Lent 2: Are you invited? Are you going? What are you going to wear?

Are you invited? Are you going? What are you going to wear?

In our text today, Jesus is teaching using parables again.

And the parable we’ll read also appears in Luke 14, though not exactly the same.

Confession: Luke’s is easier. Simpler and more straightforward.

Temptation to allegorize every parable, but while some of them seem to allow for that, this one doesn’t.

So let’s not okay?

After all, parables are not meant to make us cosy and comfortable. They’re not bed time stories. They’re meant to make us stop. And think. And to perplex us just enough that our imaginations might catch a glimpse of whatever Jesus was talking about.

And the context in which Matthew places this parable matters too… we are reading parables in the context of a narrative. In Matthew 21, Jesus disrupts the status quo by riding into Jerusalem and entering the Temple. He’s cheered by the crowd and questioned by the religious leaders. And they are upset not just at his actions, but at the Parables he’s been telling.

Matthew 22:1–14 CEB

1 Jesus responded by speaking again in parables: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding party for his son. 3 He sent his servants to call those invited to the wedding party. But they didn’t want to come. 4 Again he sent other servants and said to them, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Look, the meal is all prepared. I’ve butchered the oxen and the fattened cattle. Now everything’s ready. Come to the wedding party!” ’ 5 But they paid no attention and went away—some to their fields, others to their businesses. 6 The rest of them grabbed his servants, abused them, and killed them. 7 “The king was angry. He sent his soldiers to destroy those murderers and set their city on fire. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding party is prepared, but those who were invited weren’t worthy. 9 Therefore, go to the roads on the edge of town and invite everyone you find to the wedding party.’ 10 “Then those servants went to the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good. The wedding party was full of guests. 11 Now when the king came in and saw the guests, he spotted a man who wasn’t wearing wedding clothes. 12 He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to his servants, ‘Tie his hands and feet and throw him out into the farthest darkness. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.’ 14 “Many people are invited, but few people are chosen.”

The power centre is invited and declines.

The invitation is extended beyond.

The wedding garment - might represent righteous deeds.

Are you invited? Are you going? What are you going to wear?

The process of invitation in the ancient world...

Double or triple process… invited…Please come in the future. Ok. The preparations are all complete, come now. And then people would go. Unless of course they got distracted by other things?

By refusing to come, the guests insult the dignity of the king who had counted on their attendance and graciously prepared food for them (Craig Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, p 520).

In both parables, in Matthew and Luke, the anger of the king is transformed into energetic grace; the places at the table will not be left empty, and the generosity of the king will not go to waste. Ian Paul

And the wedding clothes are something the host would provide. (Just imagine if you had to provide the clothes all your guests wore for your wedding!)

Where do we see God in the parable?

Most of us likely immediately hear the “king” as the God-figure. And that’s not necessarily wrong…

Ian Paul writes: “...any Jewish listener will hear in this story, with its mention of the extensive invitation at the end of the parable, an allusion to the Great Banquet of God in Is 25.6–8:

On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.

This is important background for the writers of the NT, with Paul alluding to it in 1 Cor 15.54, and John in Rev 7.17 and 21.4. The eschatological feast of God for all nations is the wedding banquet of his son Jesus—though in this parable the figure of the son himself plays no further role.”

Or does He?

Where do we see Jesus in this story? Or do we see Him at all?

Nadia writes, “…our parable for today is a real doozy.  Here’s how I heard it: A king throws a wedding banquet and invites the other rich, slave-owning powerful people. Seemingly unimpressed by the promised veal cutlet at the wedding feast, the elite invitees laugh at the invitation and proceed to abuse and then kill the slaves of the king.  Well then the king kills them back.  But he doesn’t stop there, not to be outdone, he burns down the city… and it is there amidst the burning carnage of the newly destroyed city he sends more slaves to go find whoever they can to fill the seats. After all…the food is ready and he has all these fancy robes for the guests. All he cares about is having every seat filled at his big party. But who is left?  He burned the city. The rich and powerful have been murdered so it’s the regular folks wandering the streets looking for their dead, picking apart the charred debris of their burned city who are then told that they have no choice but to go to the party of the guy responsible — and it’s already been established that he doesn’t respond well if you turn him down.  So the terrified masses show up and pretend that this capricious tyrant didn’t just lay waste to their city.  Out of fear they all dutifully put on their wedding robes given them at the door and they pretend. Slipping on a gorgeous garment was what you did for a king’s wedding feast. And the guests got to keep the outfits, just a little souvenir of the king’s generosity – and a reminder to keep in line. You don’t get anything from the empire without it costing you a bit of your life.

Nadia concludes, “…the kingdom of heaven is like: a first century Jewish peasant who laughed at the powerful, kissed lepers, befriended prostitutes and ate with all the wrong people and whom the authorities and the powerful elite had to hog tie and throw into the outer darkness.  …the kingdom of heaven is like Jesus.  And what if it is from this place of outer darkness that everything is changed?  It is in the outer darkness of Calvary where death is swallowed up forever.”

So what might you have seen in this parable about the Kingdom of Heaven?

What do you learn about God? Is the picture of God’s anger being turned into energetic grace helpful or compelling?

Where do you see Jesus in the story Jesus told?

The Kingdom of Heaven is like...

...someone who planned good seed in his field.

…a mustard seed that someone took and planted

…yeast, which a woman took and hid...

a treasure that somebody hid in a field, which someone else found and covered up.

…a merchant in search of fine pearls

…a [fishing] net

…a landowner

…a king who prepared a wedding party for his son

The kingdom of heaven is like coming into God’s space of hospitality and invitation

The kingdom of heaven is not like the Empire of Rome.

Have you been invited? Yes.

Have you accepted the invitation? What prevents us from experiencing the hospitality of God? (my oxen, my calves, my field)

What will you do when Jesus calls to say “All things are now ready?”

Will you follow even then?