Adam at the Wedding

Trinity 20

October 21, 2012

Adam at the Wedding

Matthew 22:11-12

In name of Jesus. Amen.

Adam tried to crash the wedding in Jesus' parable. He showed up at the feast, wearing fig leaves. And the king noticed.

Matthew 22:11-12

But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.

The man in the parable is not named because his name isn't important. But let's put Adam at the wedding today and see the point Jesus was making.

The man's clothes were wrong. And since this is a parable—a made-up story to make a point—the clothes represent something. I'll tell you what I think they represent in a minute. But first let's explain what's going on with the clothes.

In those days special wedding clothes would be provided without cost to all the guests. Everyone wore the wedding clothes during the multiple days of the feast. Anyone not wearing the wedding clothes would stand out, just like we'd notice if someone today wore sweatpants and a hoodie to a wedding service or reception.

The king, who was the host of the celebration, went over to this stand-out. He called him friend. But here friend perhaps was used in a negative way. (Think of two politicians debating and one calling the other, friend, but they're not really friends.)

The king wanted to know how he got in without the right clothes. The man didn't have an answer, so the king threw him out of the feast.

Based on the king's reaction, the clothes represent goodness. You can either get the clothes from Him or you can make them yourself, that is, you can either receive goodness from Him or you can make up your own goodness.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam was God's invited guest. He was given everything he needed or desired: food without sweat, a beautiful wife without the bickering, a perfect relationship with God without any fear. He was naked, but in the most important way, he was clothed with the righteousness and goodness of God. He moved around the garden in God's movable feast of delicious fruit trees. Life was a banquet and it was good.

But then Adam decided to make his own feast. He brought his own forbidden fruit to his table and tried to have his own party. You could say that Adam crashed the Garden, just like the unnamed parable man crashed the wedding.

In his sin Adam put on his own clothes. They were rags, made of leaves. The leaves were inadequate and embarrassing. Fig leaves are our goodness that we try to pass off before God. Let's run our “clothes” through God's fashion show on page 156, and consider if they'd pass the test surrounded by true holiness.

Personal Preparation for Holy Communion

Our clothes, that is, our goodness before God, are like wearing that hoodie to the wedding. It's just not going to work. It is a kind of “goodness” that's going to get God's attention, but not the kind of attention we want.

I've always wanted to go to a restaurant where they make you wear a jacket. (I figure the food should be good.) You wouldn't wear gym clothes to a fancy place like that. If you tried to wear causal clothes to a formal eatery, you'd be saying that you get to make the rules that everyone else has to live by. In a word, you're god. And this would doubly be the case, if they offered the completary jacket and you refused.

Sinful old Adam was at that wedding. The king offered him beautiful wedding clothes to wear. These clothes had cost the king's Son His life, but cost old Adam not a penny to wear. They were freely given. But Adam refused. He'd rather wear his own ratty fig leaves, his own pathetic version of goodness.

Salvation is not a matter of sewing your own clothes or wearing the right clothes, making your own goodness and believing it should be enough for God. It is a matter of receiving the gifts that Jesus gives to you. He called and chose you and put His righteous robes on over your old dirty clothes, so that now you have a place at the table of the Lord's Supper. And you will be seated at the heavenly feast forever.

Old Adam crashed the wedding, but Christ crushed the old evil foe for you.

In the name of the Father and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.