Jesus seems to have a penchant for weddings, wedding banquets and feasts. The first social function he attended was a Wedding (in Cana). Weddings are one of the few occasions in life where we are excited and happy to witness an new couple is ceremoniously made as one and a new family is about to be formed. It is no wonder why weddings are special ways of describing the kingdom of God.

Unfortunately, we are not able to experience those exciting wedding celebrations nowadays and feasts that follow s because of the COVID-19 restrictions.

Well, another wedding parable is to be found in Matthew 22:1-14 known as the parable of the wedding feast.

The most common notion is that the king represents God, the slaves are the messengers and/or prophets, and the son is Jesus. The wedding banquet symbolized as the kingdom is the time of divine-human celebration.

There is also the language of inviting and sending is used repeatedly. As the King in the parable is God, it always amazes us how much God continues to reach out to humanity. In this and many other parables, the King sends out his messengers with the good news again and again. We have a God who will not give up on us, and that is great news indeed!

There are two or three invitations all in all, one following the other.

A General invitation: He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.

Reminder:  Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But this was met by rejection. ‘They made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.

Second invitation: Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

This series of invites represent God’s acts of reaching as demonstrated in biblical history.

The first invitation was to the people of Israel as chosen people. Those sent out to them are the prophets. But Israel played hide and seek with Yahweh. God sought them and spoke to them through the prophets including Moses. In the wilderness journey, the Israelites even desired to have another god – one they can see and hold and physically worship. They basically rejected the God who brought them out of slavery.

Yet God continued to seek after them. Those sent following the first rejection were emissaries and prophets in the tradition of John the baptiser and Jesus who were both seized and killed.

The parable continues with a final invitation, this time the king commands the slaves to go into the streets and draw everyone in, good and bad alike.

There is the delightful surprise that the king invites everyone (street people) both good and bad. In Luke, this includes the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame (Luke 14:21). In a world so filled with people who have both good and bad intent and actions, God invites them all!

 

From punishment to mercy, from retribution to grace

Another important point we can observe in this parable is that it is trying to heighten our understanding and appreciation of grace and mercy vis a vis judgement and punishment.

There are several instances in the Old testament when God was angered by the disobedience and unfaithfulness of the people. As a result, God wanted to destroy both humanity and habitat. But several times, God changed God’s mind. There is a shift from punishment to mercy.

After the destructive flood: God promises to Noah:

I will never again curse the ground because of humankind… nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. (Gen 8:21)

Another occasion was after God’s act of liberation of the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage, the people fashioned a golden calf as their new god. The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses implored the Lord God: “Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

From then on, the trajectory of the history of the people of God, the whole world and the whole of creation is no longer destruction but reconciliation and transformation.

God made a promise that God will not leave the people and will be ever present. God the Father sends his only son Jesus Christ and God’s Spirit in Christ to be ever-present in the world.

In this act, God establishes God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. It is here that we are to participate in bringing about God’s reign. Christ has already come.

But there’s something else happening in the parable.

There are additional elements which are hard to explain and appear to be not a part of the whole story. Its appearance is difficult to relate to the situation presupposed in the main story, rendering it unrealistic. In this case, we are referring about the guest who came to the wedding without a wedding garment (Matt 22:11).

A wedding guest without a prescribed wedding robe is being cast out of the party into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth? Clearly, there is more to this story than proper attire.

Many are called but few are chosen, Jesus said. The chosen are the ones who realize that just showing up is not enough anymore. The chosen are the ones who believe that God has a stake in their being chosen. This means there is a purpose for being chosen. You are chosen for God’s purpose.

The chosen are the ones who understand that the time for bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven is now — not later, not tomorrow, not someday, but now.

They know that a summons to God’s banquet means not only an immediate call to action but also a call for one’s transformation. While we are called on to share the Good News of God’s salvation and liberation, we are also to carry the unmistakable image of the God in us.

We are to wear the wedding robe – the garment of Christ in us.

The apostle Paul puts this this way in his letter to the Galatians (2:20):  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

What not to wear? Complacency, conformity, and any kind of garb that is content with the way things are.

What should we wear, so that the whole of the world can see who we are and what we are about?

The kind of compassion, birthed by God’s own righteousness, in Jesus Christ that cannot, anymore, leave things the way they are.

We must be transformed in Christ, and that transformation should be seen in us. And we are then sent out to Christ’s mission of building God’s kingdom on earth.

Amen.