Matthew 22.1-14

THE INVITATION

Matthew 22.1-14

I don't know about you, but there are times when God appears to be very unreasonable. He expects too much from us.

Take for example the Gospel reading for today.

We are told about a king who gave out invitations to his son's wedding banquet. However, when the time came, the guests refused to attend.

Disappointed at the result, the king sent other slaves out to tell the invited guests that the meal was now ready. However the invited guests began to make excuses for not attending. For instance, one said he had to go to his farm. Another had some pressing business to attend to. The other guests set upon the slaves and killed them when they would not accept their excuses.

It is important to bear in mind, that it was the custom in New Testament times, to send out invitations without the precise time. However, once the meal had been cooked, a slave would then go out to the invited guests to tell them that the meal was now ready.

In his disappointment, the king instructed his slaves to go out again and invite anyone they saw in the streets to the wedding banquet, whether they be bad or good.

However, and this is where the unreasonableness of God, or the king comes in, at the wedding banquet there was a guest who was not dressed appropriately for the occasion. This is hardly surprising, since when these people went out into the streets that day, the last thing they would have expected, would have been to to be invited to a wedding banquet. Nevertheless, the king had the person bound hand and foot and thrown into darkness.

Now does that not seem to you to be a little bit unreasonable?

In order to make sense of this, it is important to recall how the gospels came to be written.

Originally, the stories about what Jesus said and did were passed on by word of mouth by the original eye witnesses, namely the early followers of Jesus.

Often, similar stories would become grouped around a common theme, which also made it easier for them to be remembered.

It is not difficult to imagine a disciple saying: 'Do you remember that story which Jesus told about a wedding?' And then the person to whom he was speaking replies: ‘Yes, and do you remember that other story Jesus told about a wedding?'

And that is what we have here, written up many years later when the first eye witnesses had begun to die off, and the early church wanted the memory of Jesus preserved for future followers.

In other words, we have in our Gospel reading two separate wedding stories, told at different times for different purposes. The first story concerns those who declined the invitation to a wedding banquet, and the second story concerns a person who turned up inappropriately dressed to a wedding banquet.

So the question of 'unreasonableness' did not arise when the stories were originally told by Jesus.

However, there still remains another difficulty. I refer to the king being angry and sending his troops to destroy the murderers and burn their cities. Of course, the king was naturally disappointed when the original guests did not turn up, but I feel the retaliatory action of the king is a bit over the top, especially if the king represents God in story.

Again, in order to understand these verses, it is necessary to recall how the gospels came to be written.

The evangelists were ordinary people like you and me. Sometimes they added to the original stories, not only their own interpretations but also their own comments. And this is what we have here.

Now the original interpretation of the first story, as told by Jesus to the Chief priests and Pharisees, was to explain why he spent so much of his time with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners, and not with the religious leaders of his day.

God had invited the Jewish nation to be his chosen people and the means whereby he would be made known to the wider world. Unfortunately, despite the sending of the prophets over the years, they had failed to accept his invitation. They had interpreted their 'chosenness' in terms of privilege, rather than of purpose. They had tried to keep God to themselves. That is why it was necessary to send his Son, Jesus, to extend the original invitation to include also the Gentiles - the non-Jews - to be the means of making himself known to a wider world.

Now Matthew understands this, but also adds his own comment. We must remember that he wrote his gospel some 50 - 60 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Looking back over those years, he notes the of Fall of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD, and suggests that this is God's punishment upon the Jewish nation for failing to accept the original invitation.

I would therefore suggest that these verses concerning the king punishing those guests who failed to turn up at the wedding banquet, was not part of the original story as told by Jesus, but rather the evangelist's own interpretation and comment.

So what do these two stories mean for us in the twenty first century?

You and I have received the invitation to become members of the Christian church, as followers of Jesus Christ.

It is an invitation to become an inclusive church which includes everyone, irrespective of race, colour or creed, and perhaps we should also add, of gender.

Whilst that invitation is 'inclusive' in character, it does not mean that the invitation will be inclusive at the end of time.

I say this, because the invitation to follow Christ involves a change of lifestyle. We express this with the words 'baptism of repentance'. In other words, we are expected to show the fruits of repentance in our lives. It is not enough just to hear the invitation. It also involves action. It involves living a Christ-like life; a life no longer focused upon self but one focused upon Christ.

This is described in the New Testament as being ‘clothed with Christ'. In other words, adopting a lifestyle which is fashioned by the teachings of Jesus Christ. This, incidentally, is often expressed by the putting on of a special baptismal robe at baptism.

At the end of time, those who have failed to 'put on Christ' will be like the guest who was inappropriately dressed at the wedding banquet, and we all know what happened to that person!

So by all means, feel honoured that you have been included on the guest list of the Kingdom of God, but don't forget, if you are unprepared when the day of judgement comes, you will find yourself excluded from the wedding feast of the Kingdom.

And now to the God who invites you and me to the wedding feast of the Kingdom, be all honour and might, today and always. Amen.