© 2026 Evan D. Garner
Audio of this sermon is available here. Video can be seen here.
When I was thirteen years old, I put on a football uniform for the first time. I liked it. There were pads for my knees and thighs and hips. There was a pad for my tailbone. There were shoulder pads, of course, and a helmet with a facemask. When I suited up in all that high-tech armor, I felt invincible. Back then, there was no such thing as CTE to worry about, and concussions were literally shaken off or cast aside with smelling salts.
We practiced in cheap, polyester mesh jerseys, which were only washed once a week. Every afternoon when I put my jersey on, it was freezing cold, still soaked in yesterday’s sweat that had chilled but not dried in the air-conditioned locker room. My first ever game experience came near the end of my eighth-grade year, when underclassmen were invited to dress out for the varsity spring jamboree, which didn’t count for anything but still felt pretty sporty. When I put on that fancy, clean, royal-blue uniform with the pirate logo and the stretchy, form-fitting fabric that hugged those shoulder pads, it didn’t matter than I knew I would only stand on the sideline. I had practiced all spring for this moment, and I was going to enjoy it.
The equipment manager could tell I was excited. He asked me if I needed anything before we loaded the buses to head to the stadium. “Since you asked,” I said to him, “what’s this little hole here in the top of my helmet?” I asked, pointing to a round rubber piece molded into the plastic. “That’s an inflation valve,” he explained. “You can pump air into it to expand the cushion inside the helmet to make it more comfortable.” He reached down into his bag and threw me a pump with a needle attached. I thanked him and added some air to my helmet, increasingly amazed at how fancy all this equipment was.
On the bus, one of the assistant coaches explained how things would go for the underclassmen during the game. “It is a privilege to be on that sideline,” he declared. “Even if you don’t play—and you probably won’t—you are a part of the team, so you will act like you are a part of the team. Pay attention. Cheer on your teammates. Stand up the whole time. Stay out of the way of the coaches. And don’t take off your helmet.”
As soon as I stepped off the bus, I dutifully put on my helmet, but it didn’t fit. Without knowing it, I had pumped in way too much air and hadn’t bothered to try it on before we left the school. It felt like the crown of my head had been shoved into a vice. The headache was instant. I had to find the trainer. But, when I did, he wasn’t able to help me. “I didn’t bring a pump or even a needle,” he admitted. I slipped my helmet off and clawed at the inflated cushion inside, trying my best to separate it from the valve or even tear a hole in it. No luck. “Put your helmet back on,” one of the coaches snapped at me. So I did.
But, after only a few minutes, the pain was unbearable. So I snuck around to the back of the mass of players on the sideline where I hoped I wouldn’t be seen and took it off again. Within a few seconds, “Why is your helmet off?” the same coach barked, not really wanting an answer. “Do you want to be on this team or not?” I was embarrassed. I was in pain. And it was only the first quarter. To be frank, I don’t remember how I made it through the entire game. I remember at one point thinking I might rather quit football than wear that helmet for another second, but the shame of being found without the proper attire and thrown into the outer darkness, where adolescent would-be athletes wept and gnashed their teeth, was too great. I would rather suffer on that sideline than be judged an imposter.
Is the kingdom of God really like an angry football coach who, after inviting the lowly underclassmen to dress out for the spring game, would kick one of them off the team for refusing to wear his helmet? No, actually, the kingdom of God isn’t like that—at least not in the sense that my story or Jesus’s parable leads us to think of God as a tyrannical coach or an unreasonable host. God isn’t like that at all. We know that. We see in Jesus and his sacrificial, self-giving love for the world a commitment to the weak and the vulnerable that cannot be reconciled with a king who throws a wedding feast and destroys anyone who is too busy to show up and kicks out anyone who isn’t appropriately dressed.
