Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 22:1-14
October 11, 2026
Isaiah rejoices when he writes, “My soul shall exalt in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,” as does the Psalmist when he writes, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; my cup overflows.”
Rest assured that you have been clothed with the garments of salvation, and that a table has been set for you with overflowing cups and filled with the choicest of foods. Your Heavenly Father doesn’t invite you to “rejoice” for no reason at all! But instead, He invites you to this heavenly feast with open arms. The feast of salvation is for all of us.
Paul says, emphatically, to “rejoice in the Lord always! Again, I will say, REJOICE!” And with such a Lord as our God, how could we not?
The temptation of sin, the anxieties of this life, all of those things that we feel are worth worrying about and losing sleep over, such things will come. The one thing we learn in this life, if nothing else, is that this world, this sinful fallen world, is full of struggles, full of reason to be anxious, full of reason to fear and to doubt, and to give up. As we learn in our Gospel today, it is tempting, it is attractive to walk away from our Lord’s invitation and concern ourselves instead with work or with business, with worldly things that occupy what little time we have. Too often we find ourselves shewing away God’s invitation because for some reason in our minds we have convinced ourselves that there are better banquets to attend, better guests with which to mingle, a better feast to devour, and a more prestigious host.
When we compare the heavenly banquet God has prepared for us by sending us His only son, the bridegroom, and how by His death we have been given eternal life and salvation, is politics really that important? Is social liberation really something to devote our lives to, or what we see on TV or hear on the radio or read on the internet – is any of this worth it, compared to the riches of salvation and eternal life that await us?
See the only other host that exists is the devil, the only other feast to eat is death, the only other guests to mingle with are corpses, and the only other banquet to attend is hell. And when we stop for a moment and consider the reality of this life and of what is to come, we quickly realize that there is only one banquet worth the invite – and that is God’s banquet, God’s invitation to come and eat and drink and be satisfied.
For you have been taken up, you have been ‘raptured’ so to speak, from the depths of despair, muddied and bloodied with the pangs of your life’s battles; you were dirty, tired, full of sin, ornery, weak, and even lazy. And yet your names – each of your names and my name – is inscribed on the “cosmic guest list” of God, and God our Lord is not in the habit of scribbling out our names. You have been clothed in royal garments.
In ancient times, when invited guests would arrive at a wedding banquet, the master of the feast would bring a special cloak, a garment for the guest to wear. And the guests would wear that garment while celebrating the banquet. This way the true guests – those with invitations – were separated from those who came just to steal food or drink.
You HAVE been wrapped with such a garment by the Master of this Divine feast, by God Himself! And we know, by faith, that we are with our Lord in the great banquet, and so we rejoice! We rejoice in the savior’s birth, we rejoice in the words of grace and truth spoken by the mouth of our Lord, we rejoice in the atoning death of Christ our salvation, we rejoice in His resurrection and victory over death and the grave, and we rejoice because we too have been buried with our Lord and raised with Him to a new life.
But this rejoicing comes at a cost. For as we celebrate and rejoice in the victory of our Lord, we do so at the expense of our old nature, our old self. Those anxieties and trepidations which once haunted us and brought us pain are now replaced with prayer and supplication as we bring our requests to God with a thankful heart. Every worry, every fear, even the slightest hints of an anxious heart, God invites us to approach Him in prayer, to cast all our anxieties on Him and receive from Him the surpassing peace of heaven.
The old saying, “you are what you eat” certainly holds true for our souls as well as our bodies. We know that too much junk food, too many greasy potato chips, too many candy bars, too many pizzas, too many cokes or sweet teas will do…bad things to our bodies. We know that a lack of exercise and a bad diet will bring more hardship upon us than we’d like. And regarding our souls, our spiritual wellbeing, the same must be said. It’s not likely that having too many chocolate chip cookies will cause our spirit to wither away…, but what about too many Sunday mornings of sleeping in? What about a lack of time spent in meditation and reading of the Holy Scripture or Bible Study? What about a lack of prayer throughout the day, a lack of fellowship with God’s people? What about spending too much time worrying and allowing the troubles of this life to overwhelm you? What about spending time hating your neighbor rather than praying for him and finding ways to rejoice with him? What about time thinking impure thoughts rather than seeking out those thoughts which are pure?
All these things, and more, bring nothing but trouble. These things distract us from Christ, from the great banquet, and they distract us from who we NOW are. Instead, we ought to feed our souls, to nourish our spirits with thoughts that are pure, that are true, that are honorable, and just, and commendable. And it’s not just a switch, where one moment, we’re thinking impurely and the next we are thinking purely; where one moment, we’re thinking about the dishonorable and the next about the honorable. No. Our Lord is calling us, is inviting us to a life of honorable thinking. Because you see in a very real way we are banqueting, we are dining as guests of the King. And as our King’s most beloved guests, we are COMPELLED, on account of His graciousness, on account of His lavish goodness to us, on account of His Spirit who lives in us, we are compelled to think honorably.
We see and experience the work of Christ our King in our lives. We know; we experience the effect of forgiveness, the power of God’s love, the satisfaction of knowing that when our Lord returns, we won’t be off minding to ourselves but will be ready and eager to leave. We will be ready to join our savior in paradise where we will celebrate forever.
And we will be ready because today, now, we are practicing and doing the things that we have learned and that we have received. We aren’t out “living on the edge”, unsure about our future, unsure about our past, or unsure of who we are. Instead, we are living life, not just seeing the feast, not just smelling the food set before us. No, we are partakers of it! We are learning and receiving God’s Word through study and through worship. We are receiving God’s gifts of body and blood through the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper. We are receiving the gift of salvation through the waters of Holy Baptism; in all these ways, we are learning, we are receiving from our Father in heaven; in all these ways, and more, our Lord is saying to us, “Come, come to the feast; you WILL find nourishment for your body and soul.”
But a feast is no feast at all without fellowship – without the cup of blessing being past amongst each other, without the words of encouragement and of life being spoken to one another. No, this feast is no feast at all without you. And when you share the words and the wisdom and the love that God has so generously shared with you, when you share this with others, and more of the poor and the weak and the lame come to the heavenly banquet, you are sharing the very person of Christ – the very spirit of Christ in a very real way.
And thus, we are grateful; grateful that, while we are certainly individuals in this world with our own paths, our own vocations and our own lives, we are not ALONE in this world, but we are bound together with Christ and with one another. God has put us together, as a body here at St. Paul’s Lutheran church, and as part of the greater body of Christ throughout the world. When we as a congregation, as part of the body of Christ, feel the aches and pains of life, God continues to invite us, to call us, to draw us to Himself.
And we rejoice still all the more in Christ. Whether we are rich or poor, whether we are full or hungry, whether our bank accounts are abundant or empty, Christ is our contentment. Christ is our all, and in Christ we can do all things.
And while it is true that we, all too often, find ourselves wandering far, far from the banquet hall, from the feast our God and King has prepared; while it is true that all too often, we find the anxieties of life consuming us, the day-to-day stress of living wearing us down, we can still take heart. God continues tirelessly to call and invite us to the great banquet, and to feast on the fellowship we have in Christ Jesus. Rest assured your sins ARE forgiven! Rest assured you have been clothed in the royal garments. Rest assured that your invitation will NEVER expire. Amen.
