The Wedding Banquet

Matthew 22:1-14

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.”

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During a session of my Intro to Psychology class in my freshman year of college my professor was lecturing us about “involuntary reactions” within the nervous system. The explanation involved all sorts of technical terms like “parasympathetic responses” or “autonomic pathways” that are rather hard to understand (at least for me).  Instead of diving into scientific nomenclature, he settled on an “over-the-top” description. “Let’s talk about the involuntary reaction of fear.  Imagine that a lion walked into the classroom right now…” he said, pausing for effect, “…and he’s packing an Uzi!  That would cause you to have an involuntary reaction: fear.” We, of course, laughed out loud: not only did his use of hyperbole make help make the point, it helped me remember his subject 17 years later. It didn’t hurt that his delivery was effective, making the joke that much more hilarious.

When we’re dealing with the parables of Jesus I get the same feeling because these seemingly “simple” stories are anything but straightforward.  Jesus will start with a relatively familiar setting like a wedding banquet, farmer’s field or group of men fishing and his audience will immediately know what he’s talking about. But just about the time his hearers think they know what’s going to happen, Jesus will twist the story in such a way that things get confusing and people start to think.  Sometimes this occurs with unexpected behavior from characters and on other occasions there is a great deal of hyperbole (exaggeration).

C.H. Dodd’s definition of “parable” is a good representative of scholarly thought: “At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”*  I often say that parables are stories that are meant to make you say “Oh, yeah, I get it," as the story begins immediately followed by, “Wait a minute, really?” by the time it's over.

 Parables get you thinking.

Our story today starts out normal enough: a king is throwing wedding party for his son and wedding invitations go out. Makes sense right? Then things get weird. Not only do people refuse the invitation, some grab, abuse and kill the messengers. You might be thinking “Who does that?!?!?” and you’d be right, but we’re just getting started.  The king responds in anger over the mistreatment and death of his servants (again, very understandable), and he responds by destroying the murderers and SETTING THEIR CITY ON FIRE. Say what?!?!? Presumably the fatted calf and oxen that had been butchered are simply sitting there on the table while all of this is happening. Finally, when the new guests arrive, the king throws one of them into the “outer darkness” because of his attire. Wow!

All of this hyperbole is meant to make a point. Much like my Psychology Professor who referred to Uzi-packing lions, Jesus is giving us vivid images to get us thinking.  At this point, of course, we have to be careful. Parables get you thinking, but it’s important to keep the rest of scripture in mind as we ponder. Parables don’t just mean whatever we want them to: going down that road will ultimately mean conforming Christ to our image rather than the other way around. We need to look at the parables within the greater context of the Gospel of Matthew and of scripture as a whole. So what’s going on here?

In Chapter 21 Jesus enters into the temple where the chief priests and elders of the people begin a verbal “fencing matching” with him.  He responds to their questions with parables and it gets rather dicey.  The Pharisees figure out that he’s speaking about them as well and they join the group that is ready to arrest him; only their fear of the crowds stops this. 

Again and again in the Bible we see examples of the high and mighty being brought down while the lowly are raised up (See what Hannah has to say about this in 1 Samuel 2:1-11. Mary weighs in with the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55. Paul adds to this in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31.  Jesus himself talks about how the ‘last will be first and the first will be last will be first’ in Matt. 19:30 and 20:16.  The religious leaders, those favored in society, the people with all of the prestige either don’t understand what God is up to or they don’t care.  They are turning down an invitation to God’s party. Crazy isn't it? The lowly are coming instead. 

And how about the improperly dressed wedding guest? There have been plenty of explanations out there about why one of the guests didn’t have a wedding garment.  Some scholars say that these types of garments were handed out at the door, others say that if he had spoken rather than remain speechless things would have been different. One of my favorite stories about this comes from the amazing preacher and Professor Fred Craddock.

Craddock, Barbara Brown Taylor and Tom Long attended an Atlanta Braves baseball game while in town for a preaching conference. After taking their seats they noticed a group of college kids who were sitting a few rows in front of them. One of these students had become rather drunk and belligerent. He started yelling profanities, throwing empty (and not-so-empty) cups of liquid and generally carrying on. When security finally came and forcibly escorted him out of the stadium, Craddock turned to his companions and said, “He must not have been wearing a wedding garment…”** Perhaps the guest’s lack of wedding garment had everything to do with him rather than the host. 

In the end, God is throwing a party and all sorts of people are invited.  You might scratch your head and wonder why people wouldn’t want to show up, but then all you have to do is look around at our world today and scratch your head at humanity’s behavior around our globe. Not only do we choose to do evil because the righteous option is hard, quite often it seems we choose the evil option when the righteous path is MORE OBVIOUS.  Jesus uses exaggeration to get this across.  Hopefully this can show us that there is a party going on and that we are invited.  

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* Quoted on pg. 121 in The Peoples' New Testament Commentary by Eugene Boring and Fred Craddock.

** I originally heard this story at a preaching conference at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. Since then, I have heard it related by a variety of other people too.