The Wedding Garment

Elder Bednar spoke in the most recent general conference about the parable of the royal marriage feast. He highlighted how one guest at the feast was not dressed in the royal wedding garment. The king asked the man, “Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.” Elder Bednar commented, “In essence, the king asked, ‘Why are you not wearing a wedding garment, even though one was provided for you?’ The man obviously was not dressed properly for this special occasion, and the phrase ‘And he was speechless’ indicates that the man was without excuse.” He continued, “A Christian author, John O. Reid, noted that the man’s refusal to wear the wedding garment exemplified blatant ‘disrespect for both the king and his son.’ He did not simply lack a wedding garment; rather, he chose not to wear one. He rebelliously refused to dress appropriately for the occasion. The king’s reaction was swift and decisive: ‘Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” That consequence seems quite severe, and the drastic nature of the king’s response in the Savior’s story should give us pause to consider what was so wrong about the guest’s actions and how we might sometimes act the same. Another commentator suggested, “The man … desired the honor of attending the wedding feast, but … did not want to follow the custom of the king. He wanted to do things his own way. His lack of proper dress revealed his inner rebellion against the king and his instructions.” All too often we also want to attend the figurative feast but refuse to follow the requirements of being there—we desire the blessings of the Lord without keeping the commandments. We seek to worship God while trying to continue to please the world.

                This talk led me to review a speech from Dr. Kerry Muhlestein in 2015 about how we often try to worship God and the ideas of the world at the same time. Just as this man at the wedding feast wanted to be present there to enjoy the feast of the king and still do things his own way, we too often want to partake of the blessings of the gospel while still fitting in with all the ideas of the world. Dr. Muhlestein commented, “Over the last twenty years, as I have tried to observe the ways in which we struggle with idolatry, I have become convinced that on the whole we struggle with one kind of false god more than any other. We tend to worship the ideas of the world, and, like those who pull on the waterski rope, we don’t even realize we are doing it.” He continued with this sobering assessment of Latter-day Saints: “I have not done a scientific study of this, but my impression is that Latter-day Saints tend to follow the trends of the world around them, lagging just a little behind. The rates of successful marriages, family sizes, the immodesty of our clothing, and the crudeness of our entertainment usually follow the trends of the world—we just stay slightly better. We kid ourselves that we are being holy because our shorts or skirts are not as short as everyone else’s and our topics of conversation are not as crude as those of the world around us. But the reality is that if our standards are so constantly affected by the world’s, it does not matter if we are doing better than everyone else; the world is still setting our standards instead of God.” I believe his impression is a correct description of many Latter-day Saints today. For example, there are movies we watch and embrace which the majority of Saints would not have watched two decades ago because today they are rated “PG-13” and not “R” (a scale which seems to ever be shifting). Similarly, Latter-day Saint youth often find styles of clothing acceptable which most never would have worn when I was growing up (but which are just slightly more modest than the average dress of others). We accept just about all but the worst of the music of the world, justifying the vulgarity to ourselves because that we don’t listen to the really bad stuff. And we have become more and more accepting of the world’s views on morality as we try to appease popular opinion, sometime slipping dangerously away from the Lord’s declared standards. These are just a few examples, but the point is that we are far more influenced and submissive to the ideas and entertainment of the world than most of us would be ready to admit. We earnestly seek to keep “summer cottage in Babylon”—as Elder Maxwell once put it—while still trying to worship the Lord. Like the guest at the wedding feast, we don’t want to fully conform to the requirements of the King and yet still try to be present to please Him.                 Elder Bednar summarized the lesson from this parable in these words: “In the busyness of our daily lives and in the commotion of the contemporary world in which we live, we may be distracted from the eternal things that matter the most by making pleasure, prosperity, popularity, and prominence our primary priorities. Our short-term preoccupation with ‘the things of this world’ and ‘the honors of men’ may lead us to forfeit our spiritual birthright for far less than a mess of pottage.” Our greatest desire must be to love the Lord, clinging fast to the iron rod that is His word as we press forward, heeding not the scorn constantly coming from the great and spacious building that constantly looks down on us. Otherwise, we may find unexpectedly that the mists of darkness have led us inside that worldly edifice even while we try to convince ourselves that we are yet at the tree of life because the taste of its fruit is still in our mouths.