Service of the Word – 18th Sunday after Trinity Gathering to worship God Let us worship God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. The Lord be with us all. This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Lord God, we all belong to your kingdom and we bring our different lives and experiences to worship you online today, the true and living God. Amen. Words of welcome by Rev Mark Good morning and welcome to our service! Today we are thinking all about weddings – large and small, and how the kingdom of God is like a wedding feast, to whom all are invited. In the midst of whatever we are going through, let’s remember that we can all come before the table of the Lord, just as we are, and share in his blessings. Following this service, at 11am, please do join us online too for our regular Zoom coffee. Collect, the prayer of the week is said. God, our judge and saviour, teach us to be open to your truth and to trust in your love, that we may live each day with confidence in the salvation which is given through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Saying sorry to God Confession God our Father, we come to you in sorrow for our sins. For turning away from you, and ignoring your will for our lives; Father, forgive us: save us and help us. For behaving just as we wish, without thinking of you; Father, forgive us: save us and help us For failing you by what we do and think and say; Father, forgive us: save us and help us. For letting ourselves be drawn away from you by temptations in the world about us; Father, forgive us: save us and help us. For living as if we were ashamed to belong to your Son; Father, forgive us: save us and help us. We say these words Blessed is the Lord for he has heard the voice of our prayer; therefore shall our hearts dance for joy and in our song we will praise our God. Hearing and responding to the Word of God Alleluia, alleluia. Open our hearts Lord to accept the words of your son. Alleluia. Acts 16:14 Gospel Matthew 22.1-14 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet. ”But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. ‘But 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 in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.’ Talk – Rev Mark When were you last at a wedding reception? What was it like? Were there a lot of people there, or was it quite small? What sort of food did you eat? What was the venue like? Was it a hotel, or an old mansion, or a large barn out in the countryside? What was the music like? Was there a disco, or a barn dance, or a string quartet? I’ve been to several weddings in my lifetimes. Some were for close family members, where I was right in the thick of things, and also had lots of jobs I had to do. At my sister’s wedding I was an usher, responsible for handing out programmes, passing out drinks and escorting my grandma from the church to the reception, and I felt very proud and important. After university, many of my friends got married. Some I knew well, and going to their weddings was hugely fun – lots of partying with mates and little responsibility. At other times, I have been to weddings where I didn’t know the bride and groom that well, sometimes as a “plus one” where I didn’t know the bride and groom at all! On those occasions I stayed more on the edge of things, quietly and politely enjoying the food – and trying not to dominate the dance floor – not so easy because I love dancing and often at weddings men don’t tend to dance quite as much and can be a rarity! Of course, before every wedding you have an invitation, usually a beautifully decorated rsvp card, and you need to work out whether you are able to go or not. This might depend on how far the wedding is, and how well you know the bride and groom. I once drove from Birmingham to the New Forest and back in a day to attend a wedding and reception. In hindsight, I should have booked a hotel, though driving through the new forest at midnight was quite an experience. British weddings have a lot of etiquette and social expectations. Sometimes you may be invited to the church ceremony but not the reception, or a shorter reception for friends, or a more intimate family meal. You need to know what you are going to, when to arrive, whether to book a hotel if you are staying overnight, who you will hang out with during the day, what you will wear, and what gift is appropriate for you to buy or bring. You don’t want to buy the most expensive item on the wedding list if you are a distant friend – unless perhaps you are a millionaire! Jesus told a lot of stories about weddings. He’s well known for going to a wedding at Cana, where he famously turned water into wine. In Jesus day, as today, weddings in the Middle East were huge affairs over several days, with lots of food, drink and dancing. The more rich and wealthy you were, the more guests you invited, and it was seen as embarrassing to run out of food or drink. No expense was spared for the guests who came. Today’s reading is all about a wedding feast. As with all weddings, lots of guests are invited. And the host is a king whose crown prince is getting married! There is an expectation that those invited will come. Who wouldn’t? The richest, best food and drink. Not to mention the fact that you don’t turn down an invitation from the king without a very, very, good reason, if in those days you valued your life. But amazingly, no-one turns up. Imagine that! The shame, the embarrassment, the affront to the king. Imagine if you had been invited to Prince William or Prince Harry’s wedding and you had turned it down. Or worse, imagine if everyone invited had turned down the offer – the other royals, the celebrities such as Elton John and the Beckhams? It would have been scandalous. So the king takes a decision. He says the wedding feast he has prepared will not be wasted. Everyone is invited. Everyone in the city, everyone off the streets, just come on in. Forget having an invite. Don’t worry if you haven’t rsvp’d. Come on in. Enjoy. In the Bible – weddings are actually used as an example of what God’s kingdom in heaven is like. It is a huge party – everyone is invited. And the bridegroom, the most important person at a wedding (sorry to all ladies here – but in the ancient world the groom was deemed more important that the bride) in this case is Jesus. The question he was asking is this – do we make time for Jesus? Do we make time for God? Is Jesus going to be at the centre of our upcoming Christmas celebrations? Or will we be like those guests who turned down going to God’s wedding feast, because we were too busy to stop and take time out from our lives to focus? Each of us can decide – will we stop to spend time with Jesus this Christmas, to celebrate with him, even in the midst of a trying and difficult year – or will we be like those guests who forgot to go to the feast? Amen. Affirmation of Faith We believe and trust in God the Father, source of all being and life, the one for whom we exist? We believe and trust in God the Son, who took our human nature, died for us and rose again? We believe and trust in God the Holy Spirit, who gives life to the people of God and makes Christ known in the world? This is the faith of the Church.