The Parable of the Wedding Feast

Matthew 22:1-14 Imagine with me that you went out to the mail box expecting to find the day’s depressing delivery of bills and junk-mail and instead found an ornate envelope addressed to you.  You turned it over, wondering who could have sent it, and on the back it reads Buckingham Palace.  When you open the envelope you discover inside an invitation to a royal wedding.  It seems that Prince Harry has decided to settle down and get married.  It’s not a mistake.  It’s not a scam.  The monarch really does want you to attend the wedding. 

Who among us wouldn’t attend?!  Which of us could even come close to containing our excitement?! To see inside the palace.  To rub shoulders with royalty.  To be in the presence of greatness and grandeur.  It’s a dream come true!  That’s the image Jesus wants us to keep in the forefront of our mind’s eye as he teaches us about what our life with God is like.  He says:

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son

            Several years ago there was a program on PBS called “A Year in the Life of Buckingham Palace” and it was absolutely fascinating!  The royal residence of the British monarchs is incredibly beautiful and ornate and even more so when there is a royal feast.  The food and drink is chosen with care.  The china and crystal stagger the imagination.  The care and concern of the staff makes every guest feel like they are royalty too. 

And it doesn’t cost the guests one red cent.  The monarch pays for it all and simply invites his guests to come and enjoy his generosity.  That’s the way Jesus describes our life with God. 

God has showered us with the riches of his grace.  He has forgiven our sins.  He has given us peace for our hearts.  He has bestowed upon our lives a divine purpose and plan and promised to bless us and prosper us all our days and then take us to heaven when those days are over.

Life with God is a royal feast that takes place, not in the presence of an earthly king, but in the presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords, the living God of the universe.  And he has invited each of us to come and take an honored place at his table.  Jesus says that:

The King sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast…

Every time God’s servants preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments, there God’s invitation is extended to come and take our place at his feast of goodness and grace and simply receive the bountiful fruits of his generous love for us.   Again I ask:  who in their right mind wouldn’t accept that invitation to come to the king’s feast?  But Jesus says that:

they would not come.  Again the king sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’

            Can you imagine?  Can you imagine turning down an invitation to Prince Harry’s wedding when he gets married?!  Can you imagine turning down an invitation to the next president’s inaugural ball?!  Who would do that!

            And yet that is just exactly what so many people do when it comes to the invitation of God to come and take their place in his kingdom. 

I want you to take careful note of the humility of this king.  Despite the rejection of those invited he keeps right on inviting them.  He truly wants them there.  He will be honored by their presence.  He has done everything necessary to make it a feast they will never forget.  There is an abundance and plenty in his presence that is overflowing.

So it is with our life with God.  Again and again and again—every time the Gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered-- the invitation of God goes out to the world for us to come and take our place in his kingdom. 

There is an abundance and richness and plenty that is there with our king that is unlike anything else on earth.  It is a feast of grace and mercy and love.  Why would anyone turn that down!?  And yet they do-- and for much the same reason as the people in Jesus’ story.  Jesus says that:

They paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.

The people in Jesus’ story ignored the invitation of the king because they thought they had better, more important things to do.  Can you imagine that kind of blindness to your own life compared to the king’s feast?  These people actually thought that their farm and their businesses and their day-to-day life was more important than feasting with the king!

Now let’s reflect on that for a moment.  If you were thinking about the year to come, what would there be on your calendar that would be more important, more interesting, more memorable than attending a feast in Buckingham Palace or the inaugural ball of the next president? 

If you told someone, “you know I think I’ll skip Prince Harry’s wedding so I don’t miss a day of work” they would think that you had lost your mind.

And yet that is exactly the kind of crazy trade that people make all the time when it comes to God’s invitation to them to come and take their place in his kingdom.  “No thanks!  I think I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing-living the same old life I’ve always led”. 

But it goes beyond that.  It wasn’t just that people had other things to do.  It wasn’t just that they said, “thanks but no thanks”.  They actually beat and killed the king’s servants who issued the king’s invitation!

