It was at the end of a worship committee meeting after a long and tiring day when Richard asked me to preach in this series from Matthew. I told him that my first response was no, but if I were to say yes, this would be the only date I would have available. He called me again a week or so later on a Tuesday evening after another long and tiring day when I was exhausted and looking forward to my day off. He told me the passage I would be assigned and after a bit of discussion I guiltily decided that I really didn't have the time to do the research in commentaries to put together a sermon on this topic. But then the next morning I woke up thinking of a novel approach to the parable and to parables in general and emailed him that I would be interested in taking on the assignment.

We joked about it at the next worship committee meeting. Richard told me that Mary had warned him not to ask me to do anything in the evening when I was tired. But he went ahead and called me anyway, getting the initial refusal. It goes to show what this parable is all about: You should pay attention to the right things.

The thing I woke up with the morning after Richard's call was to use the principles of dream interpretation to examine the parable. I'm pretty sure I haven't heard anyone do this before. I'm not suggesting that these principles are likely to shed light on all passages of scripture, but given the murkiness of parables in general and this parable in specific, I thought that a set of techniques aimed at understanding enigmatic stories would be ideal in this situation.

But a couple of things I would like you to remember before I get to this. Parables are not simply allegories. I'm sure you've heard that before. Allegories are symbolic stories in which each part has a parallel in the real world aimed at shedding light on that real world situation. Parables are defined as a short story designed to teach some moral or religious truth. The parts do not necessarily correspond on a one to one basis to a set of people or activities in the real world.

Yet we often treat parables like simple allegories. This means this, that means that. If we find the right parts to match the parts of the parable, it will make our point in a sermon, in a meeting, perhaps only in an internal argument aimed at self justification. But this doesn't work when all is said and done. The parable is still not simply an allegory that has a specific, correct meaning and is ultimately not adequately interpretable in such a concrete way.

A second interpretive point is something that I learned at Goshen College (for those of you who are not of Mennonite Background, Goshen College is the Mecca of the Mennonite intellectual world, unlike that pretentious backwater in Virginia). At Goshen I discovered that even the most critical of Biblical historians agree that the parables were very likely to have been spoken by Jesus.

I learned this when I was in my most rabidly anti fundamentalist stage. It was tremendously pleasing to me that the most enigmatic portion of the New Testament, the portion least amenable to concrete interpretations is the most likely to have come directly from Jesus mouth and not via the conscious and unconscious editorial manipulations of the scribes and copiests of later generations.

The parable we have before us today was, during this time, one of my favorites, because it fit so nicely into an allegorical framework that had the traditional wings of the Church out attending to their various duties, unpleasantly occupied with things that kept them from the Kingdom while we unconventional types were busy partying with the Savior. Of course, looking at it in that way is a misinterpretation, because again it treats the parable as a simple allegory.

And this leads us to a very difficult interpretive point, one that will always be implicit in the interpretation of parables. How can we interpret a parable without turning it into an allegory? It was this question that I went to sleep with after Richard asked me to preach and what I woke up with was the idea of using the principles of dream interpretation to examine this parable. It was a novel approach, I thought, one that might shed new light on the parable and one that would allow me to fill out twenty minutes of sermonizing without having to crack a book. But before I get into the details, let me review the many ways this parable has been allegorically interpreted over my years in the pew because they are important ways to consider, each of them having their own truth and value.

Take the interpretation I noted earlier -- the king is God, the invited guests are the traditional Church and the poor strangers are you and me. This is indeed another allegorical interpretation, and a rather self serving one at that. It is the poor strangers who get the best deal in these parables. We get to step above our station. Small wonder that the early Church was made up of slaves and servants and oppressed people outside of the power structure of the time. This approach notes our unworthiness of the feast and the great blessing it is that we have been invited.

But this is not the only approach I've heard on this Parable. It is far more Mennonite of me to adhere to another approach -- We are the ungrateful invited guests who refuse the invitation. Masochistic as it is to pick this approach, it works. I can see this as a reflection of my own preoccupations with work and the other duties and activities of my life, while the kingdom brings in someone else, less deserving, less worthy, and, with insufficient dues paid, so aptly illustrated by our own brick carriers several weeks ago when we considered the parable of the workers.

This exemplifies the two ways I've heard parables allegorized in past sermons. One is the guilt inducing approach, explaining to the flock what they are doing to turn down God's invitation and what they have to do to gain entrance into the wedding feast and the other is an approach emphasizing grace, explaining to the flock how they needn't keep exhausting themselves in the obligations of life and that God is awaiting them at the wedding feast when they relax and accept the invitation available to them.

There are many permutations of this approach. I remember sermons when I was young filled with blistering condemnation of the worldly folks who refused the invitation to the wedding feast-- they were preoccupied with making money, with running businesses, with social climbing, with self gratifying occupations like boating or hunting or watching television or getting higher educations, or, even worse, with pleasures of the flesh that were generally not specified -- I guess they wanted to spare the children.

