Over All People

The Good & The Bad At The Banquet

10.15.23 [Matthew 22:1-14] River of Life (21st Sunday after Pentecost)

The hardest thing for fans of an undiscovered band is to watch them get discovered. You’d think they would be excited. But they’re not. They’re afraid that their favorite band is going to change with all the new attention. They want them to keep their sound the same and play the hits they’ve discovered and loved. They don’t really want any new stuff.

Sometimes, we may look at Jesus and his parables like our favorite bands and their songs. When he bursts on the scene, it’s great. There’s excitement and enthusiasm. He’s doing things that no one else has ever done. He’s teaching and healing. He’s putting the religious elite in their place. He’s telling great stories. His parables are so powerful.

We love to hear about the lost sheep, the prodigal son, the Good Samaritan and the Rich Man and Poor Lazarus. There are some other parables that aren’t as well known, and might not be our favorites, but they're still pretty good. The parable of the sower and the seed reminds us that not everyone is going to listen to God’s Word. The parable of the unmerciful servant reminds us to forgive one another. The parable of the gold talents reminds us to be faithful. The parable of the vineyard workers reminds us that God is too generous.

Our favorite parables are the ones that shine the spotlight on God’s grace in some memorable way. There are others that may not strike us in quite the same way, but they still sound pretty good. And then there are the parables that just baffle us. They make us scratch our heads. Today is one of those parables. In fact, today is two of those parables.

Let’s start with the first half. A king is ready to throw a wedding banquet for his son. So he sends his servants out to get his subjects ready for the feast. He wants them to celebrate this momentous occasion.

But they refuse. Amazingly, the king seems to take their insubordination in stride. He sends some more servants to tell them that dinner is ready. (Mt. 22:4) Tell everyone who has been invited to come to the wedding banquet. This time, they totally blew his servants off.

Most just went back to their daily lives. Others saw their indifference as a chance to abuse the king’s servants with impunity. Who is going to go and tell the king on them? So they seized this second round of servants (Mt. 22:6) and mistreated and killed them. When the king hears this, he is enraged. This time, he sends in his army. They annihilate the murderers and burn their city to the ground. That’s the first parable. Or first half. And it’s a little strange to us. We’re not used to kings and servants and wedding invitations like this.

Imagine your only child was finally getting married. You’ve been waiting for this day for a really long time. You spare no expense on the big day. And since you’re paying for it, you make sure that your friends & family are invited. They’re sent a save the date. But no one responds. No sweat. Then you send out the formal invitation and still nothing. You text them but you’re left on read. Finally, you call them on the phone and they offer you some flimsy excuse about how it’s a really busy weekend for them. How would you feel? Your feelings would be hurt. You’d be insulted. More than that, you’d feel put out. Because by this point you’ve already paid for the venue and the vendors. You’re locked into the menu and the size of the cake. You can’t downsize. So you’re mad. Maybe not send in your army and torch their town mad, but mad.

We get it. But if we look at the Old Testament, we will get it more. This is a picture of God and Israel. God had been inviting Israel to the wedding supper of the Lamb. But Israel was rebellious. They didn’t listen to so many of God’s servants—the prophets. They refused to repent. But God still sent more. And things went from bad to worse. .

Some of the people just flat-out ignored God’s servants and their warnings. Others, especially the kings and priests mistreated God’s prophets. Jerusalem, the city of God, was infamous for killing God’s prophets. So God sent in the Babylonian army and destroyed those rebellious murderers and burned their city into a pile of rubble. They didn’t deserve to enjoy the wedding banquet or festivities.

But the banquet was still ready and the wedding hall still had room. So the king—God—sent out more messengers. They combed the street corners looking for anyone who would listen to them. This time they found people. (Mt. 22:10) They filled their master’s wedding hall with guests—some good and some bad.

If the parable ended here, we’d get it and love it. God wants heaven to be filled and so he will find the good and the bad and he welcomes them into his wedding hall to enjoy his feast. It doesn’t matter who you’ve been or what you’ve done, God’s got room. God has told us that he will gather all kinds of people into his heaven. Some, from our perspective, will seem to be good. Others will seem to be bad. All are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

But the parable does not end there. This second parable is what troubles us. The king comes into the wedding banquet. He wants to mingle with the guests and enjoy the momentous occasion.

