Twenty-eighth Sunday In Ordinary Time
And then there was another parable – but this time, no vineyard. Instead of a vineyard, a wedding banquet. The confrontation between Jesus and the high priestly families with their Sadducee hangers-on continues. It is the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. The week began with his invasion of the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. This did not endear him to the chief priests. The temple was their territory, their living, their income. They did not want this peasant healer and preacher from Galilee disturbing the status quo – especially during the celebration of Passover – a kind of religiously oriented fourth of July festivity. For a third Sunday in succession the gospel reading begins with this sentence, “Jesus…spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people.”
Spoke about what? “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.” This is a sentence loaded with Old Testament theology which made its way into the New Testament. The relationship between the Lord God and his chosen people was sometimes represented in the Old Testament as a marriage, the Lord God as groom, the People of God as bride. For example, an important theme of the oracles of the prophet Hosea, 740 B.C. is the marriage relationship between God and Israel, the latter being God’s unfaithful spouse. In the New Testament, Jesus becomes the bridegroom and the Church his bride. See Gospel of John 3:29 and Revelation 19:7-9. In the latter reference we read, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” This could serve as a headline for Matthew’s parable of the royal wedding banquet.
The king sent his servants to summon the invited guests. They refused. He sent out another group of his servants with an urgent message, “I have prepared my banquet. My cattle and fattened calves have been slaughtered. Everything is ready. Come to the feast!” But the invited guests ignored the invitation, and went off, one to his farm, another to his business. Among the refuseniks there were brutal rednecks. These seized the king’s servants, tortured them, and killed them. They got their comeuppance. The furious king sent his army, destroyed the murderers, and burned their city. Is the parable teaching its hearers how not to respond to a wedding invitation?
Matthew is dabbling in religious and political history to make a point. The king is obviously God. The banquet is the celebration of the union between God and his people. The invited guests are known under various names, for example, the House of Israel, the people of Judah. The servants are the prophets, some ignored, others mistreated, still others murdered. Matthew will write about this situation in the next chapter. In a series of seven curses against the Jewish lead-ership opposing the Christian movement, he writes, “I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town…, 23:34. The son is Jesus, Son of God, a final attempt to bring the invited guests to the table. In this parable nothing happens to the Son.
The furious king, symbolizing God, sends an army to destroy the murderers and burn their city. Armies doing harm to Israel and Judah are already in the Old Testament understood as God’s instrument to punish his wayward people. For example, in Isaiah 7:18, the prophet promises to King Ahaz that the Lord will send two armies against three kings besieging Jerusalem. The language is entertaining to us, though it was not entertaining to King Ahaz, “The Lord will whistle for the fly that is at the sources of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee which is in the land of Assyria.” In the parable, Matthew, writing about 85 A.D., refers to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Roman army in 70 A.D. For him, this was the act of an angry God punishing the refusal to the wedding banquet of God’s Son. Since the introduction depicts Jesus speaking to the Jewish leadership, Matthew is saying, “You caused it!”
The first appendix to the parable. The king notes that the invited guests were not worthy to come to the banquet. He sends still more servants to find anyone they could, even street people. The servants gathered bad and good alike, “and the hall was filled with guests.” Matthew needs the word “bad” as an introduction to the second appendix to the original parable. But who are all these guests? Matthew had unkindly disposed of the first invitees as being unworthy. For Matthew the unworthy ones were the Jews. The people of the streets are the Gentiles. Thus Matthew once more justifies the Christian mission to the Gentiles and their admission into the Christian Community.
Now the second appendix, and a strange one it is. The king enters the banquet hall to meet his new invitees. There he found one “not dressed in a wedding garment.” He questions the man, but gets no answer from him. The king commands, “Tie this man up! Throw him out into the dark! This gives Matthew an opportunity to use one of his favorite hardline sayings, “Where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Why this appendix at all? To answer and implied problem.
Although all nations are invited to the banquet, are there no restrictions or qualifications?
Matthew will answer this question through more parables, especially the parable of the last judg-ment in 25:31-46, “When I was hungry, you fed me,” or “You did not feed me.” Good works are the wedding garment. Matthew resorts once more to one of his hardline statements to close the parable, “Many are called but few are chosen!”
