Our reading from Matthew today is a parable; Matthew writes: Jesus spoke to them, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.’ It sounds simple, but there’s more to it than that.
“The Kingdom” is a significant theme for Jesus. It’s extraordinary how many times Jesus talks about the Kingdom of Heaven, it’s in so much of what he said and did. In the ESV translation of the Bible, the word kingdom appears 126 times in the Gospels. It is mentioned 54 times in the Gospel of Matthew alone. Jesus explains the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, mainly in parables and in symbols. He likens the Kingdom to a lot of things:
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with flour.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind.
In today’s parable, Jesus confronts us with a somewhat disturbing story. At first glance, we’re shocked at the extreme reactions of the characters. If we assume that the king in this story represents God, then he comes across as being tyrannical, petty and cruel. So there’s a problem already. But Jesus didn’t say that the Kingdom is like a wedding banquet, instead he tells us that this story can be compared to a wedding banquet held by a king. And that’s the important word, compare. Jesus didn’t say this story is the same as the kingdom. But there are basic truths in this story that show us what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about.
Jesus wants us to dive deep and think hard about this story, and he challenges us to come to an understanding, given our own time and place and situation. He uses a fictional account that describes a purely earthly set of events, something that the people of the time would have been able to relate to. It’s a made up story, it didn’t really happen, it’s a teaching method and not a literal essay. It is designed to keep people engaged and to remember the lesson, that’s why Jesus uses extreme imagery, just like in the parable of the wicked tenants in last Sunday’s Gospel reading.
I remember going to high school and studying English literature and one of the common exam questions asked us to compare and contrast, for example compare and contrast the characters of Hamlet and Macbeth. So we compare the two characters and look at how they are similar and also how they are different. We analyse their behaviour and personalities, how they react to situations. Hamlet and Macbeth are both main characters who drive the events in each play, but they certainly are not the same when we compare them to each other.
Here Jesus is asking us the same question. He’s asking us to compare and contrast the heavenly kingdom with the earthly kingdom, the heavenly king with the earthly king in the story. What can we learn from this comparison? Bishop Robert Barron said: To meditate on a parable is the same thing as to look deeper into our life to discover in it the call of God.
There are three fundamental truths about the Kingdom that are expressed in the story:
Firstly: Through his infinite grace, all people are invited to share in God’s Kingdom.
Secondly: It’s up to the free will of the individual to accept the invitation.
Thirdly: Through God’s grace we are transformed so that we are fitted into the Kingdom.
At first, the king in the story sends out invitations to a select number of guests, the elites, not just anybody. But here’s the first shock, some people decline the invitation. They’re busy doing other things, they make excuses. That’s crazy in itself. Think about the wedding of Charles and Diana, the people gathered in St Paul’s cathedral, crown heads of Europe, prime ministers, royalty of all descriptions. The common people stayed outside, or watched it all on TV. Of course all those people invited to the royal wedding of Charles and Diana said yes, who wouldn’t? You’d be crazy to miss it.
And it’s the same with the kingdom of heaven, you’d be crazy to miss it. But people do.
They’ve got better things to do, they’re so caught up in what they want and their own concerns that they ignore the messengers. Who’s got time for all that God stuff? People reject the kingdom, even when they’re constantly reminded; God goes the extra mile to persuade people to come, offering peace, love and eternal bliss, the food of the banquet.
But the story gets even stranger, some of the people who are invited kill the messengers. However, in this aspect too we can draw a parallel with the kingdom of God because throughout history we see God’s representatives extending the invitation to the kingdom and being met with violence and hostility. Some messengers of God are killed. We hear about it in the present day, it hasn’t stopped; we only have to think about the persecuted Church in Africa.
Well, maybe we can assume, because the people in the story refuse the king and kill his messengers, that this fictional king is not well liked. Does he care about his guests? I don’t think so. He’s so insulted that he wreaks vengeance on the people who killed the messengers. He destroys them and burns their city for good measure. If we compare and contrast God to this earthly king we can say that they are totally different in nature. Our God is a God of compassion, he’s not petty, or subject to volatile emotions.
Jesus said “if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Jesus and the Father are of the same nature, the same substance. On the cross, he said, forgive them Father for they know not what they do. Jesus said to Peter, forgive seventy times seven. For sure calamity will result from rejecting God but it is not through God directly punishing people, like the actions of the king in the story. Our God is a merciful God.
So, in his frustration, the king in the story throws the invitations out to everyone, indiscriminately. He tells his servants to go and drag in anyone they can find, worthy and unworthy, so long as the banquet hall is filled, it appears that he doesn’t care who shows up.
Again we can contrast the behaviour of the earthly king with our heavenly king. God deals with the refusals not by an act of spite like the king in the story, but by extending even more grace, grace upon grace, to all people, by an act of expansive, all embracing love. That’s how God’s grace works. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Yes, the refusals hurt, but he returns hurt with love. And he keeps on inviting. Jesus doesn’t stop seeking us out. He leaves the ninety nine to search high and low for the lost sheep. He is tireless in his calling of us, persuading us because of his endless love. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, he is still drawing people to himself. As Bishop Barron says: it’s a relentless offer of grace, not because we are good but because grace is freely given.
Our worthiness doesn’t depend on being special, or being in the upper echelon. Our worthiness is measured by how we respond to this outpouring of grace, and our response is an act of free will.
So the central truth is that God invites everyone, good and bad alike, without discrimination. We’ve all received the invitation from the heavenly king, it’s there in the gospels, it’s there in all the people that have ministered to us, and the prophets that have called us to come to God’s holy feast. Do we want to be with God, to share his joy and to celebrate with him, to be part of the life of God? This is the question.
And then another confronting thing happens in the story. One of the guests isn’t wearing wedding clothes, and the king challenges him about it. But the man doesn’t have a good enough reason for not wearing the wedding robes, so the king ties him up, and kicks him out into a dark place so that he will suffer.
This is an extreme and violent thing for the king to do, it seems unfair and mean. So how do we unpack this? What does it mean to be excluded from the kingdom of God based on clothing. The clothing is a symbol, it represents conforming to the ways of the kingdom. You can’t be wearing your ordinary clothes, the clothing of who you were before you were called by God. Joining the banquet, being admitted to the kingdom requires a transformation.
Grace and the initial acceptance of grace comes first and is essential but it’s not everything. To be allowed into god’s household we need to be in accord with the ways that define that household. The wedding garment stands for a developed moral and spiritual life, and it stands for the renewal of the entire self. It means repentance and a turning away from sin. Without this renewal, then a person is no better than the people who refused the invitation in the first place. Changing clothes points to a transformation, a conversion, and our old clothes are shed to put on the clothing of God. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans and used the clothing symbol. He said, “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”
But our heavenly Father is not like the king in the story, he does not leave us hopeless, tied hand and foot and left to suffer. God’s grace and love have the power to transform. As Paul says, “It is no longer I but Christ who lives in me.” There is a visible, actual change when Christ enters our life, when we become like Christ. It is a natural consequence of God’s grace working through us. We no longer are shaped by the ways of this world. Again, as Paul says to the Romans, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Once transformed, we are conformed to a new pattern, the pattern of the Kingdom of God.
Finally, Jesus concludes the parable with, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” The invitations have been sent out, this is the call, and this is God’s grace available to all people. The chosen ones are those who get to walk through the door, the ones who say yes to Jesus and accept his grace. In a way we make the choice to be the chosen ones; it’s all up to us. Grace is freely given and we are free to accept it. And then once transformed by God’s love, we can enjoy the bounty of that love in his eternal home, where he has saved a place for each and every one of us.
Amen
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