The readings today are Exodus 32:1-14, Psalm 106,  Philippians 4:1-9, and Matthew 22:1-14.

Now,  in approaching these, you’ve got to remember we’re waiting or wanting to know what God has to say to us.  I cannot claim to be any great theologian, or great theorist, but  I can see what’s written here and hopefully I can  give you pause for thought and maybe you will find a way of seeking God for yourself in these words.

Anyway, the story in Exodus is quite interesting in that  it has the end part of it, after all the shenanigans with oxes and Moses being away. God says to Moses something very strange. He says  go down at once to your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, they have acted perversely. God wants to destroy this people and he wants Moses to  be the progenitor of a new people  but Moses implores God and says, “Oh Lord, why does your wrath burn against your people?”

So, Moses turns it around and  he says, “Turn from your fierce wrath. Change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people and then the phrase, that maybe causes some pause,… and the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

As the psalm says, Moses stood in the breach, and  it says had not Moses his chosen one stood in the breach before him to turn away his wrath from destroying them they would have been destroyed.

And in the midst of the psalm it says happy are those who observe justice who do righteousness at all times.

These people, they turned from righteousness, they turned from doing justice  because Moses was not there to watch over them. And Aaron, Aaron  seems to be quite a weak and fickle man in that he  followed their directing.

What is  this  justice and righteousness that God’s calling us to? Well the beautiful passage in Philippians says, “Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”

So, their anxiety ended up with them  making this horrible calf image and worship that instead of God. Now, we can see that  there seems to be a bit of a contradiction here.

God’s calling us to be gentle. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. And yet when we read Exodus, we can see that  God is anything but gentle in this account.

Coming to the gospel then maybe this is our key because Jesus speaks a parable. He’s spoken to the  Pharisees; he’s taught the Pharisees and he’s told them all manner of things like the stone that the builders rejected will become the cornerstone on which they will stumble and the cornerstone will fall on them.

Let’s have a look at this. It’s the parable where the king has a banquet prepared for the  wedding feast of his son. Those who are invited are summoned and told that it’s ready, but they didn’t want to come. They didn’t come and they made light of what it was.

And when he sent more people along to say come on  it’s all ready, come to the wedding banquet, they decided not only were they going to ignore this king, some of them mistreated and killed some the slaves who  had brought the message and the king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers and burnt their city.

Then he said to the slaves, the wedding is ready but those invited were not worthy. They go into the streets and they tell people you’re going to a banquet and the slaves gather in both the good and the bad. And then the wedding hall was filled with guests.

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 into here without a wedding robe?” The king was speechless. The King was enraged and he found his voice and threw the man out to suffer.

And then we have this very enigmatic little phrase of Jesus’s, …for many are called but few are chosen. What are we to think about this? Because  this parable portrays a very violent and fickle king, a tyrant who is definitely not loved because people don’t want to go to the marriage feast; he’s capricious having destroyed the cities and murdered the people, he forces the feasters to come. Were they in fear? They must have seen what happened when the other people said they wouldn’t come, they got killed so maybe they said …we’re definitely going to go to this party then because we don’t want to end up being killed as well. They’re not there for a good reason, and then we have this person not wearing wedding robes.

Now I think, and I might be very wrong, that  when Jesus says,…may be compared to a king, at the beginning of the parable, I think he’s talking to the Pharisees and he says, This is the god that you are following. You’re following this tyrant. You’re following this tyrant who is forcing people to the feast through violence and destruction and murder. And this is not the way of Jesus.

We can see from Paul, it says, “The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I think as a metaphor, Jesus is sneaking something in that is a bit strange to our ears. I think the person not wearing the wedding robe is the person who’s actually standing up to the tyranny of the king and we know from modern days, tyrants do not like people criticizing them. They,  if they don’t get the prize they want, they make sure that everybody else is going to be removed from the earth, as they would put it. They react in a way that is violent. They react in a way that is disproportionate.

In fact, wiping out a city because it didn’t comply, because they didn’t come to your wedding banquet, is not a good thing.  And we know this in our heart. When we hear this parable, if we’re with the Pharisees, then we hear a violent god and we agree with it. I’m not sure that’s what Jesus meant, he doesn’t want us to hear that. He wants us to hear , …friend, and not, …how did you get in here without a wedding robe?

And I think this is where Christianity stands. We stand against the tyrant. He called us in, good and bad. How can he criticize? He can criticize because everybody should have been in fear of him and should have been in a wedding robe.

 I’m sure you’ve heard this read in different ways and the story in Luke is very different, but I think it’s a warning from Jesus that the Pharisees are out to get the followers of Jesus. And the followers of Jesus must hear it as well. Here we are. We’re standing here. We’re not in their party. We’re standing against what the Pharisees are standing for. And Jesus warns them, you will be thrown out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The irony  is, is that we feel that’s our position before God if we have this view of God as being violent and capricious and a tyrant,

The kingdom of heaven is not like this. I think it is compared to this king’s rule. That word there, may be compared to,  I’m no  expert but it’s not …like but ..likened to, it’s a passive verb I am told.

But, be warned tyrants are capricious, they’re big babies and they’re easy to offend and resistance to a tyrant is dangerous,  and yet truly Jesus is the cornerstone that they have rejected and on which they will stumble.

When it says, …for many are called but few are chosen, it seems it’s a contradiction; It tells us there’s something wrong with our interpretation of this story because the many are called are in the party. Well, who was the chosen one? Was it the guy who was thrown out or was it the many who remained within the party.

Jesus is putting a contradiction in there to  alert us to this – this is not the way God is. This might be the way the history of Israel has gone. This might be the way the Pharisees view the history of Israel. But actually the few is the guy who was chucked out. The many are the ones who remained within the party. So I wonder if that’s pause for thought.

Enjoy Sunday, be blessed and rest in Jesus, knowing that, …happy are those who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times. Finally, brothers and sisters, Paul says, “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Grace and peace. Amen.

Picture attribution

Lorrain, Claude, 1600-1682. Landscape with Adoration of the Golden Calf, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt University Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://act.library.vanderbilt.edu/artworks/46723 [retrieved October 11, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Lorrain_017.jpg.