Matthew 22 - The Invitation
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The Parable of the Wedding Banquet
22 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
If you read all of chapter 22, you will see that most of Jesus' teaching is revealing the hardness of the Jewish people, and in particular the religious leaders. The leaders kept trying to trap Jesus into making a mistake, so they could discredit his ministry. But every time they tried to do this, he only made them look ignorant and silly.
In today's reading, in keeping with this theme, he tells a parable about a wedding banquet. As he does with most of his parables, he starts by saying, "the kingdom of heaven is like". This means that the story is going to illustrate a principle that governs how God's kingdom operates. In hindsight we can see what each element of the parable might have meant and the overall message Jesus was trying to get across as modern day Christians.
In keeping with the other teaching in these chapters, Jesus is teaching mainly to the Jews but by wider application all people. The idea of a "banquet" was a well known motif in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 25:6 he prophesies, "The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine." The idea was a Messianic banquet that would be part and parcel of the Messiah's coming to the His people. But this was mainly for the Jewish people only.
The main theme in this parable is of a King who wants to fill his banquet hall with guests. The people on his initial invite list, reject him not once, but twice, and even violently so. And the King is so intent on filling up his banquet hall, because of the lavish feast he has prepared, that he sends his servants to the "highways" and "byways" to fill up the guest list. And sure enough the hall is filled.
So how do we interpret this? The most obvious way is that the Jewish people rejected his servants the prophets, when they came to call Israel back to God, and in fact killed some of them. And so when his own people rejected him, he reached out to the Gentiles and invited them to come in. Eventually Jesus would be God's servant that reached out to his own people to invite them to the banquet and he was killed by them too. Peter and Paul would also reach out to the Jews with the Gospel and be rejected like their master.
What might this mean for us? The clear message is that God wants his banquet hall full. And the purpose for his servants is to go out and invite people until it is full. So assuming the banquet is the feast we will celebrate in heaven, it is clear that God wants heaven full. Assuming we are his servants, we are called to keepi inviting people to the banquet until it is full. Though we can't make anyone come to the feast, we can keep on inviting all people.
All too often in the church, we are comfortable that our family and friends are going to be at the wedding banquet, but we forget that God wants his hall is full. That means as servants of God, we are to do his bidding for him until he chooses to close the invitation.
The main theme in this parable is of a King who wants to fill his banquet hall with guests. The people on his initial invite list, reject him not once, but twice, and even violently so. And the King is so intent on filling up his banquet hall, because of the lavish feast he has prepared, that he sends his servants to the "highways" and "byways" to fill up the guest list. And sure enough the hall is filled.
So how do we interpret this? The most obvious way is that the Jewish people rejected his servants the prophets, when they came to call Israel back to God, and in fact killed some of them. And so when his own people rejected him, he reached out to the Gentiles and invited them to come in. Eventually Jesus would be God's servant that reached out to his own people to invite them to the banquet and he was killed by them too. Peter and Paul would also reach out to the Jews with the Gospel and be rejected like their master.
What might this mean for us? The clear message is that God wants his banquet hall full. And the purpose for his servants is to go out and invite people until it is full. So assuming the banquet is the feast we will celebrate in heaven, it is clear that God wants heaven full. Assuming we are his servants, we are called to keepi inviting people to the banquet until it is full. Though we can't make anyone come to the feast, we can keep on inviting all people.
All too often in the church, we are comfortable that our family and friends are going to be at the wedding banquet, but we forget that God wants his hall is full. That means as servants of God, we are to do his bidding for him until he chooses to close the invitation.
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