A Pointed Parable About The Kingdom of God

As I have moved through this challenging call to preach God’s Word, it has become more and more clear to me that the Bible is a book that needs careful attention.  It is not a quick read!  It was written in a completely different time and culture.  It was written in languages that we are not familiar with. And the people who wrote were not always as versed in the language usage -- or the various dialects of their time. The Bible needs careful exegesis — critical explanation and interpretation.  So it has been my goal to honor the words printed on the pages of this amazing story.  Not taking for granted that I know, or understand, the original meaning.  I encourage everyone, who reads this book, to be more attentive to the context, language and historical content of what we read in the Bible.

1 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.”(Matt. 22:1-14)

This parable is one I have avoided preaching on for my entire call.  I have done so for one reason, verses 11-13. These few line, and also the passage where Jesus initially refuses to acknowledge a Canaanite woman begging for his mercy; because she was not considered a part of the “house of Israel” (Matt. 15:21-28). Have put thorns in my theology for more than thirty years.  For the specific reason that they are the kinds of passages, that without proper interpretation, feed on what I will call Old Testament judgment theology.  A theology that many of our sisters and brothers want to claim  as Gospel. These two passages also do not fit with the larger message of New Testament which is a message of a gracious, loving, accepting, merciful and forgiveness of God/Jesus. 

The main part of this Wedding Banquet parable is fairly clear.   The king is God!  The son is Jesus!  The invited guest are the “chosen people” of Israel.  However, the chosen/invited don’t choose to come to the banquet.  The king is decidedly upset.  And after a few tries to encourage the invited to come; he has his salves go out and bring in those unchosen — the good and the bad — to come to celebrate his son. 

This double sided story’s message is that the “chosen” have refused to honor Jesus as God’s son.  They have not believed!  They have been disrespectful to the “promised one who is to come "in the name of the LORD.”  So, Jesus uses yet another parable to point out the failure of the religious leaders, of the Hebrew people, to recognize God’s activity in their midst.  To recognize that the promised Messiah.  They are treating Jesus the same way they had treated the prophets of old.  And the king is tired of their lack of faith.  So he quickly changes the long held understanding of who are “chosen.”  He invites the outcast, unacceptable and unclean (according to the Israelites opinion that is).

Verse 13 and 14 are not only a mystery to me; but have been to biblical scholars for centuries as well.  However, one explanation, I recently read, finally made sense to me. It is that the one not dressed properly is one of the originally invited guests who decided to come after all.  Someone who would have owned the respectful robe to wear.  The reasoning is that the others didn’t have time to dress properly because they were all bought in from the streets at the last minute. The one that the king called on his appearance would have had the proper dress and the time to dress for the occasion. So the king calls him out for his disrespectful action.