So it is all over our world today that pastors and missionaries and evangelists are ridiculed and beaten and put to death for the “terrible crime” of inviting people to come and partake of God’s goodness and generosity. 

Even in our own country people get furious with their pastors who call their flocks to come to church on Sunday so that they can receive the riches of God’s grace.  “Who are you to tell me that my priorities and my choices and my day-to-day life are not more important than the feast of forgiveness in this place each Lord’s Day?”  But the servants of God have no choice but to do their king’s bidding and issue his invitation. 

And so what is God’s attitude towards those who reject his invitation, turn their back on his son, and misuse his servants?  Jesus said that:  The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

These words were fulfilled 40 years later when the Roman army attacked Jerusalem, burned it to the ground, destroyed the temple, and killed over a million of its inhabitants.  Emperor Titus who carried out this task, refused to accept the traditional wreath of victory and said that he was simply an instrument of wrath.  And so he was!  Now please understand…

The love of God for the world is sincere.  He earnestly invites everyone to come and have a place at his feast of love and forgiveness.  We do not have to provide a thing!  It is rich and abundant beyond anything we can imagine.  But to reject his invitation is to reject his mercy and forgiveness and stand under his terrible wrath in time and eternity. 

The great tragedy of what befell the Jews of Jesus’ day and what has befallen so many people since is that there is absolutely no need to suffer God’s judgment because he wants everyone to come and take their place in the great feast of forgiveness and life and peace that is celebrated in his kingdom.  The king said to his servants:

Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’  And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

The king’s command to go and invite everyone to his feast is nothing other than the Great Commission of Jesus:  “Go and make disciples of all nations…”  Throughout the Roman world and then to Asia and India and Africa and finally to the new world, God’s servants have been inviting people to come to the king’s feast for the last two thousand years.  

Now, you and I are not going to be invited to be invited to Prince Harry’s wedding—we are simply not in that circle.  Neither are the rest of the 7 billion people on the planet.  But God invites everyone to come to his feast.  No matter our skin color or sex or social status.  No matter what we have done in the past.  No matter what other people think of us, God loves us and has a special place for us in his kingdom. 

Billions of people over the last two thousand years have received that invitation with joy and taken their place in the kingdom and feasted on forgiveness and peace and hope that has no end.  But there are others who reject it—either by ignoring the invitation of by thinking that they can make their own way.  Jesus said that:

“When the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.

            If we received an invitation to a royal wedding you can bet that we would make doubly sure that we are appropriately dressed for the occasion and the invitation itself would tell us what was expected.  We know that in the ancient world the king himself would provide garments for his guests so that they could be appropriately attired.

In the concluding section of this story Jesus tells us about a man who rejected the clothing the king provided for him and thought that he could enter the king’s presence and feast at this table in the clothing he provided for himself.

The king caught it immediately because all the rest of the guests were dressed like the king except for this one man dressed in his every-day clothes.  Now, all of us understand what would happen if we showed up at Buckingham Palace for a royal feast dressed in overalls.  Out we would go on our ear.  So it is here.

But we also know from the words of Jesus that this is much more than an earthly story for the man is not only kicked out, he is cast into hell.  Jesus said that:

The king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

These verses describe all of those who hear the king’s invitation to come to his feast but reject the way that he has graciously appointed in Jesus. They think that God should be pleased with them on account of who they are and what they have done.  It is all of those who think that they can clothe themselves with their own works and still take a place at the King’s feast.

But God says that even our best deeds are like filthy rags in his sight and that to take our place in his kingdom we need to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ that is given to us as a gift through faith. 

The man in the parable rejected this God-given robe of righteousness and was cast into hell along with all those who rejected the king’s invitation outright. 

But the good news for us today is that when we hear the invitation of God to come into his kingdom and when we humble ourselves to be clothed by him with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we can be confident that we have been chosen by God from eternity to feast with him forever in the kingdom of his Son.  Amen.