Invitation                    Matthew 22:1-14

Again today we’re going to look at one of Jesus parables, the Wedding Banquet. I like this one because there’s a lot in it. It describes the bounty in heaven, God’s promise and invitation to Israel, the Gentiles inclusion and the way different people respond to God’s invitation. A lot is packed into a fairly short parable.

This event takes place while Jesus is in Jerusalem during the last week of his life. And he knows he is rapidly running out of time to get his message across. And if you read through the accounts of his last week, you see Jesus is mostly confronting the priests and Pharisees so today he is not talking just to the disciples, or to crowds of people. He is in the Temple courts teaching so there are a good number of people around but he is really addressing this parable to the priests and Pharisees.

With today’s parable Jesus is telling the religious leaders they are not doing what God expects of them. And it’s because of this not only are they putting themselves in jeopardy, they are putting the whole of Israel in peril. So let’s pick it apart.

Verse 2, “The Kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.” In the first century a wedding for a prince would be a great display of wealth, no expense would have been spared. There would have been food and entertainment, rooms for the guests to stay in. The smallest of details would be addressed. The celebration would be perfect.

So here we have the king; God, preparing for his son; Jesus, a place of bounty and perfection created to glorify his son; heaven.

“He sent his servants to those who had been invited…” God invited from all the peoples of the world, Israel to in his bounty. “…but they refused to come.” Israel turned away from what God asked of them. We see at Mount Sinai Israel refused to see the grace of God when they were in the dessert. In the Old Testament books of Judges and Kings we see they had corrupt leaders, one worse than the other.

In our parable, the king is patient and tolerant. He sent more servants. Verse 5, “But they paid no attention and went off – one to his field, another to his business.” Jesus is telling the Pharisees that not only did God invite Israel to come to him, he did it multiple times. God kept sending his prophets even though as a whole, Israel continued to amass earthly bounty instead of seeing heaven’s bounty.

In the parable, not only did the people dismiss the servants, some of the servants were mistreated and killed. Here Jesus is talking about the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist. But I also believe he is being prophetic. Jesus may be thinking here of his own scourging and death in a few days. He may be thinking of his disciples; all of them except John will be killed for preaching about him. He may even have had his focus on the future and all those who have been and who will be martyred for their faith.

And now we have verse 7, “The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” I used to think that this was a little over the top. We need to remember that God is perfect and holy so people’s sins and rejection need to be punished. In our story they were killed. It’s a description of what happens to us if we die without accepting God’s invitation by believing in his son; Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” It’s not nice to think about but we’re all going to physically die someday but the parable refers to Biblical death, the wages of sin is eternity in the pit separated from the presence of God.

And the burned city? The city represents our amassed wealth and power. Eventually all we gather to ourselves in this life will be torn down and discarded. All my earthly acquisitions God will brush aside, they’ll be as good as ashes after I die.

Then we have the king telling his servants in verse 9, “So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” Verse 10, “So the servants went…and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good and the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

The servants went out and invited anyone they could find who wanted to enjoy the feast. The disciples, ministers, leaders, believers; all of us are sent by God to share his Word and invite others to believe.

And who does our parable say Jesus is inviting to come to the bounty of heaven? The bad as well as the good; not the perfect, not the worthy, all; the wealthy as well as the poor, the elated as well as the dejected, the accepted as well as the rejected. God invites everyone to come to him.

In Matthew 28:19 Jesus tells his disciples to “Go out and make disciples of all nations…” For 2000 years starting with the eleven surviving disciples, through teaching and preaching multitudes have been invited to God’s table, millions upon millions have been invited to join Christ. And every single person who accepted the invitation has been welcomed with open arms by our savior, every single person who accepted the invitation has a seat at God’s banquet table for all eternity.

This is great news, but then we come to verse 11-13, “But when the king came to see his guests he noticed a man there not wearing wedding cloths. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding cloths?’ The man was speechless, Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

What’s this about? This man accepted the invitation, why is he being punished if he couldn’t afford good cloths? Could this mean we will be rejected by God if we aren’t always being the best we can be?

No, this man is not a contradiction; he is not here to tell us we always need to be on our best behavior for God to accept us. This man is here to represent all those who claim they accept Jesus, but     they don’t really.

This man was hoping to be fed and entertained just by walking in the door. Here we see can see someone who claims to know Jesus, someone who claims to be a Christian, but someone who lives a life that exposes their unbelief. Someone who is in it to see what they can get out of it. This reminds me of the nineteenth century and what were called the “rice Christians.” There was a famine in China and many of the poor turned to the Christian church. The wealthy members gave the poor food. When the famine was over the poor stopped coming. They weren’t coming to church to know God, they only came to be fed.

Going to church is not enough, saying you know Jesus is not enough, faith, trust and belief in Christ, that is enough. What will happen to those for whom Christian is just a word with no faith? In our parable the king had the man thrown out. At judgment these people will cry and lament, they will weep and gnash their teeth when they realize they never really trusted in Jesus. And like the man in the parable, they will be speechless because they will have no excuse for turning their back on God, no excuse for rejecting Jesus.

Now let’s look at the last line of our story, “For many are invited but few are chosen.” Every single person born is extended God’s invitation. Every single person born is able to accept Jesus sacrifice and be given God’s grace and mercy.

But it says many are invited but few are chosen, so who does the choosing? We do. God gives us the choice, accept his invitation or don’t. God does not withhold his invitation because of who we are, where we are born, how we live. Remember the king told his servants to go and invite anyone they saw; minister or murderer, king or peasant; the invitation is offered to all. Whether we accept or not is entirely our choice.

Today’s parable has several layers and theological points buried in it. It shows God’s relationship with Israel; a feast was prepared for them but their reliance on the law to approach God negated their personal relationship with God and even with the prophets they rejected his invitation. God then extended his invitation to know him to the entire world; the good as well as the bad.

Jesus also uses the parable as a way to show us how to approach God. God offers us his grace and mercy. When we choose to rely on our own work, when we mistakenly believe we can be good enough, when we come to Jesus without faith and trust; we will be like the man thrown out of the feast. We will find ourselves weeping; we will be silent and hopeless because we will see our opportunity has passed by.

For those who come to Jesus with faith, God tells us in 1 John 4:17, “In this world we are like Jesus.” By our faith we are purified, righteous and glorified, seen as perfect by God.

And like those invited by the king to the feast, we will take our seat at heaven’s banquet table.