These people didn't come to Church where the wedding feast was occurring. God was in Church. That was the wedding feast. Anything that kept us out of church and religious activities -- usually a church of the particular approach advocated by the preacher -- were the activities of the ungrateful guests, causing them to ignore the call of God and sometimes to even mistreat the messengers.

In this approach there wasn't a person in the pew who didn't have something that was keeping him or her from the Wedding feast. The better preacher could even make the congregation feel that he, the messenger, was being mistreated. Probably underpaid. And if they weren't at the wedding feast -- and here is the kicker -- they were at risk of eternal damnation in the fires of hell. You'd better pay attention to the right things, these preachers say, because if you don't there's hell to pay.

Once in a while I would discuss these things with my father back when I was in high school. I discussed them far more thoroughly with him over the years, but what he first told me is what has always stuck. "I don't think people should go to church to feel guilty" he said on numerous occasions. In his sermons I didn't hear this kind of condemnation or threat. Instead I heard a focus on grace and the openness of the invitation. Being in a state of receiving God's grace and forgiveness is the wedding feast, in this approach. All of us, including faithful church goers, are turning down the invitation in one way or another. As I've seen on bumper stickers and in other places that call for aphorisms you get into the feast when you "let go and let God." In this way, it is still work and striving and improving ourselves and worldly obligations that keep us from the feast, but we cannot replace those things with other ecclesiastical obligations to gain entrance to the banquet. The parable is about accepting grace. Doing so leads you to a place that is analogous to a feast. Your life will be improved if you pay attention to the right things.

As much as I hate to say this, both of these approaches are right to a certain extent, because both of these approaches are based in the text. But neither exemplifies the complete meaning of the parable. Richard, whose theology is very much like my fathers, told me that he thought this was a difficult parable because of the tag at the end. He says he thought the Luke version was much easier to take and I can see why. The Matthew version says, at the end:

11"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12`Friend,' he asked, `how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.

13"Then the king told the attendants, `Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

14"For many are invited, but few are chosen." ⁽¹⁾

Now I've heard that some scholars believe that this is an added tag on to what Jesus originally said added by a well meaning, but dour scribe. They feel the parable is quite satisfactory without this. Jesus message was one of love and grace and such condemnation was out of character for him. The Luke version says something different, they say and doesn't finish with this wrathfulness.

My initial plan, in this sermon, was to use this scholarly view as an excuse to make the sermon a reiteration of my favorite theme -- God loves us, God welcomes us and God accepts us as we are -- a theme that superficially is better supported when we leave these last verses out of Matthew's telling of this story. But as I worked with these texts I'm not sure that I agree with these scholars. Here is what the Luke version ends with:

22" `Sir,' the servant said, `what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'

23"Then the master told his servant, `Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' "

So both versions of the story have a parallel structure, with the same number of parts. Both have a tag end. Now a Biblical scholar may not pick up the note of condemnation here in the Luke passage, because he or she would likely be reading the parable with the traditional interpretation in mind. But after I read it the third or fourth time as if it were a dream presented to me, I finally noticed it. The wrath is there in both versions of the parable. There is punishment for someone. In Luke it is those who were too busy to accept the invitation, in Matthew it was someone who was invited undeservedly and didn't take the invitation seriously.

Looking at the parable as if it were a dream opened my eyes to it in a way that had not occurred to me before. In dream interpretation, the parts of the dream story are seen by depth psychologists as the interaction within a single personality. Freud says dreams are symbolic of the eternal battle between ones unfettered desires and the restrictions of ones training by family and society, mediated by whatever semblance of reasonableness one can muster. Jung amends that it is not inevitably a battle, but an ongoing unconscious conversation between eternal symbolic values and ones own developmental needs, changing throughout the lifespan. The gestalt school builds on this by noting that each aspect of the dream embodies a single discrete portion of ones personality. It is this last refinement of dream interpretation that I think is most valuable in understanding today's parable.

In this parable, Jesus tells us of a man who is celebrating. In Matthew it is a King. In Luke only a certain man. He invites all of his social group to a celebration, but they can't come. They are occupied. Not to be thwarted, he sends servants out to invite anyone they can find. Punishment is involved.

Dream interpretation would look for several things. What are the associations to the various aspects of the dream? And is there a common thread in these associations. If so, what is it? What is the dreams message to the conscious world?

Let me pause for a minute and ask each of you focus on the character in the dream with which you most identify.

OK, now I'm going to answer the last question first. The message of the dream is that no one is paying attention to the right things, and there are consequences for not doing so.

Now, the associations. Since we can't take time to elicit all of your associations, let me tell you what mine were. First, to the friends of the king. They aren't paying attention to the right things. They should be setting their priorities better. They are too busy with the things of the world -- jobs, careers, training, whatever. They are missing the feast. There are many times when I identify with this character. I often feel like I'm missing something because I am so preoccupied with obligations and commitments. I'm sure many of you picked this character as the one you identify with most. We had better change our ways, or, as Matthew's version reads, our cities may be burned. Luke is also unforgiving. If we are of this group, we will not be allowed to even change our minds, having refused, we will never be allowed to join the wedding feast. We'd better pay attention to the right things, or there will be consequences.

