(Audio version; Music--"Rescue" by: WorshipMob and "Save A Place For Me" by: Matthew West)
Introduction
I’ve lost
track of the number of weddings my daughter, Meagan, has either been in or has been
invited to over the last year. And last week, one of her college roommates
stayed with us while she was attending a wedding here in Colorado. If you’ve
ever been in a wedding then you know it can get really expensive—especially if
you have to travel out of town for the wedding. As Meagan was buying yet
another dress for yet another wedding she will be in next month, she was
lamenting that she was going broke participating in or going to her friends’
weddings. So I said to her, “You could always just say no.” She scoffed at me
and said, “Dad! I can’t do that!” I’m guessing this is another one of those
unwritten rules that guys generally and Dad’s specifically haven’t learned—when
you’re invited to attend a wedding or participate in a wedding, you go.
Some
celebrations only occur once or at least are intended to only occur once so
they are not to be missed when You’re
Invited! I’ve been to lots of weddings in my life. Many have been somewhat
traditional, some have been very creative, and some have been downright
strange. However, in every case, I attended not because I necessarily wanted to
celebrate but because the host invited me. I spent time celebrating those in
the wedding party, but I was there because the host invited me and my
relationship with the host, in every case, was very important to me. Some
celebrations are about the event and some are about the host. But you know
what, some celebrations are about us. Jesus told a story about that kind of
celebration—a celebration specifically for our benefit hosted by the Creator of
the universe. It’s a great story about a great banquet hosted by the Great King
and You’re Invited!
Subject Text
Matthew 22:1-10
1Jesus
spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2“The kingdom of heaven is
like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his
servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but
they refused to come. 4Then he sent some more servants and said,
‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and
fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the
wedding banquet.’ 5But they paid no attention and went off—one to
his field, another to his business. 6The rest seized his servants, mistreated
them and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his army and
destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8Then he said to
his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not
deserve to come. 9Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet
anyone you find.’ 10So the servants went out into the streets and
gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding
hall was filled with guests.”
Context
Jesus is
teaching in the temple courts as He often did. Not surprisingly, the chief
priests and elders challenged his authority not only to teach but also because
he had the audacity to clear the temple the day before of merchants and money-changers
and then accepted the praises of the people who were shouting “Hosanna to the
Son of David.” Jesus silenced them with a question about whether the baptisms
performed by John the Baptist were ordained by God or by men. Jesus had them
trapped—they didn’t believe John so they couldn’t say his baptisms were
ordained by God but the people believed John was a prophet so they couldn’t say
his baptisms weren’t from God or the people would turn against them, so they
just didn’t say anything. So Jesus refused to engage them any farther at that
point. Instead, Jesus begins to teach in parables to illustrate an important
point about His encounter with the religious leaders specifically but His
parable is intended for all people who have been given the opportunity to
receive the benefit of being in relationship with Him.
Understanding
Parables
One of
Jesus’ favorite teaching mechanisms was parables. Most serious Christians don’t
struggle too much with Jesus’ parables because we’ve had 2,000 years of
theological scholarship to help us piece them together. We look back at Jesus’
lessons with the benefit of having a fuller picture of the totality of the Old
and New Testaments—like observing a largely completed painting. But the
disciples were observing the painting with only a few paint strokes.
Nevertheless, Jesus had a very specific purpose behind teaching the disciples
using parables. Jesus’ parables were intended to teach those who were prepared
to expand what they believe and further confound those who had no intention of
believing in Jesus. Here is something that is very important: Being able to
understand a parable and incorporating the truth of parables into your faith
and understanding of God in the person of Jesus Christ, is God’s gift to you.
It means God is willing to keep revealing even greater things to you about
Himself. But be careful because if you discount Jesus’ parables as simply
quaint stories, you will find your faith beginning to dwindle as God reveals
less and less of Himself to you (Mt 13:10-17). The key to understanding
parables is correctly identifying the characters in the parable and the
significance of the events of the parables. The benefit of a parable is found
in being able to successfully weave the cultural context and theological
context together in such a way that it creates a rich tapestry that reveals a
timeless lesson.
