Burning the invitation
This week is on Matthew 22:1-14:
This parable is a story Jesus told to describe the different ways that people have rejected his hospitality. He describes a king preparing an awesome party and inviting a bunch of people who ignore him. Some of the people even do worse than that: They attack his servants and kill them! So he opens up the invitation list to anyone who will come and be part of his wedding. A bunch of people come and attend his wedding, but one guy rejects the costume and just eats his food. He is tied up and thrown out by the king's bouncers.
The first group of people represent the Jews. They were invited first by God and were his chosen people, but they ignored him and even turned on him and slaughtered his prophets and the faithful. After centuries of that, God rejected them and opened up his offer of relationship and salvation to all of mankind.
God then invites the second group of people: The dirty Gentiles. These were the people who never kept his dietary laws, weren't included in his plans, worshiped false gods, etc. They were then invited to join his kingdom. Many did.
God rejects the guy without the wedding clothes though. Whenever I've read these verses, I've always been like "Why did God reject someone over clothes?" But looking at what they represent, I can understand why.
The wedding clothes were traditionally given to guests to wear as part of the wedding preparations. Think of them as bridesmaid dresses, where the bride picks them out and everyone is supposed to wear them. Imagine having a wedding and one of the bridesmaids decides the dress is ugly and shows up in normal clothes! Is the bride going to find that endearing? In rejecting the dress, she's rejecting the bride on some level. Not cool.
I see the guy who refuses to dress up as the Christian who doesn't want to live as a Christian. He's the guy who says he doesn't have "a religion." He rejects the customs of the church, and tries to accept all faiths as equal. He goes out of his way to fit in with the world instead of representing God's values in it. You would never know the guy was a Christian or values Christianity, and so it clashes with what the other Christians are "wearing." He'd rather dress his way than the way of the other guests who wore what was handed to them.
Righteous acts are also sometimes described as garments. So you've got this guy who refuses to act out his Christianity, choosing instead to keep living as he's lived. He wants God's food, his blessing, his name, his favor, etc. He just doesn't want to be told what to do, or to look different.
God has invited all of his to join his kingdom. In order to do it, we have to accept him, and accept what is offered to us. We have to accept the new destiny we've been invited into. We can't just live as we always have, downplaying our religious identity, trying to have things both ways. If we reject God, and his purpose, and our place in his plans, he will reject us. We'll be like that guy, expecting to party all night long, only to be surprised when he's tied up and ejected from the party.
Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
“Then 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.’
“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and 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 wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
This parable is a story Jesus told to describe the different ways that people have rejected his hospitality. He describes a king preparing an awesome party and inviting a bunch of people who ignore him. Some of the people even do worse than that: They attack his servants and kill them! So he opens up the invitation list to anyone who will come and be part of his wedding. A bunch of people come and attend his wedding, but one guy rejects the costume and just eats his food. He is tied up and thrown out by the king's bouncers.
The first group of people represent the Jews. They were invited first by God and were his chosen people, but they ignored him and even turned on him and slaughtered his prophets and the faithful. After centuries of that, God rejected them and opened up his offer of relationship and salvation to all of mankind.
God then invites the second group of people: The dirty Gentiles. These were the people who never kept his dietary laws, weren't included in his plans, worshiped false gods, etc. They were then invited to join his kingdom. Many did.
God rejects the guy without the wedding clothes though. Whenever I've read these verses, I've always been like "Why did God reject someone over clothes?" But looking at what they represent, I can understand why.
The wedding clothes were traditionally given to guests to wear as part of the wedding preparations. Think of them as bridesmaid dresses, where the bride picks them out and everyone is supposed to wear them. Imagine having a wedding and one of the bridesmaids decides the dress is ugly and shows up in normal clothes! Is the bride going to find that endearing? In rejecting the dress, she's rejecting the bride on some level. Not cool.
I see the guy who refuses to dress up as the Christian who doesn't want to live as a Christian. He's the guy who says he doesn't have "a religion." He rejects the customs of the church, and tries to accept all faiths as equal. He goes out of his way to fit in with the world instead of representing God's values in it. You would never know the guy was a Christian or values Christianity, and so it clashes with what the other Christians are "wearing." He'd rather dress his way than the way of the other guests who wore what was handed to them.
Righteous acts are also sometimes described as garments. So you've got this guy who refuses to act out his Christianity, choosing instead to keep living as he's lived. He wants God's food, his blessing, his name, his favor, etc. He just doesn't want to be told what to do, or to look different.
God has invited all of his to join his kingdom. In order to do it, we have to accept him, and accept what is offered to us. We have to accept the new destiny we've been invited into. We can't just live as we always have, downplaying our religious identity, trying to have things both ways. If we reject God, and his purpose, and our place in his plans, he will reject us. We'll be like that guy, expecting to party all night long, only to be surprised when he's tied up and ejected from the party.
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