October 11, 2026 (Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost) - Fr. Steve Moore

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The grace and peace of God our Father, the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Do you know how, when you put something into a search engine, likely things pop up? I was Googling something about the Episcopal Church, for obvious reasons, perhaps, and one of the things that came up was, “Why are Episcopalians so liberal?”

And I was a little—I'm not surprised. We do have that reputation. I didn't realize it would be top of the search engine, whatever. But I was thinking about that, and it was interesting because, yes, the church has that reputation, especially since the split over gay marriage and women's leadership.

But really, if you look at the Anglican tradition of which we're part, we're supposed to be the middle way. We're supposed to be the big-tent church that anyone should feel at home in. That is part and parcel of what Anglicanism is about.

And Richard Hooker, the great theologian of the Reformation, the English Reformation, whom you all know, of course, talked about the fact that our way of approaching our faith is a three-legged stool. He didn't actually use that in some argument over what that means. I won't get into that because it's boring, even for me.

But the three legs of the stool are: we approach Scripture. So we use Scripture as authoritative, as definitive. We also look at tradition, and then human reason. So everyone's reason is part of this process.

We do not, like some churches, say, “Well, the church says so, you must.” That's not really an Anglican or Episcopal way of approaching things. We're also not on the other side, where it's like, “Well, I read this in the Bible, and I think it's so, so this is true.” It's a process. It's a development over time of us learning together.

I like to liken it—although I don't think we do it as well—to our Jewish brothers and sisters and how they approach their faith and their Scriptures. I love going to synagogue because it's kind of a mess in a good way, in a good way, in that it's brought forth and discussed and thought about and wrestled with in a very serious and intentional way.

And I think we Christians often fall short in that we often fall short of really taking the Scripture and chewing on it and struggling with it and letting it speak to us in a variety of ways in which it can and does.

And, in a sense, there's such a depth to our tradition, and we often just skim the surface of all that is available to us. And if we really, I think, took this seriously, the depth of our relationship with one another and God would just be unimaginable.

I was thinking that and reading today's parable, which is wonderful and horrible at the same time.

Now, it is in line with the parables Mark preached so well about last week. These are parables after Palm Sunday, after Jesus has entered Jerusalem. And these are parables that are meant more to be allegories than actual parables, although we can argue about this one, and I think we should.

And they are directed most at the religious leaders of the day. Not every—this is not an indictment of Jewish people. In fact, it's in a Jewish context, among Jews, that this is being talked about by Jesus, who is pretty clearly acting as a Jewish rabbi. That's the context.

And most often in churches, this is read as: the great king gives a banquet. The people who are supposed to come to the banquet refuse for silly reasons, and so the king invites everyone else in that you could possibly invite, the highways and byways. And back then, in cities, the rich people lived in the center and the poor people lived outside. So that's why you had to go outside to find everybody. And you had this wonderful banquet.

Then we have this weird ending where this one guy doesn't have a wedding dress on, or wedding banquet outfit, or whatever. He gets thrown out, but everyone else is cool. Good. The kingdom of God: you come in. The people who were originally invited rejected the prophets and whatnot. Jesus comes along, invites everyone. Many people come in. We're supposed to put on the garment of our moral living and our belief. And if we do so, we fit in with the banquet. And if we don't, well, you get thrown out, and you're wailing and gnashing of teeth. Enjoy hell, you sinner.

You can read it that way. I'm not saying it's wrong. I don't—how do I know?

I think if we just read it that way, though, we run into problems because we've got the king, who we've said is God. But the king is a really violent and difficult king. And then, if we put Jesus as the bridegroom, well, okay, that image is alive and well in our church history. But the bridegroom in this story is quite inconsequential, and we don't even know his name. He's not that important.

And then we've got the whole thing about being bound and kicked out for not wearing a wedding garment, which doesn't make a lot of sense if you're inviting poor people in. A lot of poor people don't have wedding garments on hand. I don't even have a tux. I don't know how many of you do. So I don't know how this works.

