Matthew 22:1-14; Philippians
4:4-13; Isaiah 25:6-9
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
To say that Jesus’ Parable of the
Wedding Feast is perplexing might seem to be an understatement. Our Lord seemingly
turns upside down our expectations and our understanding of the meaning of some
fundamental terms concerning our Christian faith – invited, worthy, called, and chosen. To be invited is
not necessarily to be worthy. To be called is not necessarily to be chosen. What then do these words mean?
Jesus would have you see that your invitation to His wedding feast in heaven is
not on account of your worth, your value, your merit, your decision, your choice,
or anything in you at all. That you are invited is the gracious gift of the King,
God the Father, and not an indication of your worthiness to be invited.
No, your worthiness is bound up in your
host, your King and LORD, alone. Will you receive your host’s gracious
invitation in Spirit-created and given faith and trust and bear forth its fruit
of fear, love, and trust – that is, obedience, – or will you reject it in
sinful, rebellious unbelief, demonstrating that your fear, love, and trust are
in other things that you have set before your LORD, the stuff of His creation
which you worship as false gods and idols? Similarly, Jesus would have you see
that, simply because you are called
is not the same thing as your being chosen.
And, herein lies the mystery of predestination and election – “Many are called, but few are chosen.” What
does this mean? The LORD’s Gospel call goes out to all, to the Jew first, and
then to the Gentile. Therefore, many,
even all, are called. As in Jesus’ Parable
of the Sower, the Sower scatters His Word/Seed everywhere, upon all kinds of
soil/hearts, without discrimination. However, just as the seed only takes root,
grows, and bears fruit in the good soil, so only those are chosen “who, hearing
the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with
patience.” And so, it is the fruit that you bear – fear, love, and trust in the
LORD, along with obedience – that makes you worthy
and chosen and elect.
In Jesus’ Parable of the Wedding Feast, the
King, His Father, sent His servants to call His invited guests to the feast,
but those who were invited refused to come. The King, being good and kind,
patient, and longsuffering, sent even more servants proclaiming that everything
was prepared, that there was nothing they had to do but come and enjoy the
feast, and still they refused to come, and some even treated the King’s
servants shamefully and murdered them! Those invited who refused the King’s
gracious invitation and murdered His servants were the religious leadership of
the Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes. They were invited by
their gracious King, but they refused the invitation and rejected Him. The King
was angry and He destroyed the cities of those murderers. Those invited were
called, but they were found not worthy. They did not fear, love, and trust in
the LORD, and they did not bear the fruit of faith. They murdered the LORD’s
servants who were sent to them with His gracious invitation, the Gospel, and,
ultimately, they murdered the King’s Son, Jesus. It is no coincidence that this
parable follows directly after the Parable of the Tenants in which the tenants
of the Master’s Vineyard murdered His servants and, finally, His Son. Both of
these parables occurred in the days following Jesus’ triumphal entry into
Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Jesus had the religious leadership of the Jews
squarely in mind.
Still, the King sent out His servants
yet a third time, this time “to the main roads,” to call and to invite “all
whom they found, both bad and good.” You see, there it is, as clear as day –
your invitation is not based upon your merit, your worth, your works, your
faith, or anything else inside you, but your invitation is by the grace of your
King and LORD alone. And so, the King’s hall was filled with the bad and the good
regardless of anything attributed to themselves, just like this church today!
For, only the sick can be healed. Only sinners can be forgiven. Only the dead
can be raised. If you are a guest of the King, it is because of His gracious
invitation. And, do not think saying, “Well, I still had to accept the invitation and come,” that you have contributed
something. That’s sophistic nonsense. Before your accepting and coming was
the LORD’s gracious invitation. Truly, you remain invited even if you reject
His invitation. This is the LORD’s doing, alone, and it is glorious in our
sight. Do not succumb to the devil’s temptation to reduce the LORD’s grace from
a truly free and unconditional gift to a mere prod in the right direction. You
are either saved by grace alone or you are not saved at all. You are either
invited or you are not. But, all have been invited in Christ Jesus, therefore
all are without excuse.
