Options..... without obligations.
We like the option of being able to shop from store to store, pick a bit here and a bit there, coming and going 7 days a week as we wish.
Elbow room, and a chance to do what we want, when we want it.
Let me set my own hours at work.
Develop my personalized exercise routine.
Custom tailor a package of cable TV channels and options.

When that personal space is cut short, interrupted - we can get downright irritated. Frank Sinatra's song resonates in more of our lives than perhaps we care to admit. We all like to do it "my way."

Which is fine.... sometimes.
But on other occasions.... well....

So, yes Virginia - you DO have to stop when the light turns red.
And when the fire ban is on this summer, no campfires - no matter how badly you want to satisfy your inner pyromaniac urges.

Sometimes, you see, that's just the way it has to be.
There are no options.
You can't just do whatever you want.
Which is something the unfortunate wedding guest of v.11 discovered the hard way.

The parable which Jesus spoke speaks of God's great and gracious act of saving humanity - welcoming those who were estranged into the intimacy of His family; inviting them to join in the great banquet feast where the Bride is joined to His Son, the groom.
Throughout the Bible bride is symbolic picture language for the people whom God has called, those who believe in Him and surrender their lives to Him. It is the Old Testament people of Israel. It is the New Testament Church. The wedding is the great and final day of cosmic history, when Jesus returns as Judge.
That will be the day when the tragedy of Eden lost, where God wandered Paradise and called, "Adam, where are you?" - where that tragedy will be reversed. The heavenly Father and His children will be together again, face to face. We will enjoy His full divine presence; a presence of which we are given a taste now by the Holy Spirit's living within us.
Many will be, many even now are, invited to that very special celebration - to be part of the reunion between God and humanity.
The invitations go far wider than we dream of or hope, drawing in ones that we, perhaps, would walk right by. Some, tragically, reject the invitation. Praise God - some accept.

Consider them for the moment.
The Heavenly Groom says "Come."
And they do.

But this one guest - Everyone else is dressed in their best, in wedding finery. Their wedding best is different from person to person, for each is of different means. But each in their own way has on the best. Some in tuxes, some in borrowed house ties. But all showing that this moment was special.
Except this fellow -- who's just wearing whatever. Track pants and t-shirt, say. Saturday morning in the backyard sort of fare. Nothing special at all.
Nobody's going to tell him what to wear.
He's his own man.
Life plays by his rules.
He just does it.

It's a huge insult to the host, a brash and highly improper push forward.
And to this comes the reply "toss him out."
Weeping, grinding teeth in despair, darkness - that's the result.

When I read this parable about the relationship between people and their God I hear in the background echoes of the prophet Isaiah -
"I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." (Is 61.10)

He has clothed me.
Garments of salvation.
Robes of righteousness.

We're not talking the stuff of fabric. Rather, think in the same way as St. Paul when he writes in Colossians 3, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience...."
We're talking of a wardrobe of the heart, clothing for the mind.
Not the outer mask, a think veneer.
Rather, the inner adornment that truly matters in the eyes of God.

The wedding banquet of the Son of God is coming.
We have an invitation to attend. But the Father of the Groom wants us decked out in wedding attire. It's not so that anything goes. We can't simply take the invitation, tuck it in our pocket and carry on as though nothing has changed. We can't go straight to the party from the garage, so to speak. There needs to be a time of changing. New clothes.

Isaiah already has shown us something very unique about this coming banquet. Unlike other weddings, where we come with whatever clothing we can find, the best in our wardrobe, this wedding will be one where the Father of the Groom will provide the clothing.
He dresses all who come in the garments of salvation, the robes of righteousness. He dresses us in clothing for the heart and soul that have been prepared, custom-tailored for us, by Jesus. He invites us to put them on.
We must put them on.
It's the only way to attend the banquet.

The dressing in those clothes of salvation, so freely provided, is something to which the ancient liturgy of the Church points. It is what the music of Schubert's Mass sings. Notice the pattern it follows.
Seeing our sin, we confess them with words like Isaiah 64:6 --
"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags..."
We stand before the cross, and allow the Christ who died there for our sins to remove those rags. Kyrie.

We stand with Isaiah in ch.6 - before Him.
"I saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted...."
We see Him in His holy glory. Gloria!
Praise my soul the King of Heaven!

And as in Isaiah 6 the angel comes with a hot coal and purifies Isaiah, so we stand open and honest before the throne of heaven and plead for the purifying fire presence of the Holy Spirit to touch us.
We long for the robes of righteousness - right attitudes and right living; living reflected by the creeds of the church, living directed by the Holy Word. And then we respond with actions - going into the world to serve Him, wanting to make this world a holy place for the inhabitation of our God; a place fit for the return of the Bridegroom.
We DON'T go into life on our terms, doing what we want, living our way.
Sanctus -- To the holy glory of God!

And as we go, we can serve with bold confidence for we go with the sacred blessing of God -- Benedictus.
We go with confidence because we go into life under the direction of the victorious Lamb of God, Agnus Dei, who takes away the sin of the world, the bridegroom with whom one day we will be reunited.

If you look through scripture you'll see the same pattern in various places. I think of the book of Romans for example:
- exposing our sin in the first chapters
- drawing helpless people to the only source of salvation, Jesus Christ.
- calling us to surrender to the life-changing power of His Spirit.
- directing us to submit our lives in active service to Him.
- looking forward the grand day of reunion in His presence.

Stepping out of the rags of sin.
Dressing in the freely provided, Christ-tailored garments of salvation;
the Holy Spirit shaped robes of righteousness.

The rhythm of the liturgy reflects the call of scripture; the expectation of the Father of the Groom - our heavenly Father. It is a dressing to which we are pointed week after week. And necessarily so - for within all of us is the tendency to quickly lapse into a self-directed, self-centred, my-way kind of living.

Which would lead to us experiencing the same sort of horrible, dumb-struck dark fate as that guest at the wedding.
It's a real possibility. Else Jesus wouldn't have said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Meaning - many receive and hear the invitation, but not all make it through to the end.
Too many want to pull their old clothes back on.

Thank you, choir, for singing for us tonight. Thank you for helping us to see again that which is so basic, so essential, to life. Let us return then to the rhythm, to putting on those garments of salvation. Let us worship God.