Wedding Crashers

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I have to be honest I did not know that crashing a wedding was a real thing until I saw the 2005 film “Wedding Crashers”. In this movie two divorce attorneys find weddings from the announcements section of the newspaper and then show up and pretend they know who the people are in order to achieve two goals:
get free food
meet single women
It does and it doesn’t make sense that this happens. Do you know what I mean?
On the one hand it makes sense because it is a whole lot of amazing food and a great way to just spend a day on a free weekend. It is 100% free of charge which I know is something people always like. People love looking for events that are free for the family. It is also a great way to meet and interact with people if you are an extrovert and a people person. And finally it makes sense because people always come up with the craziest ideas and make them a ‘thing’ that people do and copy.
On the other hand it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. First off, I cannot imagine me personally or Bekkah and I ever going and crashing a wedding. Who does that? Who would go somewhere for the purpose of taking food and drinks from other people simply because you have nothing better to do with your day? I don’t get it. Who does that? It blows my mind that people think that that is an okay and acceptable thing.
It was a year after this movie came out that Bekkah and I were married. I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I didn’t wonder if there was someone who came to our wedding that day and crashed it. I don’t think it happened but I did wonder. There are some things in this life that I just don’t think I will ever understand and the whole idea of crashing a wedding is definitely one of them.
I wonder if the idea of wedding crashing was a new phenomenon that the modern world invented or if it also happened in Jesus time as well. Of course in small towns, like Nazareth, where Jesus was from everyone was probably invited to the wedding. Though I’m not sure who might have come to Mary and Joseph’s wedding since she was pregnant before they were married. Perhaps in bigger cities like Jerusalem it would have been harder to invite everyone and maybe there could have been people who came to those weddings for the free food. Weddings in the time of Jesus were not an afternoon or evening affair like they are in the US. Weddings were multi-day events that could last for an entire week and had a host of activities and and celebrations throughout the wedding. There was plenty of food and drink for that week so you can imagine people coming and going to celebrate and perhaps some of the people who came and went had not been invited and had no relations with either the bride or the groom.
The story of the Wedding at Cana in comes even more to life because it seems negligent that they would run out of wine, but if the feast is meant to last a whole week then it it’s easier to understand not being able to plan out for how many people would come and celebrate. It also makes you wonder how many people crashed that wedding.
John 2:1–11 NRSV
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
The wedding that we hear about in our parable actually encourages people to come and crash the wedding because everyone that had been asked didn’t come. Our text tells us that the guests made light of it and didn’t come. The Greek word for that is ameleō, which isn’t so much making light of a situation or request but more of ignoring the request, disregarding it as unimportant and neglecting to respond to it.
Having been invited by the king they should have gone and not ignored the request because that would have been disrespectful of his authority. If we look at Luke’s version of a similar wedding parable in we see the types of excuses that the guests give. One has new land he must oversee, another has new oxen he needs to tend to and use, and the last one says that he was recently married and cannot attend. Taking a week or a few days out of one’s life to attend a wedding must have been a big commitment. I will be attending a friends wedding next weekend and will not be here for our Saturday night service. Father Shaw from Trinity Episcopal will cover for me so that I ca attend. It took time and planning to find someone to cover for me so that I could go to the wedding. If these people were dependent upon their work and their oversight to be able to take care of their families then it would have been a sacrifice to come to the wedding.
ameleō
On the other hand isn’t it important to celebrate those big events in the lives of people you care for and love? I have missed a few weddings before and it hurt to miss them. These guests made light of, ignored and disregarded this celebration as something unimportant to them.
The king then went to the B list, you know there’s always and A and B list for weddings. It happens, and it’s ok. The B list for the king was to ask everyone in the entire city to come and celebrate the wedding of his son. What is interesting is that the slaves go out into the city and literally invite everyone so that they can fill the banquet hall. The text says that they invite both the good and the bad so that the hall was filled with guests.
The king and the slaves didn’t care who was invited, they simply wanted to invite everyone to celebrate the wedding of his son. He invited all the wedding crashers to come and join in the celebration. A wedding is a joyful event and should be celebrated with as many people as possible, and that is exactly what the king did, invited everyone.
One guest decided not to dress for the occasion and was punished for it. Much like those who ignored the kings request to come in the first place, this man ignored the custom to dress up for the wedding. He crashed the wedding and ignored the way to respond to the invitation.
The beauty of this text is Jesus call for all to come to God. We all have been given an invitation to be a part of God’s wedding, the union between God and people. God sent Jesus and all of the disciples and apostles and you and I for centuries to go out into the streets of the city and welcome everyone, both good and bad, to answer the invitation to be a part of the banquet. God calls both sinner and saint, and as Luther tells us, we are both sinner and saint, to be a part of the wedding banquet of God. We respond to that call and we come to church and we live out our lives worthy of that invitation.
You could say our wedding clothes are the ways that we live out our life. It is our response to the invitation that was freely given to us. We respond by loving our neighbors and spreading the good news of Jesus. We respond by caring for the poor and the outcast. We respond by being church together in the difficult and trying times and encouraging one another during the good times.
It is easy to focus on the parts of the text that talk about burning the city of the guests that ignored the invitation, and the guest that chose not to put on the wedding clothes, that we lose sight of the incredible invitation of sending out his servants out into the city to invite every single person that the slaves can find so that the banquet hall may be filled.
I have also spent considerable time in the last couple sermons illustrating how those who ignored the call were the leaders at that time, so I won’t go into detail about that again. Again, we should focus on this incredible invitation.
What a gift and what love God has for each and every one of us. God doesn’t care if you start out as good or bad. God doesn’t care if you come from a big house, if you own a big business or a lot of land, God, through Jesus, invites the whole world to come and be a part of the family of God. God invites us to be wedding crashers. God wants us to put on the clothes that we have been called to put on and then to celebrate the wedding banquet. God also calls us to be the servants who go out into the streets and invites every single person they see to come and be a part of that banquet.
The banquet isn’t something to celebrate behind closed doors with just a few people. It is an open invitation to the world to be in relationship with God. Being church, being a part of the family of God, is about celebrating the great gifts we have been given and knowing that those gifts can, and are, a blessing meant for the whole world to participate in.
This day, God invites us all to be wedding crashers. To put on our best clothes, to go out into the world and crash as many weddings as possible, to share the banquet with everyone we see. To show them what the feast looks like and to let them know that each and every one of them is invited to crash the wedding with us. We are all wedding crashers of the biggest and best banquet ever held, and it lasts for all eternity. Open up the doors and let the world in to celebrate with us.
Amen.
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