Opening illustration: There was a much lesser wedding couple of years ago. William and Kate have invited 40 kings and queens, 50 members of the royal family (Not Fergie), 60 governors general and Commonwealth prime-ministers, 200 members of the government, Parliament and diplomatic corps. But also Kate Middleton’s grocer, butcher and postman. Her pub landlord and 300 other friends of the couple.
But everyone who has been invited says how thrilled they are to be invited to the royal wedding and how they’ve been madly hunting down the right clothes for the occasion. Apparently gentlemen are required to wear uniform, morning coat or lounge suit. Ladies are required to wear a hat for the wedding service. Now I dare say if you received a gilded, royal invitation with the Queen’s own stamp you’d RSVP quick smart and you’d go and get the right clothes.
Well it was even simpler at royal weddings in the bible. In bible times, servants would come and take your RSVP personally. And if you wanted to go, the right clothes were provided on the day by the host. And so there really was no excuse for not showing up and not being dressed for the occasion.
Introduction: But the shock of our story is how people respond to the King’s invitation.
The first round of invitations meets with complete indifference. The royal servants are shocked, they go again – “The feast has been prepared, the King and His Prince are personally inviting you, it’s the event of the millennium, the finest of foods, the best of wines, incredible company, and joy and feasting, won’t you come?” No they won’t come. And they are so angry about it, they wound and kill the servants.
You have to be a pretty staunch anti-royalist to ignore an invitation like this. You have to hate the King and His Son very much to kill the inviters don’t you? It’s high treason.
But that is Jesus’ retelling of the Old Testament story. Prophet after prophet invite the people: “Come into the Kingdom, it’s the ultimate royal wedding.” But the invitation is torn up and those who invite are beaten up or killed. And eventually the people are given over to what they want. If they don’t want the King and His Son, that’s their decision. If they don’t want the feast, they don’t get the feast, and judgement falls.
Matthew clearly has his own emphases in the recasting of this parable. He alone adds a second parable, which today reads as a slightly awkward extension referring to the casting out of a guest who did not have wedding clothes. As in preceding parables, there is an emphasis on the end times of human history – when God’s purposes for, and his blessing of, Israel will be revealed. A wedding banquet was one of the images associated with the coming of the Messiah in Jewish hope. Also present is a graphic emphasis on judgement, in the destruction of the city.
What happens at the ultimate wedding of the universe?
1. Invitation to kith and kin (vs. 2-8)
The guest list was drawn up ahead of time, and when the time came for the feast, they were notified that it was ready. But these guests refused to come (they persistently refused, the tense is imperfect). These special guests would be the Israelites who were expecting the Messiah; they claimed to be closely related to the King, God. But when the King prepared the banquet for his Son, they would not come. In the New Testament Christ is often portrayed as the stumbling block--people might have embraced an offer of the kingdom, but they had to determine what to do about Jesus? For help in this section, one need only look at the end of Matthew 23 to get the point: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing" (Matt. 23:37). For many reasons, but one primarily, the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as their Messiah when he came and extended to them the invitation to come to him (Matt. 11:28). They could explain it in so many ways, but it simply was that they did not believe in him.
This would have been the second invitation, since the first invitation was given at the time of the engagement. This second invitation may have announced the date for the wedding and the wedding banquet that was to follow; however, the guests would not come. The king graciously sent more servants for a third invitation to inform them that the dinner had been prepared. The servants made the banquet more attractive, telling them that those who came would dine very well with oxen and cattle that had been fattened for the banquet. Again, the ones who had been invited rejected this third offer, and some of those who had been invited seized the king’s servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. It was not like those who had been invited could not come to the wedding banquet – they would not and showed contempt for the king.
The invited guests who refused to come represent the Jewish leaders of that time, just like the tenant farmers from the Parable of the Tenants. The King is God, of course, and the Bridegroom, the King’s Son, is Jesus. The wedding guests had been invited at least three times representing God’s repeated and patient attempts to call His people back to Him through the prophets. As with the Parable of the Tenants, the Jewish people had rejected God’s invitation each time. God had sent the Old Testament prophets to the nation of Israel to call His people to repentance and back to fellowship with Him. They had rejected those offers and had rejected God Himself. God gave the Jewish people chance after chance to come to Him just as He gives us chance after chance to turn from ourselves and to turn to His Son, Jesus Christ. Is it possible that the Church, the very people Jesus died to save, has become a runaway bride?
The response to this second invitation is rather surprising, to say the least. The people paid no attention to the messengers, but went off on their own business. But others seized the messengers and mistreated them and killed them! The King was so outraged by their treatment of his messengers that he sent his army to destroy the murderers and burn their city.
The violent and harsh conclusion of the story sets this parable apart for the one in Luke. In this context the opposition to Jesus had grown violent; and Jesus warned his enemies of the coming judgment they would receive. So the focus of the parable, although severe, is true to history. The Hebrews had often harmed and killed the prophets that God sent to them; and they were about to do the same with Jesus. But to refuse the offer of the King and murder his messengers was the same as committing suicide. That would even have been true in their days. But in the story this was not any king, but the King of Glory.
This parable, then, portrays the expected guests as refusing the gracious invitation to attend the banquet. By refusing the offer of grace they refused a share in the banquet, and in the world to come--if they continued to refuse.
Illustration: A young banker was driving his BMW, in the mountains, during a snowstorm. As he rounded a turn the vehicle slid out of control and toward a cliff. At the last moment he unbuckled his seatbelt and jumped from the car. Though he escaped with his life, his left arm was caught near the hinge of the door and torn it off at the shoulder.
