The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

Matthew 22:1-14

In our Gospel reading for the last few weeks we have been hearing the Parables of Jesus. … Jesus’ parables are often intended to be unsettling, puzzling, and shocking. They often challenge the status quo. They show the new and often unsettling thing that God is doing. Expectations are reversed. Values are challenged. The social hierarchy is toppled. They force us to think deeper and with a more heavenly perspective. Sometimes they are an indirect way of showing someone their own sin.

In today’s parable, Jesus tells a story about a king who is holding a wedding banquet for his son. The theme of a wedding is a common image used when talking about the coming Messiah. … Jesus will tell another parable about ten virgins, some with enough oil, and some without enough as they wait for the arrival of the groom. … Jesus also refers to himself as a groom, for example, when he explains why his disciples don’t fast, he says that they don’t fast while the groom is with them (9:15). … In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he speaks to wives and husbands using the image of Jesus as the groom and the Church as the bride (Eph 5:21-33). … These are just a few examples. … So, when we hear about a wedding in Jesus’ parable, we should think about the coming of the Messiah, and about the final union between God and God’s people.

Based on the honour-shame culture of Jesus, if a social superior invited you to an event, you were obligated to attend. So, if it was the king who invited you, you would be in a state of exaggerated obligation because he was the highest social superior. … And this would be intensified even more based on how important the event was. … If it wasn’t just an ordinary dinner, but the wedding banquet for the King’s son, then there would be an even more exaggerated obligation. … On two fronts, this is of exaggerated importance, which places an intense obligation on the one invited. The one giving the invitation is the highest social authority (the King), and the type of event the people are invited to is an extremely important party (the wedding banquet of the king’s son). The social obligation placed on those invited is extreme. No excuse could justify not attending, apart from death. To refuse to come would be an incredible insult towards the king.

The servants were sent out to tell those who had been invited that it was time to gather. This is not the first time they are hearing about this banquet. They had already been invited and now it is the time to gather. But, those who had already been invited refuse to come.

The servants would be seen as the prophets who have called the people to return to God and God’s ways. John the Baptist would be the last of the Old Testament prophets.

Graciously, after being incredibly disrespected, the king sends more servants to urge those who had been invited to attend the wedding banquet. The food has been prepared, everything is ready. He gives them another chance. … This is an incredibly gracious king, who was willing to look past being disrespected so profoundly. … The invitation is issued again.

Again, this is an image of the prophets who called the people again and again to return to God. … In the book of Judges, we see the cycle of apostacy. People reject or ignore God, and this puts them out from under God’s protection. Then a calamity happens to them, often another nation attacks them. This causes them to turn back to God, who then sends a Judge to save them. But, then they turn away from God again and the cycle continues. … We see this pattern all over the Bible. The people grumble in the wilderness and yearn to return to Egypt. … King Ahab and Queen Jezebel lead the people into the worship of foreign gods, which leads to a confrontation with God through the prophet Elijah who calls the people to return to God. … … We see this story with the prophets over and over. The people reject or ignore God, often it is the leaders who are leading people into this rejection. Then, the prophets call the people to return to God. … And, God is gracious, so the invitation is re-issued to those who rejected Him.

In the parable, after the second invitation is issued, some of those who had been invited to the wedding banquet ignore the servants and go do different things- to work in their field, or to their business. They decide that the king isn’t going to interfere with their lives and they go back to work. … But others seize the servants and abuse them and kill them.

The prophets are often abused and killed. Elijah fled into the wilderness to escape King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, who were threatening to kill him. Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern. Isaiah was killed. Zechariah was stoned to death (2 Chron 24:20-22). John the Baptist was beheaded by King Herod. And we know that the leadership is going to reject and kill Jesus.

The people who were issued invitations to the wedding banquet showed incredible disrespect to the King. To abuse and kill the king’s servants is an unimaginable insult.

