Yard Sign Christianity

You’ve probably seen the yard sign: “In this house, we believe: Black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything.”

Increasingly, this is the religion of the popular culture. Some even claim it to be a version of Christianity, albeit a progressive one. The idea that “loving” everyone means never excluding anyone. Inclusion is god, and everyone is always welcome.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a name for this kind of faith: cheap grace, “grace without discipleship, grace without the cross.”

We read the parable of the wedding feast in church a few Sundays ago, and it made me think of that yard sign.

The beginning of the parable is everything these new-age deconstructionists would want it to be:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” (Matthew 22:2–7)

There was no mistake about who the parable was referencing here: those expected to be at the banquet did not heed the invitation and are dealt with swiftly. It is the rebuke of the properly religious that so many cynical ex-Christians love to relish.

But, as always, the story goes on to ensure no one leaves the parable comfortable. In verse 8:

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.” (Matthew 22:8–10)

You see, at this point, we’ve got the picture of God as the pinnacle of inclusion, inviting all who would listen, all who would come. How so many wish the story would have stopped there, but it goes on.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:11–14)

Notice the king comes in to “see” the guests. This is a form of judgment. He addresses the man as “friend,” but that Greek word is so fascinating. It’s used only by Matthew in this way, in three different places:

1. The vineyard owner addressing the worker who is complaining about his wages (Matthew 20:13)

2. The king addressing the guest without wedding clothes (Matthew 22:12)

3. Jesus addressing Judas in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:50)

In all three places, the word is spoken to someone close to the master who still will not fully trust and submit. One wants to work for the master but doesn’t like how gracious he is to everyone else (paying workers who arrived late a full wage): “I am not being unfair to you, friend” (Matthew 20:13). One wants to be one of the Twelve but is ultimately unwilling to completely put to death his former self: “Do what you came for, friend” (Matthew 26:50). And one is happy to receive the invitation but unwilling to prepare and put on new clothes. Discomfort with the amount of grace, an unwillingness to submit personally, an unwillingness to prepare: in each case, a lack of trust and total obedience.

When the unprepared guest is asked to explain himself, he cannot. The scripture tells us, “The man was speechless.” The word means he was literally muzzled. Matthew uses that word again for the Sadducees when Jesus answers them brilliantly, avoiding their attempt to trap him (Matthew 22:34). Nobody gagged them; they were caught with nothing left to say. The same is true here. The king’s question was rhetorical. It wasn’t asking for information; it was exposing him. The verdict was already on him. The moment for an answer has already passed.

When you take a step deeper into the parable, you begin to see how deep the idea of garments goes. To take off old clothes and to put on new clothes is a repeated idea throughout Scripture, depicting a death of self and rebirth of new life in Christ. For the wedding guest, this is the basic expectation. The expectation that guests at a wedding came washed, prepared, and in clean and festive clothes shows us how Christ depicts in the parable what our response to his invitation for new life should look like.

It’s ironic, because our yard sign Christianity touts ad nauseam this idea that we should all come as we are. In some way, that’s true. Jesus doesn’t require you to clean up to get invited. After all, in the parable, they go to the street corners—a demonstration of the inclusion of what society would deem undesirable. But what he makes a clear distinction on is that what you are being invited to is a life of transformation: one that requires the destruction of your old self and your old ways.

This is echoed by Paul in Ephesians: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24).

Christ expects a response to the opportunity that’s laid before you, like the man who sells all his possessions to buy the field because he knows the treasure hidden within it (Matthew 13:44). Sure, he has a desire for everyone to be there, but he also has a standard that is required for you to stay. You must demonstrate your willingness to lay aside everything you are so you can be made new.

That idea of everything you are is the old clothes. That is your greed, your lust, your selfishness, your unforgiveness, your anger. Those collective habits and impulses are a master, and as Jesus tells us in Matthew 6, there cannot be two masters: “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24).

Thus we come to the crux of this parable and the intersection with our unfortunate yard sign. As taboo as it may be to say, the king in this parable excludes. He discriminates. He divides. Yes, I realize: division, exclusion, and discrimination have all become anti-pillars of the HR lexicon these days, but you don’t get gospel truth without them. The capital-T Truth cannot and will not stand with anything untrue.

When Christ tells us he is the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6), he is describing a very narrow gate. This is the confounding paradox of a God depicted as a shepherd who leaves his flock to find the one (Luke 15:4), but also, at different points, looks at the flock and tells them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). Then he watches as many leave (John 6:66), heartbroken but undeterred, understanding, as the parable reminds us, that many are invited but few are chosen.

What we have here is, on the one hand, a far more generous, grace-filled God than many of the religious folks in his day wanted, but a radically more exclusive discriminator than many of our day hope.

We live in a world that wants there to be many truths, many ways of being in the world, many masters, letting people be and do and think however they want. But our Christ is ruthless and gracious, all at the same time: Come to me, but submit. Call me Lord or perish.

This is where Christ draws a discriminating line, because there can only be one way that is true. To compromise, if he was to do that, would be to authorize a worldview and lifestyle choices that will not bring life, joy, and purpose. It is not that he is mean. It is just that there cannot be any other way.

So what do we do with this parable in light of our cultural obsession with inclusion?

1. Don’t be shy about the cost. Following Christ requires the death of the old self. Bonhoeffer, who warned against cheap grace, put the alternative plainly in The Cost of Discipleship: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” In today’s world, that kind of clarity, that inflexibility about what following Christ requires, has fallen out of vogue. It’s viewed as mean. But we must draw strength from parables like this to remind ourselves that exclusion is a form of protection: we exclude only what would destroy us. The boundary is a guardrail, not a whim. We call for the death of self because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). It is not an arbitrary requirement, some divine litmus test to prove your worthiness. It comes from love and a desire for our flourishing. That is why the gospel erects these boundaries between our old masters and our new King.

2. Walk humbly. The only thing unsurprising about Christ is how consistently he violates the expectations others put on him. In the parable of the vineyard, the men who show up late get the same wage, and the worker who labored all day is surprised by the generosity of the vineyard owner. In the depiction of the last days, many who say, “Lord, Lord,” will be told, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:21–23). He is far more generous than we can fathom, and far more serious about what he requires. Over and over again, those too certain about who Christ is, or what he would or would not do, are confounded. That should humble us and motivate us to reexamine our own hearts. And it should challenge us to reflect the generosity of the king and the vineyard owner: to go to the street corners and invite everyone, the sinner and the saint, while being honest that the invitation requires new clothes.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Currently, I serve as the Executive Director of Them Before Us, advocating globally for the rights and well-being of children.

I am also the co-founder of All The Good, a leadership organization helping non-profits do all the good they are called to do.

I studied Cross-Cultural Ministry and Humanitarian and Disaster Leadership at Messiah and Wheaton. I read a lot and sleep less than I probably should.