Now over twenty Augusts ago, I went to a wedding in Washington, DC – where both the bride and the groom were from.

Both families were DC power families, and everything about the wedding was carefully thought out and terrific, and very personal, even though there were about five hundred guests.

But the piece-de-resistance was the wedding cake.

Someone found out that a former White House pastry chef had been hired—I guess when you have that many guests, you need to bring in the big guns.

And it turned out that this chef would only work with butter from Normandy, I think because Norman butter has a higher fat content, and that was, apparently, this particular baker’s secret ingredient.

So, the butter had been flown in, and the cake had been baked, and there it was in the center of the tent on a warm August night in Washington, DC.

Maybe you know what a warm August night is like in Washington, DC.

You would think that, say, a former White House pastry chef would know what a warm August night is like in Washington, DC.

My table had a clear view of that cake.

And we began to see signs of trouble somewhere during Lamar Alexander’s kind but rather lengthy toast to the new couple.

“I think I just saw it sag,” said someone quietly.

And then the ground under the little marzipan bride began to give way, and before you knew it, there was a major cake-in – cave in – and a loud gasp, and suddenly, and army of servers appeared and the cake was whisked out of sight, to be plated inside.

I’m glad to tell you that the bride and groom and their parents were all just too happy about the day, and about the future, to be bothered by a mishap with the wedding cake, and the party went on without missing a beat.

But that doesn’t always happen at a wedding banquet does it?

Wedding banquets have become almost a subgenre within movies of all types, whether it’s “The Godfather” or “Wedding Crashers,” as moments replete with powerful dramatic undercurrents, and truths just waiting to be spoken in public.

In some sense, that’s true of this morning’s Scripture, too – this parable Jesus tells about a king who gives a wedding banquet for his son.

The last line is the one everybody knows. The king says, “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

For surprisingly enough, a royal invitation did not turn out the A-list crowd that the king had been anticipating.

I read a couple of weeks ago that Ralph Lauren was absolutely beyond furious when Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, declined an invitation to sit in the front row at a fashion show he had been planning for months, and for which he had made a generous donation to one of Prince William’s charities.

Prince William dutifully came to the show and was warm and polite…and unfortunately, entirely beside the point…because who cares about him?

Maybe it was like that for the king in Jesus’ parable.

Having the A-listers come to his son’s wedding banquet would have been fun, but having them reject it was humiliating, and he lashes out.

It’s a strange moment for us as listeners, of course, because we’re used to hearing Jesus talk about welcoming the unwelcome as an expression of kindness and compassion, as heeding a call to be part of a broader community.

This does not seem to be saying that.

And along those lines, it’s curious that after being rejected by the A-listers, the king would bother to be furious with some hapless, regular joe of a guest who isn’t dressed up for the affair.

Clearly, his heart and mind have not been somehow enlarged by this experience.

It makes you wonder: what is supposed to be spiritual here?

To me, the whole story is a strange meditation on what it is to be chosen.

I wonder if the person Jesus wants us to pay attention to is, actually, the king.

Because, it’s the king chooses one guest list, and then another.

But it’s also the king who chooses to use his power impulsively and destructively.

By anyone’s judgment, to be a king is to be one of the few who has been chosen.

What could be more blessed than having a kingdom of your own?

And yet…look at what he does with it.

The son, the court, the kingdom scarcely enter into the story—the king has become entirely wrapped up in himself.

Similarly, the danger for us isn’t found in wearing the wrong clothes to the banquet.  The danger lies in our capacity to become tyrants–people who use our power to keep control over our particular kingdom, rather than using it to reach out, and to do good. 

And so our Gospel names for me today, first, the great danger of all the ways in which we are chosen—the ways in which we are blessed.

It calls us to be honest with ourselves about the power we have to make a difference in the world, for good or for ill.

I suspect that many of us want to rewrite this parable, and to imagine the king transformed by the banquet, where he can see at close range what it is to be generous to those in need—and maybe find new purpose in that.

Isn’t that how it should be?

Because it’s so easy to say that about someone else’s story–that it needs to be rewritten, that it’s time to begin a new chapter, and all that.  It’s so easy to say that about someone else’s story, and so hard to say about our own.

And that is the second thing the Gospel names for me today.

It makes me wonder about what parts of my story, and my influence are aching to be rewritten.

I suspect each of us gets a slightly different sense of that, if we try to go there.

Is the point really our story, after all? Because I think the larger point is how our stories are folded into the larger story of everything God has done and is doing–the story of God’s endlessly creative, relentlessly adaptive, and hopelessly devoted love for all that He has made.

Bearing that in mind, how do you and I understand the parts of our lives which are not simply our own doing, but which might just be signs of our being chosen? And what do we do with the powers that we have?

Is it enough?

Or are we called to rewrite the story in some more faithful way?

I have a lot of conversations about what living in Greenwich means to people, and for some, it is a place they are eager to help if they can just find the right way; while for others, it is the place they come home to in order to get patched up before the next round, and they feel lucky if they manage to keep their lawn alive through August.

Figuring out what to do with our chosenness is challenging. But we are called to figure it out — and to figure it out soon.

Because make no mistake: your life and mine can be like that wedding cake, made of the very finest ingredients and prepared for the most elegant of occasions, only to prove far too fragile when the circumstances change.

Few are chosen to begin with. And even fewer make their chosenness into a path that honors God and neighbor, and enlarges the world’s humanity.

This morning, Jesus reminds us to be among those who do.

Because then, no matter how you slice it, our lives will be sweet, indeed.

Amen.