AtomThe Wedding Feast
Matthew 22:1-14
Last week we focused on Philippians…and …today’s reading again reminds us where peace is found…in comes in being in relationship with the living Lord Jesus…with prayer and supplication. It comes through thinking about those things of God, and the God of peace will be with you!! God’s people, Hold tight to this marvelous passage of faith and hope!
As we prepare to hear the Gospel today….Tony Campolo tells a wonderful story about the bride-to-be who had planned for a huge wedding and reception in Philadelphia and a couple of days before the wedding the groom got cold feet and backed out. Faced with the choice of forfeiting all the dollars spent on caterers, entertainment, and the like she became radical, and invited all the homeless folks of Philadelphia to a banquet…free of charge ! And they came. The main course? “Boneless chicken”…in honor of the groom she said!!
Today’s Gospel is also about a wedding banquet…given by the King himself. Let’s hear this story: From Matthew 22:
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. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again 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.’ 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 Those 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, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then 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.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Grace to you and peace, from God our Father, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who comes to us through His Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Imagine that you’re young and single and have met the love of your life. Engagement has taken place…your wedding date is set…and it’s time to send out the invitation!! Who do you invite to the wedding…and it’s not that easy to decide is it?
Do you really have to invite Uncle Fred…who monopolizes every conversation??
Or…that third cousin on your mother’s side…the one with personal hygiene issues??
How about your parents’ best friends, all 60 of them?
How do you decide who to invite and where to draw the line?
With this in mind, here’s another story about a young woman planning her wedding, a woman named Jenny.
Jenny was engaged to the love of her life and together she and her fiancé decided to hold both their wedding and their reception outdoors in a park important to them…in Winter Haven, Florida. As Jenny thought about her guest list she couldn’t help but think of the homeless people who often hung out at this particular park. And so, she personally invited every homeless person in the park to attend her reception. And they came, honored and grateful to be included in both the joy and the abundance of the day. (We’ll come back to Jenny!!)
The setting of today’s parable is significant—a wedding feast for a king’s son. Without question Jesus’ hearers knew all about wedding feasts. For many it was the most joyous experience of their lives. It probably was the only time they experienced real abundance in terms of food and drink. And the fact that this was a royal wedding feast made this an even more exceptional invitation. Jesus’ mention of oxen and fattened calves—food of the wealthy—only escalates the magnitude of this feast.
And then, when Jesus told about the rejection of the invitation by the initial guests in this parable, they would have been bursting at the seams with laughter. NO ONE in their right mind would reject an invitation like this from the king. It was unheard of…
Yet…when Jesus tells how this king sends out yet a second invitation to his guests, they would have started questioning Jesus story asking, “What kind of king is this?” And then, when this second group ignores the invitation and the King sends out his servants to invite perfect strangers to attend his son’s wedding, and not just the well-bred; but the good, the bad, and the ugly…I sense they would have been silent…wondering…is it true that Everyone is welcome to the feast? Because,
It’s almost as if this king has no interest in the social status of his guests and far more interested in getting as many people as possible to enjoy the feast regardless of their worthiness.
And, of course, that’s exactly what the king desires because, as is so obvious, the real king in this story is no ordinary king.
By the time Matthew had written down this parable, the people knew that this is a parable about God, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And this is no ordinary wedding feast. This is the wedding feast spoken about in Revelation 19…
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hal¬lelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready…” Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!
By the time Matthew’s Gospel was written, the people knew that Jesus’ parable speaks clearly that the deepest desire of the heart of God is that all people would hear the invitation…and know that they are invited to the eternal feast of abundant life, not because we are worthy but because Jesus makes us worthy!!
Like the homeless men and women at Jenny’s wedding reception Jesus tells us that we are personally invited by grace…and we have nothing to bring to the banquet—no gift, no dish to pass, no tuxedo or gown, no righteousness of our own, because you see….
Feasting at the table of our Lord is not about our worthiness, but about God’s all-inclusive, abundant, irrational, love and grace.
Oh…we may think we have something to bring…and then we may act like the man who showed up at the wedding feast in his own clothing…thinking that we are worthy on our own…that we don’t need the wedding clothes that the King has provided for us…
But no. That man was thrown out of the feast…reminding everyone: it’s only by GRACE we can enter into God’s feast…it’s only when we are clothed in the wedding clothes of HIS grace and mercy…HIS love and righteousness that we are allowed to enter!! Our tattered rags of sin (arrogance, pride) only bring about judgment and condemnation!!
The Gospel today is invitational…The Lord and King of all creation not only invites us to the feast of love and abundant life, but even provides the “clothing” we are to wear: the righteousness of Christ. God’s grace restores us from our need to make ourselves feel or appear worthy. God’s grace tells us that:
Our past failures don’t exclude us. Our current struggles don’t shut us out.
Now…as easy as it would be to stop here and say AMEN…we can’t…because there’s more to today’s Gospel parable: Knowing that you are invited isn’t enough it seems: responding to the invitation is also important…returning your RSVP is important!!
You see, while this parable speaks of the abundance and generosity of the Living God…it’s also speaks about our response…our response to the invitation that comes from the Living God!!
How do we respond??
First, may I suggest our response looks like Living in FAITH.
Faith as a way of living…entering into the company of the King…
Faith in trusting and living out the words of the Lord of the Banquet!!
Faith in this generous King to carry us through times of economic crisis…
Faith that this God has far more abundance than any bailout plan could contain…
Faith that fixes our minds upon that which is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing…
Second, I sense our response looks like living in HOPE.
A hope that leads to acknowledging that noth¬ing…neither death nor life nor anything else in all of creation…could separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
This is a hope that believes that no circumstance is beyond the redeeming and restoring touch of God’s power.
This is a hope that KNOWS “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less than Jesus and HIS righteousness”…no matter how tempting it is to plan our hope in things temporary and shallow…in things that will not last!!
And then, let me suggest our response looks like living in LOVE…
A love that enters into the tough parts of life and gets dirty,
A love that filled with deeds and actions…patience and kindness…forgiveness and sacrifice.
This love is the kind of love that puts the needs of others before our own.
The kind of love that easily lets go of an offense, not because the offender deserves forgiveness but because we know how much we’ve been forgiven.
It is the kind of love that loves the unlovable, not because they are worthy of love but because God has miraculously found us worthy of love.
Today we hear a marvelous parable of the Generous King who invites us to HIS banquet!! And, He asks for our RSVP…our response!!
May I suggest that Living in FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE…is our RSVP.
When Jenny invited those homeless men and women to her reception they came and they celebrated and they rejoiced—not because they thought they were worthy, but precisely because they knew they were not worthy and yet by grace they had been invited anyway.
And so it is with us.
May we respond to the King’s great invitation today…again or for the very first time. And then, may we go out and invite others to do the same, not because they are worthy, but precisely because they are not worthy and yet the King wants them at the feast as much as he wants us there also. AMEN
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