One day, Jesus told a story:

"The kingdom of God is a lot like this," he started out. "A king prepared a wedding banquet for his son. It was a huge deal. After making his preparations and decking out the banquet hall, he slaughtered the best of his cattle, prepared the best of his wine, and then sat back and waited for friends and family to arrive."

So far, so good. Our imaginations are gripped and moved by the idea that God is something like a benevolent, generous king with a son that he loves.

Jesus continues, "So the king sent out servants to those on the banquet roll to tell them that everything was ready, that the time was right for them to come. Strangely, they replied that they had more pressing matters to attend to. Still worse, some of them actually seized the servants and killed them."

It shocks us to hear this. "Who are these people? Why are they so indifferent? Why so murderous? What's the backstory here? And how will the king respond?" "Surely," we think to ourselves, "if this is a story about God, grace will win out."

We keep reading:

"The king flew into a fit of rage, sending a battalion of soldiers to those murderous invitees, destroying them and burning their city to the ground."

We're startled a bit. Maybe a tad put out. If we're so inclined, we might hang with this story, hanging on Jesus' words, trusting that the resolution of this sordid tale is going to satisfy our sense of what's right, wondering where this whole thing is going, and hoping it goes somewhere good.

Jesus keeps going: "After collecting himself, the king found his servants and said, 'I prepared my banquet, but those I invited apparently didn't deserve the honor of being present at this party. So here's what you're going to do: Head out into the marketplace, into the street corners, and find anyone and everyone you possibly can - the good, the bad, the ugly - I really don't care - and bring them in - all of them - until this hall is filled up. I WILL have a full banquet hall to share in the joy of my son."

We breathe. This sounds much more like the Jesus we know, the story we're used to. Of course there were some that hated Jesus - perhaps this is Israel? We're not totally sure. We're aware of the general contours of the story and know that some reject him. From what we've gathered it was the proud and self-secure that shunned him, those that possessed power and prestige, the official keepers of religion. So this coheres well with our sensibilities--that those that received Jesus - then no less than now - are often a surprising and variegated lot of tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes and thieves. "God," we think, "is so gracious."

But the story is not resolved. Not yet. Jesus continues:

"The party began. And as the king made his customary rounds, greeting this strange but fortuitous lot of of folks at each of their tables, he noticed a man present who was not wearing wedding clothes, but instead was dressed in rags. 'Friend,' the king said to him, 'How did you get in hear without the appropriate attire?'

The man had nothing to say in reply.

"'Well get the hell out here!' he yelled. Calling his attendants to him he said, 'Take this man and bind him hand and foot, and then throw him outside, into the darkness."

And God, Jesus seems to be saying, is sort of like that. Story over. And we're left numb. Not sure what to do with this strange and harsh story. Questions float through our minds:

"Wasn't that a tad extreme?
Kind of harsh?
Sort of unfair?" we think.

"Maybe the guy was homeless and didn't have a tux.
And whose fault was it that he was in there anyway?
I mean, really; it's not like they told him to get all dressed up.
Couldn't the king have been more understanding?" we inquire silently.
"This is really so unlike the God I had in mind."

We wiggle around with texts like this. Explain them away. Perhaps this "man not wearing wedding clothes" represents believing folks who hear the invitation but behave badly at the "banquet" so to speak. Or perhaps, as some have suggested, it has to do with improperly-undergone rites of the church. And those are fine and inventive interpretations. There's just one problem:

Jesus didn't think of them.

Rather, he told the story and then let it hang out there in all it's stark, bold detail. In all of it's resonating otherness. In it's troubling lack of interpretation of explanation. He sees no need to soothe our troubled minds, to soften the punch of it or downplay it's potential implications.

The story stands against us,
challenges our views of God in deep ways,
causes the boundaries of our orthodoxy to tremble.

We linger at the text.
Troubled by it.
Maybe scared by it.
Perhaps offended.

This is not the Jesus we expected.
Not the God we expected.
Not the text we expected.

And we're not sure how to respond.
Do we get mad? Is that okay?
Or do we silently, quietly acquiesce.

We let the story shake us.
And then we walk away,
Wondering if perhaps "God" is a less predictable reality that we liked to imagine.
For this God does not fit our safe, flat, one-dimensional depictions of him.

The reality is that the Bible is chock full of texts just like this. Texts that just don't fit the frameworks of faith we carry around with us like security blankets.  But there they are.  Challenging us to listen.  Demanding to be heard.  I mean, what do we do with texts like this? I think that for most of us, our natural reaction is to resist them in a sort of passive aggression. We decide that we've already figured out the "real truth" about God. That he's nice. And lovable. And huggable. And agreeable to "modern" sensibilities. So we hear what we want to hear. We read past - hurry! - the part about the king's retribution against the murderers and cling tenaciously to his grace towards "the outsiders", for this conforms to the ways we've been conditioned to understand God: modern, liberal, inclusive. But then we read of the strange twist and the end of the tale and it just...

Well, it doesn't fit. So rather than listening, we quietly edit it out. Ignore it.  Have you done that before?

I'm just wondering if that's a good strategy for dealing with the parts of Scripture that make us uncomfortable. I'm wondering if our part of the reason our spirituality on both an individual and corporate level is thin and emaciated is PRECISELY because of our refusal to listen to texts that linger in power at the edges of our understanding. And I'm further wondering whether if in our refusal to listen we aren't making bold statements about what frameworks of thinking really DO hold functional authority over our lives. And whether we ourselves are not guilty of fashioning gods after our own image and likeness in all the subtle, quiet ways in which we ignore the parts of Scripture we just don't like.

I think we do this all the time.
All of us.

We pick our pet issues.
Our favorite doctrines.
And we search the Scriptures for proof of a framework we'd already determined was the right one beforehand.

Charismatics do it.
Evangelicals do it.
Social crusaders do it.
Liberals do it.
The Reformed do it.
The non-Reformed do it.

We all do it.

Because deep down, we don't want a God that doesn't "fit".

Maybe we too worship idols.
And maybe our lives are thin, one-dimensional, and devoid of the surprise of actually worshiping a LIVING God because of it.

In the Old Testament, when a new, righteous king would come to power, he would frequently launch a campaign to "smash the idols" that Israel had been worshiping in order to restore the worship of the uncontainable Yahweh in Israel. I think that one of the most profound and powerful ways that we engage in such "idol smashing" today is by daring to sit humbly before the texts that disturb, trouble, upset, and shake us, in order that we may hear a fresh word from God.

What are those texts for you?
Those parts that you don't want to listen to?
Those parts you instinctively resist?

What if a sense of God's immediacy and vitality were accessible to you only in those texts that are "foreign" to you? What if?

I just wonder if we'll dare to worship a living God.
Dare to listen to these defiant, alien texts.