Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen

Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen

Matthew 22:1-14

Introduction

There are Bible passages that leave us a bit unsettled and today’s text is one of them. The parable we are looking at today may be a variation of a story that Jesus told more than once. There is a different version of it in Luke 14.

It’s a parable about judgment - and every person should make an attempt to hear what Jesus has to say in this story.

N. T. Wright said of this parable that it “often bothers people because it doesn’t say what we want it to. We want to hear a nice story about God throwing the party open to everyone… to let everyone in. We don’t want to know about judgment on the wicked, or about demanding standards of holiness, or about weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Bruner: “In the Gospels, only Matthew contains detailed descriptions of the Final Judgment.”

Matthew 22:2-14 NLT

“The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 

3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come!

4 “So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ 

5 But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. 

6 Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them.

7 “The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. 

8 And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. 

9 Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ 

10 So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests.

11 “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. 

12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. 

13 Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

As we study this parable, we should note that it addressed the original hearers, it addresses us today, and it looks ahead to the judgment.

1. The Contextual Call: Religious Leaders.

Matthew 21:45 And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them.

There are several elements of this parable that point to the history and experiences of Israel. (Donovan)

-The king (v. 2) is God; The son (v. 2) is Jesus.

-The event is a wedding feast.

-The invited guests (v. 3) are the people of Israel.

-Israel was the recipient of God’s promises (Including the Coming Messiah). These promises came mostly through the prophets - the first servants in the parable. The second and third sets of servants (vv. 4-6) are Christian missionaries. Two responses to the message of Jesus as Risen Savior:

-Some ignored him - just went about daily life. Bruner: “Legitimate occupations become sinister when they are preoccupations. The irony of this depiction is that rejection is not made in the pursuit of evil ends but in the pursuit of good ones.” Jesus encouraged us to seek the Kingdom first. Too many times recreation, work, and consumerism take top priority.

-Others killed the servants and martyrs. Many of the early Christians were tortured and murdered by Israel.

The burned city (v. 7) is Jerusalem (AD 70) - the judgment of God upon the people of Israel. As a result of the rejection by the Jews, the King sends out Christians with the great news - to everyone - The good and bad (v. 8- 10)

-The wedding robe (vv. 11-13) - I want to talk about that in a few minutes.

“For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (NIV)

Although some of this is prophetic about what is to come, the point was not lost on the Pharisees. Matthew 22:15 “Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.” They understood this as an indictment and their rejection of Jesus was a matter of God’s judgment.

2. The Contemporary Call: Christians Today

We are invited to the Feast!

When the invitation goes out to everyone on “the street corners” where they “gathered all the people they could find” - the doors of the kingdom were open to all. Wright: We don’t have to look far in Matthew’s gospel to see who they were. The tax-collectors, the prostitutes, the riff-raff, the nobodies, the blind and lame, the people who