Text Analysis
1Jesus
spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2“The kingdom of heaven is
like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his
servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but
they refused to come.
When Jesus
refers to the “kingdom of heaven,” many people today automatically assume that
He is talking about heaven as the place we go after we die. But that is only
part of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is an all-encompassing
term to describe the reality of all things in heaven and earth as a result of
the incarnation and revelation of Jesus Christ. The Jews understood the kingdom
of heaven to be the time when God would send a savior to defeat Israel’s
oppressors and re-establish her national prominence. But they were looking for
the wrong kind of savior. Instead, Jesus wanted them to know that the kingdom
of heaven isn’t just a place, or a person, or an event. The kingdom of heaven
is a reality that recognizes Jesus as the center of that reality around which
everything revolves.
We
sometimes forget that the primary focus of Jesus’ ministry was delivering his
salvation message to the Jews. He certainly engaged the Gentile world as
evidenced by his repeated trips to the region of the Decapolis on the eastern
shores of the Sea of Galilee. However, Jesus Himself explained at one point
that He was sent to seek and save the lost sheep of Israel (Mt 15:24)—vv. 1-3 reflect this primary focus. The
king represents God and the son is obviously Jesus. What’s not quite so clear
is what is meant by “preparing a wedding banquet” and who the “servants” are
that God sent. The preparation of the wedding banquet can be understood as the
Old Testament narrative the led up to the revelation of Jesus Christ. The
entire theological trajectory of the Old Testament finds its ultimate
fulfillment in Jesus. Even Jesus at one point admonished the religious leaders
for their failure to recognize that all the Scriptures they so diligently
studied talked about Him. The Old Testament prophets the religious leaders
esteemed so highly should have pointed them toward Jesus. They were the first
“servants” God sent to invite Israel to be in relationship with Him even before
Jesus was revealed. Whether or not they were slow to understand or willfully
ignorant, God gave Israel the benefit of the doubt and sent them another
servant, John the Baptist, to make it patently obvious that God wanted them to
be in relationship with the Son. God’s message to Israel implicitly through the
Old Testament prophets and explicitly through John the Baptists was, You’re Invited! But they refused God’s
invitation.
In Israel’s culture, two
invitations would be sent out for a celebration of any significance because of
the time it would have taken to make preparations for the celebration. The
first invitation announces the event and the second invitation informs people
that the preparations are complete and it is time for the celebration to
commence. In the cultural context of the parable, the subjects of the kingdom
refused an invitation made by the king. You have to understand just how
appalling this act would have been. Within the context of Israel’s culture, no
one, no one, no one would ever refuse a personal invitation made by the king!
Now imagine how appalling that refusal is when the king is God! “So the
customary second invitation went out. But on this occasion they would not come.
This is something completely unnatural; in real life a royal invitation is not
refused and people are glad to be present at a royal banquet. We should not
miss the point that Jesus regards the actions of the high-priestly party as
completely unnatural. When they were summoned by the King of heaven, they
should surely have complied with his gracious invitation. But they did not.
Their outward profession was a long way from glad acceptance of the ways of God
that was looked for from men in their position.”[1]
4Then he sent some more servants
and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My
oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to
the wedding banquet.’ 5But they paid no attention and went off—one
to his field, another to his business. 6The rest seized his
servants, mistreated them and killed them.
Your heart
has to break a little for the King when you read vv. 4-6. He’s almost begging the people to come. He’s trying to get
them to understand how much trouble He’s gone through to make preparations for
this royal feast. The NIV translates the Greek in v. 5 as saying that they “paid no attention and went off” and while
that’s technically correct, if fails to communicate the insult of their
response. What it is really trying to communicate is they “didn’t care” that
the King went through great effort and expense to prepare everything and was
ready for them to come celebrate with Him. Not only do they not care and go
about the business of their daily lives, some grow angry at the insistence of
those who are sent by the King and kill the King’s servants. This is included
probably just to emphasize the entrenched opposition to the King’s invitation
but the memory of John the Baptist’s death wouldn’t have been far from the
minds of the disciples.