Here we need to remember that in parables, the characters aren’t always perfect equivalents to what they represent. … Jesus tells a parable about an unjust judge, who doesn’t really care about justice, but gives a widow what she wants to stop her from annoying him. In the parable, the unjust judge is God, but we can’t make a perfect equivalent as if God doesn’t care about justice. … Here too, we should be careful about equating the enraged king with God too closely. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t consequences for such extreme disrespect of God and murder of His servants. …

In the parable, the king is enraged. He sends his army who destroys the murderers and burns their city to the ground. St. John Chrysostom teaches that this refers to the later destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70AD.

It would be a shameful thing to have no guests at his son’s wedding banquet, so the king tells his servants to invite anyone. He tells them to make the invitation wide, everyone is welcome. They are not to be picky. They invite the good and the bad, until the wedding hall is full of guests. …

Some have seen this as an invitation to the Gentiles, who were previously not a part of the covenant of Israel. … But it can also be seen as an invitation to those on the outskirts of society- the tax-collectors and “sinners”.

This is one way of understanding the Beatitudes that begin the Sermon on the Mount. By the cultural standards of their day, The Beatitudes describe those who were not thought to be blessed. … To be poor was evidence that God did not bless you with material wealth. To be in mourning was to be one who was not blessed to be saved from tragedy. To be meek was to have people walk all over you, and to not really have social influence. To hunger and thirst for righteousness was to not be blessed to have righteousness to feast on. To be merciful, means you have had wrong done to you and not taken the revenge due to you. The pure in heart are the naïve and are easily taken advantage of. The peacemakers are in the midst of conflict, and so are not already blessed with peace. Those who are persecuted are not blessed with protection from their enemies. … One way to understand The Beatitudes is to see them as a broad invitation to all those who were not seen as blessed by their culture. It is a way of saying, “Yes, even you are invited to be a part of the Kingdom”. All those who the culture thought did not have God’s favour are invited. … Jesus was famous for spending time with Tax-collectors and “sinners”. … And this invitation, eventually extends to the Gentiles as well. They too are invited to the Kingdom. … The invitation is incredibly, and generously, broad.

The next part of the parable is often the confusing part. We wish the parable would end here with everyone being invited. But Jesus continues. … The king notices a man who was not wearing wedding clothes. The invitation was broad, but there is still an expectation placed on the guests who attend. They are to be dressed appropriately. We should assume that the man had a wedding garment available to him, which is why he was speechless. He had no excuse. He chose not to dress appropriately for the wedding banquet, and as a consequence of that choice he has excluded himself from the banquet and is thrown out.

So, what does the wedding garment represent? He was happy to receive the invitation, but he seemed to want to come on his own terms. He was unwilling to change. … Some have suggested that the garment is a garment of baptism, with all that Baptism represents- its vows to renounce evil and turning to Christ in trust. … Some see it at a garment of righteousness- a life of faith, repentance, and virtue. … Gregory the Great and Augustine said that the garment was love. Augustine points to 1 Corinthians 13 where we read, 

“if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:2).

 To lack the kind of love he is talking about, would remove the value of all the other good works we can do.

The New Testament scholar, Bishop NT Wright says about this garment, 

“The point of the story is that Jesus is telling the truth, the truth that political and religious leaders often like to hide: the truth that God's Kingdom is a Kingdom in which love and justice and truth and mercy and holiness rein unhindered. They are the clothes you need to wear for the wedding. And if you refuse to put them on, you are saying you don't want to stay at the party. That is the reality. If we don't have the courage to say so, we are deceiving ourselves, and everyone who listens to us” (Matthew for Everyone, Tom Wright).

 This is not what Bonhoeffer would describe as “cheap grace”. It is grace for sure, because everyone is invited, but something is expected. To refuse to be transformed is a way of refusing to be a part of the banquet. All are invited. Everyone. It doesn’t matter what your starting point is. … But, a change of clothes is also necessary. We can’t stay where we are when we were first invited. We are called into transformation. AMEN