Matthew 22:1–14

Matthew 22:1-14

Hymns 314 & 310

¹And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying,

²"The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son,

³and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.

⁴Again he 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.'

⁵But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business,

⁶while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.

⁷The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

⁸Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy.

⁹Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.'

¹⁰And 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.

¹¹"But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.

¹²And he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless.

¹³Then 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.'

¹⁴For many are called, but few are chosen."

Where is God? The economy is broken; people are being laid off; thousands if not millions are losing their homes; the stock market is plummeting, our retirement investments and savings are disappearing, credit is drying up and credit card accounts frozen. Today people are afraid. We worry about what is going to happen tomorrow. We ask, "Where is God?" Oh, that He would just tear open the heavens and come down to fix it all.

The good news is: He has! God did come down and break into our broken world. He defeated death and the devil. And He is establishing his reign in the world today.

That's the point of the parable Jesus told in our text. God's kingdom is like a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. So he sent out his servant to tell the invited guests that everything was ready and it was time to come.

Now so far this is a good story. God is comparing his kingdom to a wedding feast. What is the point of comparison here? A wedding feast is a festive occasion. It is a happy time. It is a time for eating and drinking and having a good time. It is a joyful celebration. All these characteristics of a wedding feast describe God's kingdom; or God's reign. We understand form this comparison that to dwell in God's kingdom, to live under his reign and rule is complete joy and eternal bliss.

But who are the invited guests in Jesus' parable? Stop and think. Who does a king invite to a banquet? The wealthy, the famous and the powerful. The lords and ministers; the business tycoons; the CEOs of banks, leaders of organizations, political and community leaders and so forth. It is a great honor to be invited by the king. It means you are someone special, someone important. People would do anything to get on the guest list; even pay for it if possible.

So far this story is easy to understand. Jesus' audience also understood it. But then things change. As in all of Jesus' parables, there is something wrong; there's a surprise element; something that just doesn't make sense. The invited guests, the rich, powerful, the elite who made it on the coveted guest list didn't want to come. Now go figure! The king is making merry and having a feast for all the important people in the country. It is a gala affair with the richest food, unlimited wine and drinks, dancing all night, music, entertainment, fun, pleasure, and happiness. It was even a holiday from work, but the invited guests didn't want to come! Rather than take the day off to make merry, they preferred to go to their business and look after their farms instead. Then they harassed, beat, and even killed the messengers of the king. There's something wrong with this picture.

That was unheard of. That was shocking. That jarred the hearers out of their comfort zone. What did the king do? He sent out his armies and destroyed those people and burned their cities.

What was Jesus telling them? He was talking to the very people who refused the invitation of the King. The King was God and the wedding feast was for the Son of God. Jesus audience were those who thought highly of themselves, the leaders of the people, the church leaders, the wealthy, the powerful, those who were righteous in their own eyes, those who were on the A-list for invitations from the High Priest and the Roman governors and who thought that they deserved to be on the A-list of God's invited guests. But Jesus was telling them that they were not worthy to come to his banquet because they had rejected both the King and his Son. They were the very ones who rejected the messengers who were the prophets. They harassed the prophets, they beat them, they stoned them and they killed them. They spurned God's invitation to His son's kingdom and even killed the Son.

The audience understood well what Jesus was telling them. They got angry and from that time on they plotted how to kill Jesus himself.

And that is the meaning of the parable: that the Son of God had come into the world to establish his kingdom and rule in the hearts of his people, but instead of coming to the feast and rejoicing with God and his Son, he was rejected; spurned; and killed.

The very Son of God was rejected, hated, beaten, humiliated, flogged, and put to death all in order to establish his kingdom and reign in our hearts. We are the ones who deserved to be hated and beaten and put to death. We are by nature sinners and haters of God. We who reject God and offend him daily by our words and deeds and attitudes towards others. We are the ones who own God for our offenses against him. The payment for sin is death and we deserve to die. But Jesus took our place and made the payment for us. We deserved to be hated so Jesus came into the world to be hated. We deserved to be beaten and scorned so Jesus was beaten and scorned in our place. We deserved to be punished so Jesus was punished in for us. We deserved to die so Jesus died to pay the price we deserve to pay.

When the invited guests refused to come to the wedding banquet, what did the king do then? He sent his servants out again to go up and down the streets and bring in anyone they could find. The common, ordinary people. The poor, the sick, the crippled, the old and infirm, the young children, anyone they found. And so it was these who celebrated and rejoiced with the king. It was the common man, the poor man, the tired, the weary, and the sick who enjoyed the food and drink and made merry all night along with the king inside the walls of the palace.

When those who thought they deserved the invitation rejected it, the people who didn't deserve it, we sinners: the lost, the poor in spirit, the weak and stumbling, the drug addict and prostitute, the one fighting temptation and sin, the one struggling with addictions, the one having doubts and fear are forgiven and washed of our sins by the death of Christ so we could be brought into the kingdom, the wedding feast, by God's promise of forgiveness in baptism. Jesus died on the cross just so that we, the poor, the weak, the afflicted, the sick, the lame could be gathered up and brought into the wedding feast.

The Good News of this parable is that we, the poor and the humble, the repentant sinner, the lowly, common, ordinary person are invited to and drawn into the wedding feast which God is preparing for us for eternity. And in fact we are not just invited guests, we are the bride! COME TO THE FEAST!

And being brought into the wedding feast, we are clothed with wedding garments: the garment of Christ's righteousness that covers our sins and makes us holy. We are not worthy of such an honor or invitation, but in baptism we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ himself and brought into the great banquet hall to dine on the very body and blood of our Savior. When we come to the Lord's Table in Holy Communion we are partaking of the wedding feast.

One person, however, did not have the wedding garment on. This was the person who comes into the church and acts like a believer in Christ, who attends worship and is active in committees and boards but it is all an external act. He is the one who says he has faith, but does not have the works of love which are produced by faith. He is the one who says he has not sinned and is not truly repentant because he does not recognize his sin. He is the one who comes only in deed but who does not hear and learn God's word. He thinks he already knows all he has to know and does not need to nourish his faith with the word. He might fool the rest of us, but God knows his heart and casts him out of the kingdom into darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But those who are clothed with the wedding garment of the righteousness of Christ do the works of righteousness. These are the works of love which Christ works through us to help those in need. These works of love are our confession of faith and witness to others of God's forgiveness. As the king sent his servants out to the streets to bring in people, so our King sends us out into the streets to bring more people into the wedding banquet. The king did not just open the doors and expect people to come in. We do not just open the doors of the church and expect people to come in. They won't! Christ sends us out into the highways and the streets to bring people in. He sends us out with the invitation; the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our witness to the gospel is Christ pushing back the kingdom of Satan and establishing his reign in the world. The problems of today, the economic disasters, the uncertainty and fear we live in today, the loss of jobs and homes, the poverty and addictions and evil in our world are all the effects of the kingdom of Satan and the rule of sin and death.

Our works of love, our confession of faith; our going out into the world to confess our faith are Christ working through us to push back the reign of sin and death and establish his reign in the world. Christ is working through us to cast out the devil from our world. When we love and help the poor and needy it is Christ at work to eradicate the effects of sin in the world. When we love others and so witness to them about Christ, the light of Christ is breaking into the darkness of sin.

Come to the feast! Bring others! Rejoice and celebrate the eternal banquet God has prepared for us through his Son!

Amen.