fashion is ever changing. Some of you remember when women never wore black to a wedding. It was considered insulting; as if they were grieving the marriage and wearing mourning clothes. Now, bridesmaids wear black at the bride's request. Black goes with the color scheme. It's elegant, and a black dress is useful in any women's wardrobe. I went to a wedding once wearing turquoise, and felt out of place. Most of the guests were in black. I missed the memo.

When we read that parable of Jesus, our sympathies often go to the man who was kicked out for not having a wedding garment. We have the impression he was just hauled off the streets into the banquet. But no, he would have had time to get something appropriate I think of the king's slaves who were bringing everyone in. Surely they could have found something for this man. But he chose to dishonor the king by not wearing something that indicated he recognized the importance of the occasion.

And we cringe at the tag line at the end of the parable: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” It sounds grim, doesn't it? As if we don't measure up. God's not going to choose us after all. We will miss out on being God's people, on being a part of the realm of God because we're not good enough.

But that's not what the parable is about. Matthew is telling the priests and Pharisees what the kingdom of God is like and what the servants, or slaves, of God are supposed to do, and who the guests are supposed to be. The ones who aren't chosen are the ones who are too busy or too hostile to God's message. Those are the ones who weren't worthy. They weren't worthy because they didn't show up.

But after the regular guests reject the summons, the slaves gather everyone off the streets. They gather in both the good and the bad. The servants of the king are supposed to invite everybody.

So I think the phrase “Many are called, few are chosen” is supposed to be ironic. Or humorous. Because many were chosen in the beginning: the original guests, and then many more were called in to the banquet, everyone, the good and the bad. The kingdom, the realm of God is like that.

Being in God's kingdom, in God's realm, living under God's rule, means we are dressed for God's work. The new testament speaks of wearing the mantle of Christ, the armor of the gospel, being clothed like the lilies. We celebrate that though the chosen people were not faithful and made a golden god, God remains faithful even to us, and it is God who chooses us and invites us, good and bad, to the banquet.

We don't have to be good enough to get into the realm of God. We just have to want to be. Amen.
________

1 Kilian, Michael, and Christi Parsons, July 15, 2005, Chicago Tribune.

2 Tom Darmody, brother to Kate Darmody.

3 Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald, 7-25-05. I read it in the Oregonian.