House for All Sinners and Saints

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    I am the mission developer for House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. We are an urban liturgical community with a progressive yet deeply rooted theological imagination. Check out our site for more info.

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    The blog of a dad, husband, Lutheran pastor, emerging, failing, conversing, confessing.
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    This is a great emerging church community we spent time with in Oxford. Their website is well worth a look, especially the page "the spirit of MayBe"
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Comments

i love the way god speaks so loud and clear through you, sweet nadia.

This text bothered the hell out of me yesterday morning and then took up the majority of our Quaker meeting scripture time last night as different folks shared how they'd made sense of it (after I declared that this text SUCKS). THIS interpretation makes sense, Nadia. Thank you so much!!

Great Sermon Nadia! I took one look at the Gospel Reading, preached on Philippians instead and talked about my obsession with detesting plastic coffee cup lids. You sermon did it (to use a technical term). Peace, Ben

"So what if the hero is the guy who wouldn’t don the king’s wedding robe?"

Friend,

Thanks so much for this. You've stumbled onto the same alternative I had come across.

If you haven't yet, take a look at Richard Q. Ford's "The Parables of Jesus." He applies your critique to a whole set of parables.

Blessings,
Michael

wow, I certainly have never heard of this parable preached in this way before. Very interesting!

Thank you for sharing. If you have not heard of Rene Girard, your sermon is very Girardian. If you have not located the girardian lectionary it has been helpful for me in my proclamation.

Finally, I want to thank you for being in Dallas and sharing your story. Please know you have another mainliner who is pulling for your ministry and your community.

Peace

Wow. Never would have thought of it this way.

One of the things I very much appreciate about your preaching is your total honesty. The text doesn't work well - and you say so!

Thank you, for all you do.

Wow! I filleted the Gospel on Sunday - cut out all the unpalatable bits. A few weeks ago I even found myself saying 'I don't believe Jesus said this (even so my father will do to those ...)
Your take on this parable is new to me, and makes such good sense. I just have to wait another three years before the reading comes round again ...!

brilliant, thank you.

My sentiments were similar; I blogged about this text last week:

"Matthew 22: The King is NOT God"
- http://hackingchristianity.net/2011/10/matthew-22-the-king-is-not-god.html

I was just reading this parable for my seminary class, and was troubled by it. Thank you for your words.

A wise minister friend once said from the pulpit that if yu don't understand something put it in a box marked "For Further Light." Thank you for being that light on this parable.

After reading your post and banging my head against a door post (more solid than a wall) a couple of times, thinking, "Why didn't I see that?" and taking aspirin for my new headache, I wanted to thank you for posting this and making the Worst.Parable.Ever. make some sense.

Can you post your sermons in advance for those of us in the slow lane? :D

What a thoughtful and provocative (and theological sense-making) sermon. Thanks, Nadia. This is fabulous!

This view brings up more questions about the parable then it answers. If the king is a tyrant. Then who are the people that were invited bit did not come? Ur saying that those too must be holy people of sorts. Y would they mistreat and kill his servants? And when ur saying some one is unworthy, u ussually mean they r not good enough. How were they not worthy for mistreating and killing the servants?
also imagine a wedding banquet. Wouldnt regular people want to go to somewhere where there is lots of food and wine instead of being terrified? ...
I'm pretty sure this parable is talking specifically about how the jews were the ones invited "chosen" but they did not listen and kill his prophets "slaves" that came to tell the people about this amazing banquet that is going to take place. Thats when God decides instead hes going to reach out to all these other people, or gentiles. The person without the nice clothes is just like a man who was told that he has to come to God clean. But didn't. And he had nothing to say because he doesn't have an excuse. Its like someone who says they r christian. But constantly sins. And he knows he is sinning but keeps doing it. Hes not going to haven.

Our pastor interpreted the parable as follows: the King is Herod... The first invitees were the Jews who rejected his reign as King... They ignore his scheme to join Religion and Empire... The people who eventually do come into the "celebration" are those who accept Herods scheme and the man who shows up in normal clothes that outrages the King is Christ... who they killed.

how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard,
Hebrews 2:3

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.
John 10:1

sorry..the john 10 passage i posted above is out of context for the most part here..i'll just stick with Hebrews 2:3...

My only drama with this is the title: the worst parable ever - because I don't think it is - Luke 16 (I hope) The Parable of the Shrewd Manager - now that is the worst parable ever!!

Love your take on this one though! Has generated much discussion with my son-in-law at Bible College!!

Wow you failed pretty hard for somebody nailing jello to a tree, nice work!

Thanks for the eloquent sermon. You're familiar with the book: Parables as Subversive Speech Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed by William R. Herzog? He takes the same position.

The King is God, those first invited were the Jews, they killed the Prophets. Those invited from the streets are Gentiles, the one at the table without a robe is a person that tried to enter the presence of God with being clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Its pretty obvious to anyone who'd have a basic understanding of the biblical narrative.

*without

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