God in the Chaos
I’ve been to a few weddings in my time, each with its own accompanying stories. The priest was the one who was late to my wedding! And because I lived on the same road as the church, the wedding car had to circle the block more times than anyone could reasonably expect. Weddings are one of those occasions everyone wants to get right, yet they’re often remembered most vividly for what went wrong.
The King in today’s parable may well have known the saying, “God laughs at the plans of man.” Sometimes all the preparation and planning in the world means nothing in the face of the everyday. Life has a way of dropping our tidy expectations into chaos.
At the moment, out of all the characters in the parable, my sympathies lie most with the man without the wedding garment. Like a cat caught in the headlights—thinking I knew where I was meant to be, only to find myself suddenly out of my depth. I imagine his silence isn’t defiance; it’s overwhelm. It’s the stunned stillness of someone who has stumbled into grace without knowing how to accept it.
The king responds with the worldly reflex of impatience and frustration. But my hope rests elsewhere; that I will be lifted from the weeping and grinding of teeth by the One who would not leave anyone in the dark..