But he sees someone who didn’t follow the dress code. There’s a man not wearing wedding clothes. The king wants to know why. So he says to the stranger (Mt. 22:12) Friend, how did you get in here without wearing wedding clothes? The man was dumbfounded. He either didn’t know what to say or knew there was nothing he could say.

Then the king tells his attendants to do something really shocking. Hog tie him and throw him outside the wedding hall. (Mt. 22:13) Throw him into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This is a standard way that the Scriptures speak about hell. So the guy goes from being inside the wedding hall—which is a picture of heaven—and gets tossed into the darkness—which is a picture of hell. And Jesus ends it all by saying: (Mt. 22:14) Many are invited. Few are chosen.

It all seems really harsh. So many questions run through our minds. Why didn’t the guy have on the right clothes? Why didn’t the king give him a chance to change before he had him thrown out of the wedding banquet? What do the clothes represent in this parable?

Before we can tackle these questions, it might serve us well to think about this from another angle. Imagine for a moment you’re the bride. It’s your big day. You’ve spent months meticulously planning every single detail of how the day is going to look. You picked out your dress, your bridesmaids’ dresses, and the tuxes for the guys. Your groom has not been so involved. He’s supportive but not immersed in the details.

On the big day, you’ve got a thousand things to do. Hair, makeup, dress, photos—the whole nine yards. You get up early because you’ve got a lot to get done. The groom does not. He and his buddies go golf before they get ready for the ceremony. After they're done, one of the groomsmen realizes that he never picked up the tux. He thought your fiancé was going to do it for him. So all he’s got are his stinky golf clothes. If you’re the bride are you letting him stand in your wedding?

The answer for most brides is no. It’s not because they’re bridezillas. A groomsman standing up there in golf clothes while everyone else is wearing formal dresses and tuxedos is going to look pretty goofy. She won’t have him hog-tied and thrown out of the church, but he won’t be standing in the front and he won’t be in any of the pictures. Is that harsh?

So maybe we can understand why the clothes are such a big deal for a wedding. But we still wonder, why isn’t he wearing them? The parable answers this for us. The man offers no excuse. He knows there is nothing he can say that will explain why he’s not dressed for the occasion. Some scholars say there was a tradition of wealthy people providing clothes for their wedding guests. Maybe that’s in play here, but the king doesn’t mention it. The man isn’t not wearing wedding clothes because he can’t afford them. He came without them. So he is without excuse.

That leaves one last question. What are the wedding clothes? The Bible helps us sort this out, too. In Jeremiah, God asks: (Jer. 2:32) Does a young woman forget her jewelry, a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me. A bride forgetting her family necklace for her wedding day would be unthinkable. It is just too important. Is God that important to us? Do you cherish your connection to God the way newlyweds do? Does his love and commitment to you influence everything else in your life? Do you pray to him as eagerly as a young bride is to talk to her husband? Do you look around your world and your life and smile at God’s blessings the way a bride does when she sees her wedding ring sparkle? Do you marvel at and meditate on the words of God like a young soldier reads love letters from his beloved?

Far too often God—his gracious calling to repent and believe, his wonderful power to live obediently—is forgotten by us, his people.

But our God has not forgotten us. He has sent his Son to win us back. Christ loved the church—sinful people like you and me—so much that (Eph. 5:25-27) he gave himself up for us. He cleansed us by the washing with water through the Word. He has made us to be his radiant bride, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish. He has made us holy and blameless in his sight. When Jesus taught this parable, it was Holy Week. He was about to give himself up to death and hell made us holy and blameless. So he spoke with urgency. He wanted them to know the serious stakes. He wanted them to have what he was about to secure for them.

(Gal. 3:27) All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. The wedding clothes are faith in Christ. You don’t buy it. You don’t dig it out of you closet. Faith is a gift of God so that no one can boast. God works this faith in us through Word and Sacrament so that we might be appropriately dressed for the big day—when he returns to judge the living and the dead and brings all his beloved home with him to the wedding supper of the Lamb. Because of God’s own Son, who gave up his life so that we might have eternal life, who rose to life so that we might be assured of our place in his everlasting wedding banquet, we are ready & radiant.

(Isaiah 61:10) I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.