A trucker passing nearby witnessed the accident, stopped his rig, and ran back to see if he could be of help. There standing, in a state of shock, was the banker at the edge of the cliff moaning, "Oh no, my BMW, my BMW". The trucker pointed to the banker’s shoulder and said "man you’ve got bigger problems than a car". With that the banker looked at his shoulder, finally realizing he’d lost his arm, and began crying ":Oh No, my new Rolex, my new Rolex".
The pull of the world can easily steal our affections away, and cause us to live for the wrong things. See, stuff is not bad, and it is not evil to own stuff, to have money, possessions, nice cars, Rolex’s. The important thing is our attitude toward the stuff in our life.
2. Invitation to strangers and nobodies (vs. 9-10)
Because the ones who were invited refused to come, the king now turns to others. He sends his servants out into the streets to invite all that they could find, whether good or bad. The banquet hall was soon filled with people wanting to have a share in the King’s wedding feast for his Son. The call is not for the wise and the learned, certainly not for the smug and self-righteous, but for all who would come. He came into the world to seek and save that which was lost, not those who had rigorously kept the Law (or who said they did) and could claim to have the righteousness to enter the Messianic banquet. What is drawn into the hall are both good and bad people--but all in need of God’s invitation to escape the sin and bondage of this world.
Since this parable represents the spiritual truth of God calling people to Himself, is it possible that the God of the universe can be dishonored by having no one attend His Son’s wedding supper? Is it possible that no one would come to Jesus after He had left Heaven to be among man, to had died a cruel death by His own creation, to had been buried and then risen from the dead for the forgiveness of our sins, and then not have one person to come to His wedding banquet? Is it possible that Jesus’ sacrifice fails to bring anyone to His banquet? No! The king in the story was angry with those who he had graciously invited but had refused to come and had even treated his servants wickedly. Therefore, he destroyed those wicked men and burned their city. Fortunately, that was not the end of the story. The king wanted people to celebrate his son’s wedding and he sent his servants out again to invite as many people as they could find:
In Luke’s account of a similar parable, which is probably a different story at a different time, we see the type of people the master was interested in inviting to his banquet. He invited the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. The master filled his son’s wedding banquet with common folks that you may not typically find in a royal palace. We are the poor and crippled and blind and lame who have been invited to the Son’s wedding banquet. Because God desires for all nations to dine with Him at His table, He has invited people from all over the world. God has drawn to His Son the poor wretched sinners of this world to be saved by His magnificent grace so that they will dine with Him at His Son’s wedding feast. We are a unworthy people who by His grace have become His royal people. God must be honored and glorified in His magnificent salvation provided to His people. Hear the force of these words from our Savior:
3. Invitees Rejected (vs. 11-14)
There is at least one troubling thing about this parable. What about the one who was invited to the wedding feast and actually come to the event, but who was wearing the wrong clothes?
This man did not know what to say. It is likely that the king sent his invitations a long time before the banquet was actually to be held. This man should have had had ample time to obtain the clothing that was expected for the event. Perhaps, he wanted to enjoy the delights of the wedding feast but did not want to prepare for it. It is possible that the custom in that day was for kings to provide suitable clothing for such feasts. The king cast that man into “outer darkness…where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” a clear reference to eternal punishment. What are we to make of this man whose only crime that we can tell was that he came to the banquet without the right clothes? Does this mean that what we wear to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb matters? In a word, yes, it does, but maybe not in the way you think. The point is that the man lacked something that was essential for being accepted at the wedding feast.
When we trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we are clothed in Jesus’ righteousness. God no longer sees our sin but rather the righteousness of His Son. If that is true, how did this man get into the wedding banquet? Was Jesus saying that some who do not have Jesus’ righteousness can attend His wedding feast? Does this mean that one does not really need to be righteous to go to heaven? No, I do not think so. It also does not mean that one who has genuinely trusted in Jesus Christ can be cast out. Keep in mind that both good and bad people were invited to come. (Matthew 22:10) This was a general invitation to all people who the king’s servants could find. This would be like Jesus sending His disciples out into the world to share the Good News and to make disciples of all nations. When they share Jesus Christ to others (not if!), some will respond to it and some will not. This is like a general call to salvation.
On the other hand, there will be people who say they trust in Jesus Christ, who say they are Christians, and who say they are worshipping amongst us, but really do not. The truth is that there are false prophets, false teachers, false disciples, ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing, lawless ones, and tares who are sowed by the Devil among God’s wheat. These people, who may for a time look like and sound like genuine believers will masquerade as true disciples of Jesus Christ and infiltrate the church of God in order to lead God’s elect astray. There will be some who come to Jesus in the final judgement claiming to be His disciples and He will say to them, “Depart from me, I do not know you.” He will send them to a place of eternal punishment.
Illustration: In the language of The Godfather, what happens to the cities of those who refuse to come to the feast, or are not wearing the garments of the empire, are “taught a lesson.” That lesson is to conform or be cast out and the end game is security through power. Jesus begins the parable by saying, “…the kingdom of God may be compared to a wedding feast ...” The question is who’s getting married and at what cost? In the Roman Empire cities who fell out of favor with Rome or would not pledge allegiance to Caesar were “taught a lesson.” Some, including Rome itself, where even burned to the ground.
Application: Are you dressed for the wedding this morning? You say preacher, "How do I know?" It all depends on what you have done with Jesus. If you have never received Him as your Savior, then you are lost and must be born again. If, however, there has been a time in your life when you bowed as a sinner and called on Jesus by faith, confessed your sins and received Him into your life then you are saved. If there is the slightest doubt in your heart this morning about the condition of your soul, I challenge you to come to this altar and get it settled. Are you ready for the wedding? You can be, but you must be dressed in Jesus and His righteousness alone. Will you come if the Lord is calling you?
