“…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”…
And they lived their lives with proud and cultivating a certain self-esteem… They were the chosen ones, they got a call from the King himself! And I am convinced that they were ready somehow to participate, to be part of this wedding. At least as consumers at the wedding banquet…
But something happened. Their problems were more important. Their priorities came before the wedding. They were not against the King or the wedding but they did not care… Verse 5: "But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business”.
They loved to be at the wedding (free food, free entertainment) but they loved themselves more.
And you know how the king felt, don’t you? We’ve all had that happen to us at some time or another. You work like a dog getting ready for something. Maybe it’s a party. Maybe it’s a Bible lesson. Maybe it’s some get-together for some group in the church. You spend hours and hours getting everything ready. You work hard and you’re excited about what you’ve got planned.
The big day comes. You planned for fifty and five show up. You planned for thirty and you get six. You know how it feels. You want to cry. It makes you angry and frustrated and depressed. You know how the king in this parable felt. And if you know how the king in this parable felt, then in some small way, you know how God feels whenever one of us rejects his invitation to be a part of the kingdom that he has prepared for us. But it got even worse. Read 22:6-8…From refuse to open hostility, at the point that the Kings servants were killed.
What is the meaning of this unusual situation where the multitude, good or bad, in a kind of stampede, fill the royal palace?
The first and obvious explanation:
- The initial guests: the Israelites. Fifteen centuries they live overconfident that they are the chosen ones. A peculiar people apart form other pagan nations around them. But we know what happened. How they treat the prophets and whistler-blowers sent to them. And how much they “care” about the Prince wedding – they killed Him… And the rest is history – the Romans destroyed Israel as nation, they were scattered among pagans and Jerusalem destroyed. The prophecy was fulfilled.
Romans 11:11 - Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles. In other words, because they refuse to honor the king and his wedding, the palace door opened for Gentiles, for all others, for us…
Now let’s put some questions here and let the Bible aswer…
1. Let me tell you, please: I don’t understand God’s procedure. I mean, God called a nation, Israel. AND GOD GAVE TO THEM LAWS AND RESTRICTIONS… A very restraining life-style, requirements and commandments, tens and hundreds… Take a look in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy…
But after that, the same God come and said: I AM NOT INTERESTED ANYMORE IN THOSE LAWS AND CEREMONIES: LET PEOPLE COME AS THEY ARE.
- “But Lord, they are Gentiles” they must to be circumcised, they must to keep all the Laws of Moses, the have beards, to feast, to…”
- “No, said God, let them come as they are: Greeks, and Romans, and Barbarians… As they are, no special requirements”…
And the Jews were shocked: How is possible to such unclean people to enter the Kingdom? No wonder how they fight against Paul, the Jews converted to Christianity… They wanted to make the Gentiles embrace all the Jews laws and lifestyle first, and after that, only after that, being baptized and considered as their brothers and sisters… But Paul said NO, God is not interested anymore in such laws and restrictions…
Is God inconsistent? 1500 years of restrictions and now no restriction at all?
2. Second question. When God called the Jews to be His people, He intended to exclude the Gentiles from salvation?
Or He called Israel in order to save the Gentiles also? He sent them, the Jews, to the palace directly? Or He send them “to the street corners” as King’s messengers, to invite them also to the palace?
Answer please…
WOW, now I see! Israel and all those restrictions and laws was not the way to buy the salvation!
ISRAEL WAS A MISSION. God’s objective was to call everybody to the palace, through them.. He blessed them, He put them in the middle of the Ancient World at the crossroad of commercial high-ways, tried to educate them how to live, how to eat, ho to drink, to have sharp minds and good healt… Why? Because they have a mission. To educate others! The Message was this: “The King’s Son wedding is waiting for us and we have to be prepared, we have to honor the King and to be familiar with the palace protocol How to dress, how and what to eat, etc”…
Israel was a mission among all other nations. But they were disloyal. The mission was betrayed. And God put them out-of-the-way. They became irrelevant. Worse, they fight the King, they become open enemies… Anyway, they were swiped away.
And now at the end of the time, God call a group of people, the Remnant, to live a clean life, high standards, high morals, healthy food. Why? Because He want to save only them? The elite? To let them “buy” the salvation through obeying laws and restrictions? No, but because outside, at the street corners, are people unaware of the royal wedding.
Our lifestyle and our faith is a mission, not a way of salvation. God is calling us to keep all ten commandments and to have a healthy lifestyle, choosing to be vegetarians, exercising, not smoking, not drinking and all the rest NOT BECAUSE this is the salvation’s fee! Is just part of the training as the King’s heralds.
God called us not because we are the only one chosen to be at the wedding but because the King needs help. He is looking for people ready to be sent in mission: to invite all others to come to the wedding. To educate them about the palace manners, etiquette. To make the King fill something: that his very pricey efforts to let them in palace are well worth…
Are you ready for the mission?
Ovidiu Radulescu
ovirad@yahoo.com
