Parables often begin with familiar situations; planting, harvesting, building, weddings. While they often begin with familiar situations, often parables don’t stay there. The familiar shifts in an unexpected way. The parable invites us, even requires us to think differently, to alter our perception of the familiar. They challenge our assumptions. They unsettle us.
During Holy Week, Jesus tells the religious elite three parables, one after the other.1 While each parable is distinct, they have a similar message. As one of my seminary professors was fond of saying, “If it’s repeated, it must be important.” Let’s listen for what is repeated and important.
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:1-14 NRSVue
Jesus continued to speak with the religious elites. Remember they were in the Temple. Jesus had entered Jerusalem on a donkey as a challenge and alternative to the Empire’s militarized exercises of power and authority. The religious elites had asked Jesus where his authority comes from. The three parables were part of his answer.
A king gave a wedding banquet for his son. People were invited. But they didn’t attend. We can assume a few things. First, the people invited were the elites and they owed allegiance to the king. Refusing to come seems, at best, unwise and at worst rebellion.2
Two of the invited simply couldn’t be bothered. One went to his farm, the other to his business. But the rest, most of those invited, seized the slaves, mistreated them and killed them. Which seems an excessive response to a wedding invitation, even from the king. We should be asking why? The king unsurprisingly responded with violence of his own.3
Nevertheless the wedding must go on. But now anyone and everyone were invited- the good and the bad. The previously invited elites were no longer invited.
Among those at the wedding was someone inappropriately attired. He, evidently, hasn’t bothered to make an effort to fully and appropriately participate in the event. He showed proper honor to the king by showing up and also didn’t show proper honor once he was at the wedding party. Many scholars think we are to connect the idea of proper wedding attire with the ancient Christian idea that conversion meant symbolically putting on new garments.4
This parable contains a double warning. The religious elites are, again, cautioned to give proper honor and obedience to God. In this parable they have been invited to a banquet provided and hosted by God. Some can’t be bothered, and most of the invited try to usurp divine authority for themselves. After the elites, by their own actions, are removed from the banquet, everyone else is invited.
We might assume that the disciples are feeling good at this point in the telling of the parable. They are among those who are now invited to the banquet, regardless of social or economic status.
But Jesus has a word of caution for them as well. Leaders, religious elites are not the only ones with responsibilities. Simply showing up is not sufficient. The guests are expected to change, to leave their old ways, the old garments, the old habits of their previous life. These guests are to look and act differently. Jesus has a cautionary word for them and for us. Merely showing up, merely claiming a place at the banquet table is not enough. Jesus expects us, leaders and regular people, to put off the old ways and live differently.
God has invited us to a wedding banquet. Will we be too busy with our everyday activities? Will we live and act in ways that oppose the shalom of the kingdom of God? Will we be one who can’t be bothered to change our ways? What sort of banquet guests are we?
- The parables are, the parable of the two sons (Matt 21:28-31), the parable of the vineyard (Matt 21:33-41) and the parable of the wedding banquet (Matt 22:1-14) ↩︎
- See Carter, Warren, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading, Orbis Books 2001 (pages 432-437), and Boring, M. Eugene, “The Gospel of Matthew” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol VIII, Leander Keck Ed. 1994,Abingdon Press (pages 416-419) for discussions of the text that influenced this post. ↩︎
- Many commentators think verse 7 is a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE. ↩︎
- See, Rom 13:12-14; Gal 3:27: Eph 6:11; Col 3:9-10,12 and Luke 15:22, Rev 3:4; 6:11;1 9;8) ↩︎
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