Parables aren’t supposed to be perfect representations of God’s kingdom. Often, they are only intended to describe a narrow aspect of it—to give us a tiny glimpse or a tailored insight that expands our understanding of God’s reign just a little bit more. And, to figure out what in the world Jesus wants us to learn about the ways of God from this challenging parable, we need to expand our sight and examine this story in its wider context.
Here’s what the last three chapters of Matthew’s gospel account have included. Jesus takes the little children into his arms and teaches his disciples that the kingdom of God belongs to them. Jesus tells a rich young man that he lacks only one thing and must sell all of his possessions if he wants to enter the God’s kingdom. Jesus explains this radical demand by telling the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, in which those who worked only one hour are made equal to those who worked all day. Then Jesus predicts his suffering and death for the third time, after which Mother Zebedee causes dissention among the disciples by asking Jesus to let her boys sit on his right and left in God’s kingdom.
Next Jesus rides into Jerusalem while the crowds acclaim him as the one who has come to sit on David’s throne. As soon as he arrives in the holy city, Jesus storms into the temple and turns over the tables of the moneychangers, bringing worship to a halt. In response, the blind and the lame come to him in the temple, and, when the religious leaders hear the voices of children celebrating Jesus as God’s true king, they start looking for a way to have Jesus killed. The next morning, on his way into town, Jesus passes by a fruitless fig tree and curses it, causing it to wither to the ground.
Finally, the religious leaders challenge Jesus’s authority, and in response he tells three parables: the parable of the two sons—one who did the will of his father and one who only pretended to—and the parable of the wicked tenants, who killed the son of vineyard’s owner and tried to keep it for themselves, and the parable of the wedding feast, in which those who were originally invited blew it off as not worth their time, which led the king to usher into his banquet anyone and everyone else he could find.
That’s quite a journey. It’s hard to read these chapters of Matthew’s gospel and miss what the evangelist is trying to say about Jesus. Jesus is the one who has come to establish God’s kingdom on the earth, and, contrary to the preferences and expectations of the religious elites, Jesus has demonstrated without a doubt that that kingdom belongs to the blind and the lame, the humble and the meek, and the lowly and the little children. If you don’t like that, Jesus says, then get out of the way because the kingdom of God is coming whether you’re ready for it or not.
But what about that wedding garment? What about that guest who was brought into the banquet at the last minute and somehow got in without a proper festive outfit? With Christ, the kingdom of God has come, but it isn’t finished coming yet. Jesus has welcomed into the reign of God anyone and everyone who accepts that invitation and takes it to heart, but those who accept God’s gracious invitation cannot then change the rules and go their own way and forego the nature of the feast to which they have been invited or the nature of the host who has brought them there.
The wedding garment is a symbol of our participation, of our belonging, of our acceptance not only of the invitation itself but of the way of life into which God has called us. The grace and love that beckoned us into the feast are the same grace and love with which we feast alongside our neighbors.
As Christians, when we hear Jesus speak of that wedding garment, we know that he is talking about our Baptism. Baptism is the means by which we are welcomed into God’s messianic banquet, and it is also the way of our continued participation in that wedding feast for our whole lives long. Christians are not merely saved in the moment of their baptism and then left to their own devices. We are saved by that identity which Christ has given us—which cloaks us like a protective and motivating garment—and which continues to work on us each and every day.
Saying yes to God’s gracious invitation is not the end of our journey but only its beginning. Those who claim a seat at God’s banquet table but who will not seek to welcome others as Christ has cannot expect to remain at the wedding feast. Those who call themselves Christians but who do not offer themselves continually in the humble service of our Lord should not be surprised when Jesus says he does not recognize them.
The outfit we wear as followers of Jesus may not fit perfectly at first. It will almost certainly cause us discomfort, and it may even hurt at times to keep it on. But the one who has clothed us for the kingdom has not only called us into the feast but abides with us and in us, shaping and molding us into the image of God. In Baptism, we are clothed in nothing less than Jesus Christ himself. It is he who has made us worthy to enter God’s kingdom, and it is he who makes us worthy still. To him be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.