Proper 23: Gospel, Matthew 22:1-14                                   

Matthew 22:1-14

Have you ever received an invitation to a wedding and for any number of reasons the timing of it just didn’t fit with life? I have. You have to go. But ugh! There are just other things. Or perhaps there’s nothing on the calendar and you have so been looking forward to that. Well here comes our Master Teacher, “And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying …” (22:1).

Last week we looked at Jesus’ story about the tenant farmers, viewing God’s kingdom as the work of a tended field. Today the picture shifts a bit and … “The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come” (22:2-3).

There’s a pattern here. God wants everyone to be a part, and to be blessed by the blessings of his kingdom. Do you see that? Last week Jesus concluded by saying that because of the response to the servants sent to collect the farmer’s fruit (which he was planning to share), the kingdom will be taken from you and given to others. Here in this tale, the picture is of the master sending servants to call everyone to the wedding feast. Weddings aren’t rare in the Bible. Jesus’ first miracle takes place in the midst of such a celebration, and the final scene of God with his people is a grand wedding feast as well. Y’all come! You can almost hear it.

“I have farm animals to tend,” says one. “I must be about my business,” says another. Others just flat out turn from the invite. To borrow from another place in the Scriptures, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” It’s not difficult to see where this is going. Heaven to the ancients garners about as much thought and consideration as it does to us post-moderns. But there is one more telling issue addressed. Perhaps it’s not so much their interest in heaven is lacking, but how they should gain entrance. The wedding hall is eventually filled after the servants cajoling and calling in the streets but then … “when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment” (22:11). Now our culture has become casual in nearly everything. Weddings included. But the king wanted to know who allowed this guest to “dress down.” It was his son’s wedding after all.

The point? God wants everyone there, at the wedding of his son, but entrance is on his terms. For everyone. Always. The consequences for not coming, or attempting to enter in unacceptable attire is the same. And it’s not pretty. 

Now there are times I still would rather miss a wedding feast or celebration. But I dare not miss the one to which Jesus bids me. You neither.