The Wedding Guest

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…Then saith he to his servants, The Wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.
And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said to the king to his servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.
–Matthew 22:8-14

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Questions and Comments:

  1. Would you go to this wedding?
  2. WTF?
  3. Okay, so it’s a parable.
  4. The king is God, and the wedding itself is heaven.
  5. God, therefore, is an asshole. Like, not a minor one, but a huge asshole.
  6. The kind of asshole who ties you up and throws you in the road to die if you’re not dressed right for his party.
  7. A party, which, by the way, you didn’t even know you were going to until like an hour before it.
  8. What if your tux-slash-party-dress was at the cleaners that day. What if being dressed wrong wasn’t even your fault?!
  9. I took one religion class in college; for parables, you’re supposed to focus on the single unusual aspect and ignore the rest. So, ignore the king being an asshole.
  10. Therefore, also ignore God being an asshole.
  11. The unusual aspect is that the guy is dressed wrong for the party, and is thus thrown out.
  12. Which is a metaphor.
  13. The Wedding is the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the marriage between God and man.
  14. The Kingdom of Heaven may come at any moment, the Bible tells us; it may arrive at any moment.
  15. …Is any of this lessening the assholishness of God in the parable, which I’m still obsessed with, even though I shouldn’t be obsessed with it?
  16. I don’t think that it is lessening the assholishness.
  17. Anyway, since the Kingdom of Heaven may arrive at any moment, that is why God/King grabs people at the last moment to come to the party.
  18. And one of the guests is not ready for the party.
  19. Which = he has not spent his life preparing for the Kingdom of God, as one should.
  20. Asshole!
  21. Sorry.
  22. Thus, the unprepared guest is cast out into the outer darkness for eternity, with great gnashing of teeth.
  23. Still really dickish though; come on.
  24. …What would you wear to the wedding party?
  25. I always want to wear, like, a seersucker suit to formal thingies.
  26. Forgetting along the way that it’s almost impossible to look good in a seersucker suit.
  27. If you can look good in a seersucker suit, you are hot, and if a girl, I would like to mayhaps sleep with you.
  28. The dark side is that if you look good in a seersucker suit, it just means that you would look about 67% better if you had just decided to wear anything else that day. Seersucker suits are like shorts in that way.
  29. If you can look good in shorts (especially if you’re a guy) then you are, essentially, a model.
  30. I have not forgotten about God being a total asshole here.
  31. …I would probably end up wearing like a gray blazer and khaki pants; everyone looks good in those.
  32. With a patterned white or blue shirt; multi-striped of some kind.
  33. …Which would counterbalance the overall boringness of the outfit concept; you have to wear an interesting shirt if the overall outfit is standard like that.
  34. Or maybe I’d just wear my traditional corduroy jacket with sweatshirt with jeans, and be tossed into the outer darkness.
  35. “…You-uuuu’re a re-aaaal di-iiiick,” I would say as I was tossed, the tossing stretching out my words like that.
  36. “I only had an hour to throw this together!” I would say as I was tossed.
  37. I used to really like the phrase, “Many are called, but few are chosen.”
  38. I guess I just forgot about the assholishness that leads up to it.
  39. Anyway, what would you wear?
  40. If a girl, I would suggest a simple summer dress; maybe with a flower blossom tucked behind your ear.
  41. Y’know, sort of Zooey Deschanel-ish.
  42. God would probably like that; he probs love-hates Zooey too.
  43. Anyway.
  44. That is all.
  45. Dunzo.
  46. Done.

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image – U.S. National Archives