Matthew 22:1-14
The wedding feast is ready.
Today’s Gospel may have seemed a bit difficult to try and unpick. I must admit, I found so as well. “The Parable of the Wedding Feast”, as it has been titled by the Church, has some wonderful moments and yet, dotted throughout, are lines here and there that are “classic Jesus”. That is to say, he draws us in close with some achingly beautiful imagery, and then leads us into a barbed-wire fence that we are forced to try and step our way through. So let us do that today.
First of all, where are we in Jesus’ career? He is in the temple in Jerusalem. He has done most of the big things out in the regions, he has ridden into the holy city on his donkey, and he has gone into the temple, flipping the tables and driving out the merchants in order to make one final proclamation of the kingdom of heaven before his arrest and crucifixion.
He begins by giving three parables: the parable of the two sons; the parable of the tenants; and now the parable of the wedding feast. We have heard each of them in order over the past three weeks, and they all have one main theme: God is calling. Will you answer?
This, the final of the three, begins with a king, who has prepared a wedding feast for his son. He has sent his servants to call those who were invited, but they would not come. Again, the king sends out more servants, and now those who were invited make excuses why they cannot come, and some treat the servants shamefully, even killing them.
Jesus is walking into the Jewish temple and telling the Jews to their face: this is you. You are God’s chosen people; and your entire history in one big tragedy of God calling and you denying.
The parable continues: the king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Jesus’ audience knows exactly what is going on. If you read the Bible’s accounts of the invasion of the Assyrians and Babylonians, it is explicit in explaining that those armies were God’s judgement against his rebellious people.
Then the king said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find’. This is our salvation. This is what St Paul spoke of in his letter to the Romans, when he said that we are like wild branches that have been grafted into the tree, while the rebellious branches have been broken off. God has set the wedding feast, and just because those who were invited refused to come, it doesn’t mean the party is off. He’ll just find others who are actually ready for a good time, and get them in.
But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him out into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
This is what I meant by “classic Jesus”. We have this wonderful story about God’s free love, throwing open the doors to the party to whoever will come. But Jesus never lets us sit comfortably. He wants us to understand the gravity of this invitation.
What is this about a wedding garment? And being thrown out into the outer darkness? It helps us to think about what we might wear to a wedding. Following a dress code shows that we understand the situation we are in. If we were invited to a wedding, we would wear our best clothes. We would understand how important a wedding is, and dress accordingly. If you wore boardies and a singlet to a wedding and everyone else was wearing suits and cocktail dresses, what would that say to the host? To the father of the groom?
There is a party. And everyone is invited. But how is this invitation offered? It is through Jesus, bleeding and dying on the cross for us and for our salvation. The king is inviting us purely out of his own goodness. He has this wonderful party, and he says to you, come – what have you done to earn the invitation? Nothing. It is the son’s party. He has come to this earth as one of us, bled and died for us, and now calls us to repent and believe in him. The wedding garment of which Christ speaks is a humble and contrite heart. “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.” This is the wedding garment – a complete surrender of our own self-righteousness, and a complete acceptance of Christ’s imputed righteousness. The apostle speaks of “putting on Christ”; we come to the wedding not in the dirty rags of our own self-righteousness, but in the beautiful robes of Christ’s perfect righteousness. It is by his grace that he calls us his own, it is by his grace that he calls us to the feast, it his by his grace that he dresses us in fine clothes and sets us in the seat of honour and it is by his grace that he lays the feast of heaven before us.
Let us hear the cry of Christ the evangelist: come to him, all who labour and are heavy laden, and he will give us rest. Let us lay aside the burdens of our own self-righteousness, and take in exchange his perfect righteousness before God. It is an all-or-nothing invitation: which will you choose? The feast of his grace, or the famine of your own deeds? The feast of heaven is set before you. And soon we shall celebrate the sacrament of that feast – the holy communion – which is our chance to renew our vows to the Lord Jesus as Lord of our hearts. I have tried here to awake your hearts by God’s grace. My own words are woefully insufficient for the task. I know of no better call than the ancient words of our prayer book, with which I will finish. It remains then for the Holy Spirit to awaken you to the greatness of Christ’s love for you, and the wonderful, incredible nature of the invitation he offers.
Dearly beloved brethren, I intend, by God's grace, to celebrate the Lord's Supper: unto which, in God's behalf, I bid you all that are here present; and beseech you, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, that ye will not refuse to come thereto, being so lovingly called and bidden by God himself.
Ye know how grievous and unkind a thing it is, when a man hath prepared a rich feast, decked his table with all kind of provision, so that there lacketh nothing but the guests to sit down; and yet they who are called (without any cause) most unthankfully refuse to come. Which of you in such a case would not be moved? Who would not think a great injury and wrong done unto him? Wherefore, most dearly beloved in Christ, take ye good heed, lest ye, withdrawing yourselves from this holy Supper, provoke God's indignation against you.
It is an easy matter for a man to say, I will not communicate, because I am otherwise hindered with worldly business. But such excuses are not so easily accepted and allowed before God.
If any man say, I am a grievous sinner, and therefore am afraid to come: wherefore then do ye not repent and amend? When God calleth you, are ye not ashamed to say ye will not come? When ye should return to God, will ye excuse yourselves, and say ye are not ready?
Consider earnestly with yourselves how little such feigned excuses will avail before God. They that refused the feast in the Gospel, because they had bought a farm, or would try their yokes of oxen, or because they were married, were not so excused, but counted unworthy of the heavenly feast.
I, for my part, shall be ready; and, according to mine Office, I bid you in the Name of God, I call you in Christ's behalf, I exhort you, as ye love your own salvation, that ye will be partakers of this holy Communion.
And as the Son of God did vouchsafe to yield up his soul by death upon the Cross for your salvation; so it is your duty to receive the Communion, in remembrance of the sacrifice of his death, as he himself hath commanded: which if ye shall neglect to do, consider with yourselves how great injury ye do unto God, and how sore punishment hangeth over your heads for the same; when ye wilfully abstain from the Lord's Table, and separate from your brethren, who come to feed on the banquet of that most heavenly food.
These things if ye earnestly consider, ye will by God's grace return to a better mind: for the obtaining whereof we shall not cease to make our humble petitions unto Almighty God our heavenly Father.