Good And Bad Alike

“…Everyone, good and bad alike”

Matthew 22: 1-14…

Mathew 22: 8-10: Then he said to his servants, ’The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 1So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

The ushers/servants listen to the command: “Let everybody in! Everybody for free. Rich or poor, healthy or disabled, clean ones or stinking ones, stylish dressed or in filthy rags…

King’s order: let everybody in, BAD OR GOOD…

Immediately after former Romanian dictator Ceausescu was killed, his residency was open for everybody to visit it. In Bucharest, the capital.Everyone was free to come in take a look. I was curious too and I went. WOW! I was impressed: Gold, marble, exotic wood… I never see such thing before or after… I lived in a two bedroom apartment and I was shocked and revolted seeing this lavishness while ordinary Romanian citizens barely made it…

Let me share with you some pictures and some facts about this palace.Estimates of the materials used include:

- one million cubic meters of marble;

- 3,500 metric tonnes of crystal - 480 chandeliers,

- 1,409 ceiling lights and mirrors hand manufactured;

- 700,000 tonnes of steel and bronze for monumental doors and windows, chandeliers and capitals;

- 900,000 cubic meters of wood for hadwood floor and wainscotting, including walnut, oak, sweet cherry, elm, sycamore maple;

- 2,000,000 square/feet of woolen carpets of various dimensions (havy trucks had to drove inside the building to weave some of the larger carpets);

- velvet and brocade curtains adorned with embroideries and passementeries in silver and gold.

- It is the second largest administrative building in the world by surface area of its floors, just behind the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

- It is 10% larger by volume than the Great Pyramid of Giza. (Wikipedia)

And this palace was open for everybody, after Ceausescu death. But in three months only, the administrators closed the doors again. The palace became ruined: visitors with no manners destroying the palace, stealing the precious things…

We have here in the same picture here in Matthew 22, probably more shocking in this Oriental setup. The contrast between ordinary people’s life and billionaires from oil is something usual in Orient. Jesus story is taken from life… kings living in luxury and all the others starving…

But the picture changes suddenly: the gates are wide open and everyone is welcomed.

What happened? How it came to this point?

I was surprised by those words when I re-read this parable from Mathew 22, the great feast story… I thought I knew everything about this well known story. How wrong I was… Jesus used some shocking descriptions or words, some paradoxical details in order to wake us up. For us, to pay attention because we live in a superficial setting where everything is predictable and boring… And in studying the Bible we proceed sometimes in the same way as we are used: reading it like a magazine,… passing by quick and superficial…

So what means that “good and bad alike” invited to the palace? And they come and no restrictions… and all of them are let inside?... Can you imagine what happened there, the horrendous stampede? Costly carpets, marble, gold, everything clean and suddenly dirty beggars and hungry peasants assaulting the palace, soiled feet, spiting everywhere, unable to properly use the bathrooms, missing and missing again, blowing their noses in fine tablecloths, spilling the drink… ah, a mess… Can you imagine? Messing up the royal wedding, devastating the place, ruining the celebration.

As I said, this picture is unusual and we have to discover what happened, how was possible to end up like that. A wedding. A royal wedding…

Question: According with the first part of this story, it was the king initial plan to invite all those beggars and filthy people to the palace? No. The king got his royal court, his noble blue blood elite. High educated people, knowing the etiquette, the palace protocol, (eating with a fork and knife, stylish people – you are not ashamed with them as guests)…

This was the king’s plan. He had a list with guests who should come to the wedding. And the quests knew about the invitation and about the wedding. Let’s notice here something real significant: Verse 3 “he send his servants to notify the guests that it was time to come”… This was not the invitation but a second notification. They knew…They were even proud to be among the guests. They were talking with their neighbors and their relatives: “Do you know something? I was invited by the king himself to come to his son wedding”. I mean I am not Mr. Nobody anymore, no sir, I am important; I am invited to the royal wedding”…