This week’s Gospel reading is the Parable of the Wedding Banquet. Read the text and we will talk about it below.
Matthew 22:1-14 (NRSV)
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ 5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14For many are called, but few are chosen.”
The Parable is placed in Matthew right after Jesus has angered the Jewish officials and they have desired to arrest him. Jesus pokes them again with this parable but at the same time he is laying out a challenge for us.
Lets look at what the storyteller tells us:
1) There is a King who is having a party for his son’s marriage. Contextually we can tell from verse thirteen that this party is the entrance in to the Eternal Heavenly Kingdom. The King is God the Father and the Son is the Storyteller. The bride using other New Testament symbolism is the Church.
2) The first guest that are too busy to come is the Jewish leaders of Jesus’s day they reject the invitation to the Party and the King and even attack and mistreat the messengers. This refers to the prophets and missionaries who have tried to evangelize the Jews specifically and the World in general. The rejects of the invitation and the messengers is paid back with the destruction of their city, specifically Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
3) The second set of guest are gathered from the streets and are not invited because they are good people, in fact some of them are invited even though they are called “bad”.
4) The crowd gathers at the Party waiting for the King to arrive. When the King arrives he noticed that someone is not wearing their wedding clothes he has his servants tie the unprepared guest up and throw him out in to the darkness where there is crying and anguish.
What does this mean to us now? The Church is the crowd that is gathered for the Wedding Party. We, the Church are made up of good people and bad people, sinners and seekers after Christ. There are wolves among us and lambs. You will notice it was not the properly dressed guests obligation to kick out the one who was not dressed correctly, only the King.
So what is having the right clothes? I believe Jesus’ original hearers would have seen this story as referring to a passage from Isaiah chapter 61 that refers to a wedding clothes, a judgement, and people that are from among all the nations. Isaiah tells us what the clothes are:
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, Isaiah 61:10 (NRSV)
The wedding clothes are Salvation and Righteousness. Being at the Party is not enough, being in the church as if it was a nice place to sit is not enough, being in the church because you are expected to be there is not enough, being Good is not enough! You must wear the wedding Clothes that the King has already provided for all who believe.
Salvation and Righteousness are God’s gift to us, paid for by the blood of Jesus on the cross.