The next characters to focus on are those on the the highways and the byways. These, in my associations, are the undeserving unwashed masses. Which king would think to invite them to a feast? They certainly haven't achieved sufficiently high social standing to get such an invitation. What a surprising and pleasurable experience to be invited to a feast by someone so much above them. In the context of my religious training, I can't help but associate these people and the king to the relationship between myself and God. Despite being undeserving, God has invited me and all of us, to a great wedding feast, a feast which we truly do not deserve. But I also have to include in this association the difficult tag end of the parable. Be careful, says Matthew's version, for if we do not take this invitation seriously we will be out on our tail, worse off then we were before. We'd better pay attention to the right things, or their will be consequences.

I've also heard the servants seen as allegorical representations of believers. In this way, it was said in a sermon I heard years ago, we are God's servants spreading the good news that all are welcome to the table. In my experience some of these servants get a bit to rambunctious about the dire consequences involved in refusing this invitation. I'm curious, did anyone identify with this character? This character is not developed much in either version of the parable, but in Matthew it is a dangerous job.

As will not surprise you, my associations to this set of characters was also consistent with that of the other characters. What were they doing, going back to those ungrateful folks a second time, risking life and limb? It would serve these servants well to pay much better attention in order to avoid unpleasant consequences.

There is another character that we don't identify with when looking at this story as a parable. But if we approach it as a dream, we would be very wrong to exclude it. The king. There are times in our lives, particularly for those of us who exercise power in our social or vocational roles, that this is an apt point of identification. Yet this fellow, too, is focusing on something wrong. What is he doing, inviting people that have no interest in being with him in a celebration? Obviously he is not paying good enough attention. The consequences are not so dire for him. He just has to party with strangers.

I think you see my point this morning. This parable is about getting ones priorities and perceptions in order. Pay attention to the right things and good things will follow. If you don't, there will be consequences.

In psychological terms, and in terms I am most comfortable with, these consequences are here and now consequences. The results of neglecting important parts of our world is that we do things that are based on misunderstandings of reality, things that bring unexpected, unwanted, sometimes unpleasant results. The results of neglecting important parts of our selves are psychological results. We feel depressed. We feel unfulfilled. We act out unconscious needs in ways that interfere with our relationships. We misperceive events and actions and react in ways that trip us up. We can often experience the results of these things a punitive, as punishments. This is what the parable says when approached as a dream.

It may also be saying that there are spiritual consequences when we don't pay attention to the right things. I don't know much about those things and I'm not sure what to say about the possibility. I like to think that our spiritual well being will follow when we pay attention to the values of the Kingdom of God, and do our very best to open our hearts to the follow the call coming from its direction. This morning I will leave it to each of you to come to your own conclusions about what those calls might be and what the consequences might be for you if you don't listen to them.

If this really was a dream, I would ask myself and my patient what he was missing in his life. What isn't he paying attention to? Unlike with this first part of the dream interpretation, it is not the same for all of the characters of the dream. Nor do I expect that it would be the same for you. That is the thing about parables. They don't say the same thing to everyone. For the king, he is not paying attention to who his real friends are. For the servants, they weren't paying attention to the danger involved in asking some people twice. For the invitees, they weren't paying attention to their priorities and missed out on something pretty good and for the strangers who didn't dress properly, they were missing the seriousness of their opportunity.

Regardless of what was missing, the lesson clears up again on this last point. The consequences of missing this thing are bad. In Matthew the parable is quite explicit -- `Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 14"For many are invited, but few are chosen."

Psychoanalysts would point out the operation of a superego here and might make an inference regarding the psychology of Matthew. Other psychologists would point out the extremeness of the punishment and encourage the patient to lighten up on him or herself. But some psychologists, myself among them, would note that, indeed, there are consequences when we don't pay attention to the right things. I've certainly seen it in my office, and I've seen it in my life. I've seen people who are in a place that can easily be described as a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Perhaps some of you have been there. There have been times when I have felt like I've been there. While there are certainly times when this results from things beyond our control, there are also times when this state results directly from consequences that are the natural result of neglecting parts of our environments and our selves that require attention. In terms of a dream, this parables lesson is a generic one.

But this parable is not a dream. It is a story told to us by Jesus. Jesus says that if we pay attention to the right things, there is something good waiting for us. This something good is a specific good thing -- it is the Kingdom of God.

What is the Kingdom of God? It is like a Wedding feast. It is like a full days wages for a quarter days work. It is like a treasure buried in a field. It is like wheat growing among weeds. It is like a mustard seed. It is like yeast. For each of us it is something slightly different, not because the Kingdom is different for each of us, but because the Kingdom calls to us each in our own unique place. Some of us are preoccupied, some of us are downtrodden, some of us are busy servants, some of us may even be sovereigns of our own fiefdom's. But where ever we are, the voice of Jesus calls us to God's kingdom and we will find it, if we pay attention to the right things. And, I'm sorry to say, but it is very true. If we don't do so, we will suffer.

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