22 August 2013 - dress code

22 August 2013 - dress code

Some ignored the invitation and went away,
one to his farm, another to his business.
The rest laid hold of his servants,
mistreated them, and killed them.

How often do we ignore the LORD's many invitations to us.  Hopefully we aren't openly hostile to them.  Yet many of us still imagine our other priorities of life to be more pressing than this great wedding feast.

Then the king said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.

None of us is worthy to come to the wedding feast of the lamb.  Yet he considers us worthy if we just accept his invitation.  He seeks us out in the very circumstances of our lives.  He invites us right from the streets of our day to day existence.  He invites us "bad and good alike" because he is so generous.

All he asks is that we wear a wedding garment.  We know from the symbolism of the baptism robe that this is ultimately something he gives us rather than something that symbolizes our own efforts.  It is to us to keep it unstained, as the rite of baptism enjoins on us.  His grace is a fountain that whitens our garments just as we saw his own garments whitened in the transfiguration.  Without it, our garments quickly become soiled with the dust of this life.

The LORD wants us to be present to him.  He wants us to be open to him.  He wants us to trust in him to preserve the grace of our baptism.

Blessed the man who makes the LORD his trust;

He himself empowers the faith, hope, and charity, that this entails.

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.

This is a two part statement.  Both are necessary.  Do not lose the "[h]ere I am" to rush to the "do your will." Only in his presence, trusting in his strength, can we do his will.  He invites, he clothes in righteousness, and he continues to renew us in grace.  Apart from him we have nothing.  Even once we begin with him, we must continue to say yes, lest we soil our baptismal grace.

When the daughter of Jephthah finds herself in a bad situation which the LORD does not intend she nevertheless displays profound trust in the goodness of God.  Even facing death she puts the LORD's will as she understands it above her own.

Do with me as you have vowed,
because the LORD has wrought vengeance for you
on your enemies the Ammonites.”

Although we read the following:

Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;

She is to be a burnt offering because of a rash vow.  Even in this situation which God does not actively will but which she cannot avoid she is still able to reply with inspiring trust in the words of the psalmist:

then said I, “Behold I come.”