Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth: Economics in 2008

Proper23-A 10/12/2008 St. Paul’s

Exodus 32:1-14 Psalm 106

Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22:1-14

There is a party, at the bank. The bank president has mortgages to give out. He wants people to own their own homes. For some reason, the people he calls on first – people with good credit, with money in the bank – aren’t interested. They don’t come to the mortgage party. So the bank president sends the tellers out and they bring in all sorts of people, some with good credit and some with bad credit, people who had never owned homes, people who were new to American life and to American banking, as well as old timers, people who had all their paperwork in order and people who could not read or write English. All these people were called in, good and bad, and invited to get a mortgage. Then the bank president sees one of these unprepared people, no papers filled out, no credit, not much of a job, and he singles him out. “Friend, how did you get in here without papers?” The man was speechless. Then the bank president said to the security guards, “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 to own a home and get a mortgage, but few are chosen.”

There is another party. This one is on Wall Street. This time the chairman of the Federal Reserve invites all the bank presidents, good and bad: the ones who loaned money to people with good credit, to people who could pay their mortgages, and the ones who loaned money to everyone, to people with no papers, no credit, no money. The ones who cared about people who wanted to own their own homes, even if they didn’t have too much money, the ones who wanted to help people, as well as the bad bank presidents, who just took advantage of people who didn’t have too much money. The chairman of the Federal Reserve looked around at the bank presidents, good and bad, and saw which ones were the best prepared for the party, which ones had made the most money. And then he grabbed one of the bank presidents by the scruff of the neck and said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without hedge funds or derivatives, without mortgage-backed securities or sub-prime loans?” And the bank president was speechless. Then the chairman of the Federal Reserve said to the Securities and Exchange Commission, “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.”

Someone has been having a party in the desert with our money. Someone has taken all our jewelry and our homes and our retirement accounts and our nest eggs, and melted them down into a big golden calf. And we were invited to this party, and we all went, the good and the bad. And just like thousands of years ago in that far off desert at the foot of Mt. Sinai, God is angry. God is ready to throw everybody into the outer darkness – more than weeping and gnashing of teeth: this time God’s wrath will consume us like a hot fire.

What lessons these are for an anxious time. Are we headed into a depression? Will we all be turned out into the streets? Are we nothing but sinners in the hand of an angry God?

Are these two stories, one from Exodus and one from the Gospel of Matthew, about God’s wrath? Or God’s judgment? Or is that the same thing?

Many people do believe that God is a punishing God, that God’s judgment means we can never measure up, that we have disobeyed, that God is angry, and that that is the end of us.

Look again at what Moses did. Moses is himself pretty angry with this golden calf-fest. He sees this seemingly irreparable division between God and God’s people – between God’s expectations for their living the way God would have them live and the people’s gold-crazed worship of something else – and Moses steps right into that breach. Moses asks God to change his mind, to turn away from that justifiable anger and remember how much God loves these people, however wayward and selfish and whiny and stiff-necked they are. Moses reminds God of the promise GOD made to these very same people, and God changes his mind. There could be no worse sinners than those people who took all their money, their future, their assets, their gold, all that they had, and dumped it into something as foolish as a golden calf. There are no worse sinners than these – but the hand that holds them is the hand of a God who loves them and who keeps his promises. The story of the golden calf is a story not of God’s wrath but of God’s grace.

When Jesus tells this very troubling story of the wedding banquet, the illustrations he uses – the kingdom of heaven, the king, the slaves, the guests the wedding, the wedding garment – these are not religious images. Today we think they are religious, because we have read them for 2000 years in the Bible. But in Jesus’ day they were illustrations from the secular world. People would recognize the powerful and capricious king, the kind of ruler who had absolute control over their lives. They would recognize the arrogant ones who refused to show up, the thugs who would follow violent, death-dealing orders without question, the slaves and poor people who would cower in fear, not understanding what was going on and not knowing what would happen next. And so is this a story of God’s wrath? Or of God’s judgment? And is there any difference?

This is a story full of symbols. The kingdom of heaven represents the way the world operates when God is in charge. The wedding banquet represents the abundance of God’s grace. Who gets invited in? Everybody: the good and the bad. Even after the first guests refuse to attend, God does not seek out only the good ones – God still invites everyone in. In the kingdom of heaven there is always enough to go around. Even though all is provided – not only food but wedding clothes as well – and even at that late hour, someone is not ready. Someone does not accept the full invitation. Someone still refuses God’s grace. Someone still doesn’t get it about how God wants us to live.

The people to whom Jesus preached lived in difficult times. They lived lives of insecurity and fear, under the threat of violence and in a land where powerful people called the shots. From the point of view of life in these United States this week, we can resonate with that kind of life.

When Jesus spoke to people around him about the kingdom of heaven, he didn’t mean something far off, pie in the sky by and by. He used language that described their current reality – a reality of fear and powerlessness and insecurity – and told them that the world did not have to be like that. He told them that God was on their side. That the king would throw the scalawags out, the ones not prepared to accept God’s invitation to live as God would have them live.

Yes, this is a story of God’s judgment, but it is a story of hope. There are things that God will just not put up with, Jesus says. The world as it is – of greed, and homelessness, and violence, and fear – is not the way it has to be.

When I was preparing this sermon, and first read over the lessons, I thought that Philippians lesson -- I can’t preach on that. Too simplistic, too happy for the news of the week. But now I think just the opposite. The Philippians passage is what the wedding banquet is all about. The Philippians passage describes the life God invites us to share, for the abundance of the wedding banquet is all around us. Rejoice, God says. Be gentle. The Lord is near. Don’t worry. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, whatever is excellent, whatever is praiseworthy: think on THESE things. In times like this, this may pass all understanding, but this truly is the peace of God.