Proper 23A 15 October 2023
Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14
The series Yellowstone
on the Peacock network is a parable about family idolatry. Set among the majesty
of the landscape of Montana and portraying the pastoral life as a paradigm of
human society, the story centers on John Dutton. He’s the seventh generation of
white Americans to live on his ranch in the aptly named Paradise Valley. John,
played by Kevin Costner, is no saint. But he’s something of a god.
Dutton has
four children—including three natural children and one adopted son, whose identity
doesn’t arise until season four. All of his children are devoted to him, and he
loses his much beloved eldest son in the opening sequence of the series.
I’m writing
about the series today because I’m fascinated not so much by the central
character but by how those in his orbit work out their relationships and
devotion to him—mostly through brutality.
For the
eldest son Lee, who we don’t see much of, following his father is a natural act
that springs from his privileged position in the family. Like the patriarch
Abraham and his descendants, following his father is an act of deep and sincere
love, where the sacrifice of a son seems like an entirely logical response. Lee
loves because he is loved, and the brutality of the pastoral life of the
increasingly regulated range don’t require as much theology as loyalty.
The second
son Jamie is adopted. He was rescued by John Dutton and his wife Evelyn after
his own mother was killed by her drug-crazed husband. Jamie doesn’t know until his
forties that he’s adopted, but he knows his father prefers the older son, and
his life is lived trying to earn the love his father can never seem to offer
him.
The third
child is Beth, whose mother blamed her for causing her death. Beth adores her
father to the extreme, and destroys companies and people and communities in the
defense of the ranch that her father has sacrificed so much for. Beth is
clearly one of the most evil characters I’ve ever seen on television—not so much
for the brutality of her actions but for the unbound devotion to her father
that gives rise to her own humiliation and destruction. Her love is reserved
only for her father, her father’s ranch hand and her younger brother. The pivot
point of her vitriol is the adopted brother Jamie.
The
youngest son is Kayce, the Benjamin—the beloved. A war veteran, he’s married to
a Native American woman and lives his life on the margin between the Native
American community and his white family.
What does
this dysfunctional, savage, insatiable family have to do with our readings
today? What possible link to the stories of Moses and the King’s Banquet can we
find in this Western parable?
In Jesus’
parable, a despotic king has invited guests to the wedding banquet of his son,
only to be spurned by his friends and court. Even his relatives refuse to come.
He finally impels the rest of the town to come—and then burns down the whole
city when one of the guests shows up dressed inappropriately. Please tell me
this guy is not a model for the Lord God Almighty!
But
apparently he is.
And it
might beg the question—why would I want to worship a god with such a short
fuse?
The Israelites
in the desert might ask the same question.
But I want
to ask the question a different way.
What was
that one wedding guest doing wrong?
Parables—whether
they are set in urban Jerusalem, or the Sinai desert or the Paradise Valley of
Montana, are not meant to give us concrete answers to philosophical questions.
They are meant to make us grapple with our own internal lives. They’re not very
good at answering questions, but rather provoking them.
One recent
thought that came to me in grappling with the Banquet story is that the guest
showed up for a party, perhaps even honored to be there. But I wonder if that
wedding garment might be something else in disguise.
We tend to
think that showing up and participating—in church, in families, in work
situations—is the base requirement, the ticket in the door. But the Hebrew children
spending the night in the desert while Moses went up the hill showed up! They actually
sacrificed their gold to create an object of beauty and then celebrated a feast
unto the Lord!
In
Yellowstone, John Dutton ostracizes his daughter from the family because she
had gotten an environmental activist sentenced to prison for having attacked
the ranching way of life. She had mistaken her love for her father as a license
to destroy the innocent.
Maybe that
wedding garment was the garment of love. Maybe what he was missing was joy and
love. Maybe he had not taken off his own garment, his self-centered mind, and
what he needed was a garment of joy. Maybe the Hebrew children had gotten impatient
and in their haste, had lost track of their love for the God of Moses.
Maybe the
garment was that of forgiveness. Maybe the guest was too self-congratulatory to
think about how he needed to change. Maybe he forgot that the invitation
required new garments.
When we’re
baptized, they dress us in new white robes to signify our entrance into the
family of God, and in Revelation we see the celestial hosts enrobed in white
sitting around the throne of the Lamb.
It’s part
of all three of these stories that the love we seek, the acceptance and
security we need, require very little in return other than love itself. Our attempts
to deserve God’s love can spiral dangerously out of control, and end in
rejection and tragedy.
What God requires
of us is so simple. Love God. Reverence his Creation. Participate in his joy.