So what if we went deeper?

The allegory is fine, and it makes us feel good. And we're the ones in church on this Sunday morning. And it's a holiday weekend, so you get time and a half, right? All those other sinners who usually are here are not, right? I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Calm down, calm down.

But what if the king is not God? What if the king in the story is just a king? A king of empire, perhaps?

What if the king, in the way the king is acting, is acting like other kings do? I don't think we have to look around at our world and our leaders too much to see kings and world leaders, whatever their title, who act in this way. You do something wrong to them, they strike back, and they're going to do it threefold, and they're going to scorch the earth if you touch one of their people.

That doesn't seem like the story of God.

In fact, our first reading from Isaiah comes from a very different context: the pre-Babylonian exile. The king is the one who invites everyone to the feast. But these are broken people who have the promise of return and redemption. That king, I think, much more for the people of Israel and for us, seems more like what God is like, not the king of the parable.

So we've got the king, and then we've got all the machinations of finding people and bringing them in and then kicking them out. Really interesting.

Some Scripture commentators wonder if the person who's supposed to be dressed in the wedding garment is us, you know, like we put on our garment, like I said in the allegory. But some Scripture commentators and preachers wonder if the person who gets kicked out isn't actually Jesus.

Because when you think about what happened to Jesus, Jesus, in his preaching and in his way of relating, didn't fit in as a rabbi, as a loyal, subjugated person under Roman rule. And Jesus himself was bound and kicked out and crucified outside of the city.

What if that's what happens to someone who upsets the wedding feast, who doesn't come in the same robes as everyone else? What does that do to our view of ourselves as followers of Jesus?

It is wonderful to have a view of God's kingdom. And remember, this is about the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God tends to be much more complex, I think, than we often allow it to be, because we'd like it to be simple. Let's do this. Live a good life. Get into heaven! Yay, Christians!

But what if it's about really living in the moment? Now, what we do with our lives right now that brings about the kingdom of God.

What if we took Jesus seriously when he talked about all these things, like loving everyone, including your enemies? What if we took Jesus' words seriously when he told us to be careful of money because of what it does to us? What if we took Jesus' words seriously when he told us not to judge one another?

What would it be like if we started to take those words seriously and try to live in a world where we reflected those values?

We live—and we saw it in our city on Friday—in one of the most partisan and divided times in our country. It has gotten to a fever pitch as far as how much we hate one another. Now, not here in the church, because—but it's true, isn't it? And I'm not speaking directly to anyone in particular. I'm just looking at the scene and reading the headlines, which basically said that in our local Syracuse newspapers, we are more divided than ever. That was one of the headlines from this past weekend.

And yet we have to ask ourselves: where does our identity, and where does our power, ultimately come from?

Martin Luther King Jr. put it this way at the end of his essay “Loving Your Enemies,” which he preached in Albany, Georgia. He said:

“Love is the most durable power in the world. This creative force, so beautifully exemplified in the life of our Christ, is the most potent instrument available to mankind's quest for peace and security.

“Napoleon Bonaparte, with great military genius, looking back over years of conquests, is reported to have said, ‘Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have built great empires. But upon what did they depend? They depended on force. But centuries ago, Jesus started an empire that was built on love, and even to this day, millions will die for him.’

“Who can doubt these words? The great military leaders of the past have gone. Their empires have crumbled and burned into ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly upon the majestic foundation of love, is still growing. It started with a small, dedicated group of men and women who, through the inspiration of their Lord, were able to shake the hinges of the gates of the Roman Empire and carry the gospel into the world.”

And so it is with us.

Maybe it was Jesus who was cast out of the feast. Maybe. Maybe the king is not God, who would offer destruction. Maybe the king is the king imagined in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, who invited all the nations to come and feast—all those who were exiles and refugees and cast out to the margins.

Maybe, just maybe, if we decided to take his word seriously, we would live in that kingdom and behave in the same manner.