The Parable of the Wedding Banquet- Matt 22

Matthew 22:1-14

The parables of Jesus assume a certain level of cultural knowledge. They were told to people living in a first century Middle-Eastern Jewish context. These are people with a very specific set of assumptions about how community functions, and what expectations we can place on people. Sometimes we have to understand some of the assumptions of that culture before the parable can be understood. (This is where the work of scholars like Kenneth Bailey are so helpful.)

So, lets look at what a traditional Middle Eastern wedding invitation would look like. In a traditional society like this there was a social hierarchy. If someone higher on the hierarchy invited you to an important event, like their son’s wedding banquet, it was not really an option to refuse to go. There are very few situations that would be considered a valid excuse for not being at the banquet. So, if a king invited you, they are the highest on the social hierarchy, so no one can refuse to attend.

The king would send out the servants to personally give the invitations and then the servants would return to report how many people were going to be attend. They would then plan to make food for the appropriate number of people. When the banquet was ready, the servants would be sent out to tell the invited guests that it was time to gather. (It is important to remember that these are people who already confirmed they were coming.) The guests would then arrive, and the banquet would begin.

When we turn to look at the parable, we see that those who had been invited (which means they confirmed their attendance) are now refusing to come now that the preparations are ready. This is an extreme insult in a traditional Middle Eastern culture, which is hard for us to understand who aren’t from an honour-shame culture. … In our culture it might be a bit like throwing a dinner party and everyone is gathered in the living room with a glass of wine while you finish getting dinner ready, but when you tell them that dinner is ready and it is time to sit at the table they suddenly leave.

The king in the parable responds to this insult with gentleness, humility, and generosity. He sends out his servants again to urge the guests to come. The food is going to be wasted if they don’t come. But the guests double-down on their insult. Some completely ignore the invitation, but others even mistreat and kill the king’s servants.

This extreme and unthinkable insult results in the predictable outcome in this culture. The king sends his army to destroy those who would so gravely insult the king. … But, the king still has his son’s wedding banquet to attend to. The king still wants to have guests at his son’s wedding banquet. It would be an embarrassment to not have guests, so his servants are sent to invite everyone they meet, without being choosy.

This is where we would like the parable to end. With the king throwing the doors open and everyone having an amazing time. … But there is more to the parable. When the king is walking through the banquet, he sees someone not properly dressed for the wedding and he is thrown out. There is still an expectation placed on those who come, even though there was grace in the invitation.

What is Jesus saying through this parable to the people in his day? As we see in other parables, God is the king. The arrival of the Messiah was sometimes talked about as a wedding banquet. This messianic figure is the King’s son- the son of God. The servants are the prophets, who informed the people of Israel about the coming messiah over the centuries. Those who were issued the invitation and rejected the invitation when the moment finally arrived- those rude guests are the leadership of Israel- the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the rulers- they rejected God’s Messiah and refused to participate in the messianic banquet. Even though the previous prophets had let them know, God sent even more prophets, the last of these prophets was John the Baptist, who was killed by King Herod. 

The response of the king is the destruction of those leaders. This may be referring to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD at the hands of the Roman Empire.

Since the guests who had been invited, so rudely rejected the invitation, God instructed that anyone and everyone should be invited- tax-collectors, prostitutes, the poor, lepers, the uneducated, even Gentiles. The invitation is wide open now. All are welcome to the Messianic wedding banquet. This is grace. God is not picky with the invitation- all are invited.

But, there is this uncomfortable bit at the end. Someone is found not properly dressed for the wedding. We might make the mistake in thinking that just because the invitation is wide open that there are no expectations of those who attend the banquet. We are wrong to think that. There is a level of expectation for those who are invited. Responding to the generosity means coming ready for a wedding. We shouldn’t think that the guest in the parable didn’t have appropriate dress for the wedding. They were speechless because they had no excuse. The call to the Messianic wedding banquet is a call to transformation- to take off the old self and to put on the new self- to dress appropriate for a citizen of the kingdom. St. Gregory the Great and St. Augustine both said that this wedding garment is love. The kind of love we read about in 1 Cor 13, where nothing is worth anything without it.

What does this mean for us in our day? Perhaps it is a warning to us that we should be careful about being nonchalant about God’s invitation to us. The original guests were nonchalant about following through on their invitations and showing up to the wedding banquet. And the guest who was removed from the wedding was nonchalant about showing up properly dressed. They didn’t take it seriously. God’s invitation is to be taken seriously. … 

So. we might ask ourselves the uncomfortable question, how seriously do we take our promises to God? For example, our baptismal vows? Baptism is a response to God’s invitation. … Do we take our call to discipleship seriously? Do we not just show up, but do we seriously consider putting on Christ and the practices and holy habits that help that become a reality? Are we purposely working with God to become people filled with God’s love?

It’s always hard to speak this way without feeling guilty. That isn’t the point. I’m sure we all feel that we can do better- We can pray more, or better. We can serve more, or better. We can study more, or better. Maybe it comes down to are we taking the invitation seriously. This isn’t about perfection. But, are we trying? Are we making an effort to grow closer to God?

Familiarity can breed contempt. Maybe that word is too strong. Maybe familiarity breeds ‘indifference’, or leads to ‘taking for granted’. We can become so familiar with the Bible that we can take its words lightly, forgetting the hands that wrote the words and the blood and sweat that was spilled trying to preserve it so that we can have it. … We can think that little wafer in our hand is just bread. … We can take the person sitting next to us for granted. … Maybe something we can learn during this pandemic is that these are things we shouldn’t take for granted. During thanksgiving is it good to consider those blessings we often don't take the time to notice.

The theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke about “cheap grace” in his book “The Cost of Discipleship”. Cheap grace is coming to the banquet and not thinking there is anything expected of you. He says, 

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, … Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate”.

Costly grace is an invitation to follow Jesus. It costs our action in following, but it is grace because we are following Jesus who is generous. … When we are broken by our own sin and feel trapped in a dark room with no way out, costly grace promises forgiveness, and leads to transformation. … Costly grace is selling everything you have so that you can buy a field where you know there is hidden treasure. …Costly grace recognizes that God owes us nothing, and anything God offers us is an undeserved gift. And we pursue that gift with all our strength.

God’s invitation is wide. God wants as many people as possible at the Messianic wedding banquet. The invitation is generous and gracious. But, that doesn’t mean there are no expectations placed on those who agree to attend. We are to place aside our old grubby clothes, and instead put on the clothes of the kingdom. We are to put aside the old self, and put on the new self. We might grumble about an expectation being placed on us, but a willingness to be transformed is really just another way of saying that we want to be at the banquet. Who wants those old grubby clothes anyway. AMEN