“The second
group of messengers received two responses—apathy and aggression. Some people
invited to the wedding feast thought they had more important things to do. They
chose to ignore the messengers and tend to their fields and business—the
everyday pursuits that had taken possession of their hearts. God was just as
displeased with those who ignored him as he was with those who opposed him.
The other
wedding guests responded like the tenants in the previous parable, mistreating
and killing the messengers…the wedding guests had no motive for mistreating and
killing the king’s servants. The murder of the messengers and the message of
rejection to the king and his son were irrational, since the king intended only
good by his invitation.
God’s offer
of a covenant relationship with Israel carried a price for those who accepted
it, but the blessing and honor that the kingdom citizen received would far
outweigh the cost of discipleship. God offered redemption, forgiveness,
salvation, and reward. Those who rejected God’s grace were displaying blindness
to the point of insanity. They returned a curse for God’s blessing.”[2]
7The king was enraged. He sent
his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
As patient
as God is and has always been with humanity’s arrogant disobedience and
sinfulness, a day will come when He will say, “Enough!” and that will be an
awful day for many. Since the death and resurrection of Jesus nearly 2,000
years ago, millions of his messengers and servants have been murdered
delivering His invitation. In our grief, we mistakenly think that perhaps God
has forgotten, but history tells us that God never forgets. How often did God
send a foreign army to punish Israel for her disobedience? The Assyrians, the Babylonians,
the Persians, and finally the Romans. Was Jesus expressing the extent of God’s
anger in v. 7 when says that God
sends an army to bring judgment on the murders and destruction to the city or
was He warning them about something else; something that was actually going to happen?
Well on the same day that Jesus told this parable when they were leaving the
temple, the disciples brought the beauty of the temple buildings to Jesus’
attention and Jesus told them that a day would come when the temple would be
utterly destroyed. “The king’s patience now gives way to fury as he sends
troops to destroy the murderers of his slaves and to put their city to the
torch. The king’s angry treatment of his treacherous subjects represents the
judgment of the Jerusalem establishment. The destruction of Jerusalem and the
burning of the temple in 70 CE [Common Era] by the Romans are at least a
partial fulfillment of this veiled prophecy. God’s use of the Romans as
instruments of judgment is not unlike the previous roles of Assyria, Babylon,
and Persia.”[3]
8Then he said to his servants,
‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9Go
to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10So
the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could
find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
In another
one of God’s great reversals where the first will be last and the lowest will
become exalted, the insiders among God’s Chosen People become the outsiders and
those who were considered outsiders become the King’s honored guests. The
salvation message of Jesus Christ has often been referred to as the Good News.
Do you want to know why? Vv. 8-10 is
why! Your whole life you’ve been an outsider. Your husband walked out on you
while all your friends remain happily married. Or all your friends are getting
married and you’re still waiting for your first date. You’re stuck going to
community college while your friends head off to various ivy-league colleges.
You work your fingers to the bone but your boss only recognizes those who suck
up to him. Your friends go home to loving fathers while you go home to an
abusive drunk. No matter what you do, someone else gets the pretty girl, the
better job, the bigger house, or the happier family. People have told you over
and over that you’re worthless and nothing more than a screw-up and you’ve
started believing it. You always wind up last. Until one day—one day someone comes
along and tells you about Jesus and everything changes because now You’re Invited! to be an honored guest
at a celebration prepared by God. And
you’re not the only one who is invited, everyone who didn’t get invited the
first time get’s an invitation—not just those who you think deserve one; the
“good” people, but the “bad” ones too; the ones who never get invited to
anything; maybe someone like you.
