Matthew 22:1 - 14
You know that each gospel writer uses Jesus’ words in different ways, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Luke has Jesus telling a similar parable, maybe the same one, in which he talks about a certain man who gave a great feast, invited guests, who turned him down, and then made two forays into the surrounding countryside to fill up his banquet hall. There is no vengeance, no destruction of v villages; at the end, the man says, “Those who were invited will never taste my supper.”
Matthew is giving us a similar parable, but one which has several more layers than the one in Luke.. You can look at the parable in a superficial way -- the king is God, the people who reject the invitation to the wedding are the Jewish people, and we Christians are the people gathered up from the highways and byways. That’s probably how Luke meant his story to be understood -- he was writing for a largely gentile audience, part of the growing Christian community outside Palestine. But Matthew adds touches that require a little more thought.
First, who are the first set of guests? Notice, not only do they ignore the king’s invitation, but they mistreat the servants who offered the invitation, killing some of them. I’m sure Matthew, who is writing for a community made up largely of Jewish converts, is referring to the murder of some of the prophets. We don’t know which prophets were murdered, you can’t find that in the scriptures, but in Jesus’ time it was widely understood that some prophets had died at the hands of the authorities. Jesus refers to that himself.
Second, who is the king? He doesn’t sound like the God we believe in. He not only becomes enraged, but sends his troops to destroy the murderers and burn their city to the ground. I asked myself, what city would that be? Matthew is writing after the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Romans. That may be what he has in mind. But in any event it seems strange that the king burns down the city -- and it must have been his own city, since those he invited would have to drop everything to attend his banquet. And the king continues to be a little bit over the top with the wedding guest who shows up without a garment. He doesn’t just kick him out, he binds him and casts him out into darkness, where apparently there are other miserable people wailing and grinding their teeth.
And who is that man? In those days if you were invited to a great king’s feast, you would be sent the clothing he wanted you to wear. We still do something like this when we write on an invitation to a wedding “black tie”, expecting the guests to dress appropriately and not show up in shorts and a t-shirt. So our man has no excuse for not wearing a wedding garment.
And who is the son? He may be there just to give color to the story, but Matthew does make this a wedding feast, and there were Christians in those days who likened heaven to an eternal wedding feast, as you can find in the last book of the bible. And there were Christians who referred to the celebration of the Eucharist as a wedding feast in which the Son gave his own body for food and blood for drink.
So it’s an interesting parable with many unanswered questions. But I think in the end we have to ask, how does it apply to me, to my life, here and now.
There are a lot of people who turn down the invitation to the wedding feast. Matthew is talking to an audience of Jewish Christians, who all have relatives and friends that had heard the message and ignored it. And the point Matthew is making is that this choice is so serious that to make the wrong choice is deadly. It isn’t that God is vengeful, it’s that to choose not to follow Jesus is condemning yourself. And we are all at risk for deciding not to follow Jesus. We all know people who are members of that great religious body, ustabe Catholics. And we have to keep in mind that even though God is infinitely merciful, it isn’t that he condemns, but they are in danger of condemning themselves. We should imitate Saint Monica and do everything we can to bring our Augustines back to the Church.
But we need to look at ourselves as well. We have accepted the invitation, we are those wedding guests. But we are expected to put on the wedding garment we have been given. We have to grow into people who love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. We have to take advantage of what we are offered by our Church, the bride of Christ; sound teaching, the sacraments, especially the sacrament of reconciliation. It's always amazing to see the crowds who turn up for ashes on Ash Wednesday, so that for part of a day they can display a sign of their penance; and contrast that with the vanishingly small lines outside the confessional. And we have to become real disciples, trying to imitate Jesus in our daily lives with prayer, fasting and almsgiving. That’s the garment that has been given to us. That’s what we have to put on before we attend the banquet.