“This
parable, like the two which precede it, speaks of people who do no live up to
expectation and so lose their place of privilege, to be replaced by a more
surprising group; the first are last and the last first…When Israel refused the
invitation and has accordingly been punished in the destruction of Jerusalem, a
new set of messengers are sent out to summon the Gentiles to take their
place…These replacement guests are less apparently worthy, but, for all their
lack of natural advantages, they are at least willing to come when they are
invited and need no second invitation. The deliberately indiscriminate nature
of this second wave of invitations reflects the open offer of the good news
through the ministry of Jesus and the fact that ‘bad as well as good’ respond
to it depicts the messy reality of church life.”[4]
Application
About a
week ago my wife got a message from her mother that their very closer friend
was killed in a freak accident. I was reminded that the idea of being in
control of our lives is to a large extent an illusion. One minute you’re walking
the dog, seemingly without a care in the world, and then next minute a truck
comes out of nowhere and you’re dead. Just like that, the illusion of being in
control vanishes. And the whole time, you were holding on to an unanswered
invitation—an invitation to a lavish, royal banquet. But you were busy and
happy and of course under the illusion that you were in complete control of
your own life so you never got around to responding to the invitation. There
were so many other things that seemed so much more important than that
invitation. However, the failure to respond positively to the invitation in
life results in a negative response by default in death. So let’s not make that
mistake.
A few times
a year I make a point to extend God’s invitation to all of you who are reading
or listening to this lesson to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I know
that God has been moving some of you in this direction but you’re not sure how
to respond. I’d like to take this opportunity to lead you in responding to
God’s invitation to put your faith in His Son, Jesus. Paul says that, “If you
declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom 10:9-10).” There are no magic
words but if you just can’t figure out how to say it, let me offer the following:
Salvation Prayer
Dear
God in heaven, I come to you in the name of Jesus. I acknowledge to You that I
am a sinner, and I am sorry for my sins and the life I have lived; I need your
forgiveness.
I
believe that your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, shed His precious blood on
the cross at Calvary and died for my sins, and I am now willing to repent; to
turn from my sins.
Right
now, I confess that Jesus is the Lord of my soul. With my heart, I believe that
God raised Jesus from the dead. This very moment I accept Jesus Christ as my
own personal Savior and according to His Word, right now I am saved. I
relinquish lordship over my life and submit my life to Jesus as the true Lord
of my life.
Thank
you Jesus for your unlimited grace which has saved me from my sins. I thank you
Jesus that your grace never leads to license, but rather it always leads to
repentance. Therefore Lord Jesus, transform my life so that I may bring glory
and honor to You alone and not to myself.
Thank
you Jesus for dying for me and giving me eternal life.
Amen.
If you just
recited that prayer or used your own words for the first time with complete
sincerity then you have been saved. And just like that you’ve crossed over from
death to life! If it is possible, share your decision with someone and seek the
opportunity to be baptized as a public pronouncement of your new life. Also,
please try to attend a sound, biblically based church and return to this
website as often as possible for new lessons posted weekly. However, I know
that a public announcement of your faith may be very dangerous for some of you
so please be wise and careful with this instruction. You are still saved even
if you are unable to share your decision with anyone else or are unable to be
baptized or can’t attend church or visit this site very often or ever again. I
desperately wish I could be with those of you who have made the decision to
accept God’s invitation to be saved. I wish I could be the one to baptize you.
I praise God for you! Perhaps we will have the opportunity to meet one day.
Your feet are now on a divinely appointed path to fulfill the destiny planned for
you from the very beginning.
For those of you who still aren’t
sure how to respond, remember that being in control over your own life and
destiny is largely an illusion. In reality, life is unpredictable and fragile with
the exception of one certainty—God has prepared a royal banquet and a grand
celebration is ready so the only thing that remains is your response because You’re Invited!
[1] Leon
Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew—Pillar
New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 1992), p. 548.
[2] Stuart
K. Weber, Matthew—Holman New
Testament Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2000), p. 352.
[3] David L.
Turner, Matthew—Baker Exegetical
Commentary On The New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), p.
523.
[4] R. T.
France, The Gospel of Matthew—The New
International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007), pp. 821-822; 826.
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