However, “when the King came in to look
at the guests, He saw there a man who had no wedding garment.” Now, this was an
impossible thing, for the host, the King, provided even the appropriate wedding
garment for each invited guest. The only way that this one guest did not have a
wedding garment was that he refused to wear it. He didn’t sneak in. He was one
of those bad or good who were invited. However, now that he was in, he must
have refused to wear the provided wedding garment. Now, much ink (or bytes) has
been spilled attempting to explain what the wedding garment represents.
However, the wedding garment is not what is essential here, for this unclothed
man was already in, he was already a guest just like all the others, he was
invited. So, the wedding garment cannot be baptism as many are want to claim,
and neither can it be faith, for the unclothed man was already an invited and present
guest. No, the wedding garment must be something else. What we must focus upon,
however, is not what the wedding garment was, but how it came to be that this
invited and present guest, who was most certainly provided a wedding garment,
came to be found not wearing one. Again, he must have refused to wear it. If
that is the case, then you can well see the disrespect and the irreverence this
man showed toward his King. His refusal to wear the provided wedding garment
was a display, even a confession, of his lack of fear, love, and trust in the
LORD. Now, if the King were merely an earthly monarch, we might consider his
reaction to be overly harsh and extreme. However, this King is the LORD God who
alone is righteous and holy. He had provided everything for the feast and had
graciously invited and clothed all present. To refuse His grace now and disrespect
and dishonor Him so would be the height of rebellion and treason meriting the
fullness of His wrath against the man’s sinful rebellion and unbelief. This is
a parable of judgment, just like the Parables of the Tenants in the Vineyard
and of the Wheat and the Tares. The King had the man bound hand and foot and cast
into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. On the
Day of Judgment, the tares, like the unclothed man at the wedding feast, and
all who refuse the LORD’s gracious invitation in Jesus Christ, will be bound and
thrown into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Once again, it must be stressed that it
was the Jewish religious leadership whom Jesus had squarely in mind in this
parable, though it has application for all of us. The LORD had sent them
numerous servants bearing His gracious invitation through the prophets of old
up to John the Baptist who pointed squarely at Jesus in their presence proclaiming,
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” and they
rejected them and murdered them, and, finally, they murdered God’s
only-begotten Son. They were invited. They were in. But, their refusal to
believe, in fact, their rejection of Jesus in spite of who they believed and
knew Him to be, damned them to hell. They were invited, but they were not worthy.
They were called, but they were not chosen. And, even worse, they were false
shepherds, even wolves in sheep’s clothing, and they failed to tell their flock
that the LORD’s invitation was for them as well. Therefore, because of their
refusal and rejection of the King and His Son, the invitation went out to
others, even to all, to the bad and the good, and the wedding feast was filled
with guests.
The wedding feast is for your Bridegroom
Jesus and for you, His Bride, the Church. God the Father is the King and host
of the feast and He has graciously invited all the world in His Son. Many are called, indeed, all are called, but few
are chosen. To be chosen, to be elect, is not only to be invited, but it is to hear the Word and
“hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” The
fruit you bear is obedience and good works. They are not the cause of your invitation, but they are consequence and confirmation of it. Thus, your Lord Jesus proclaims that He is the
Vine and you are the branches saying, “remain in Me and I will remain in you,
and you will bear much fruit.” Fruit bearing is not an option. Producing the
fruit of obedience and good works is the living proof of your being chosen and
elected. Therefore, St. James declares, “Faith without works is dead.” This is
NOT works righteousness. Your righteousness is in Jesus and is the sole reason
you have been invited. But, faith in Jesus is living, not dead, bearing the
fruit of fear, love, and trust in the LORD, that is obedience, and love, mercy,
compassion, and forgiveness for your neighbor without discrimination or
exception.
Therefore, if you are concerned that you
are not one of the chosen (the elect), know that the chosen are chosen through the
call of the Gospel. Worldliness, hostility to the Word, and distractedness from
the Word plague all Christians because of our sinful flesh. If this cuts you to
the heart, this foretaste of the Great Wedding Feast to come is precisely for
the purpose of binding up your hearts and comforting your troubled consciences.
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come,
buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” “Seek
the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the
LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will
abundantly pardon.” You are invited,
but only the life of the Vine Jesus flowing through you and bearing fruit makes
you worthy. You are called, but only fear, love, and trust
in the LORD above all else makes you chosen
in Christ Jesus. Behold, the feast is prepared. Everything is ready. Come and
eat. Come and drink. The life of Jesus the Vine is poured out for you to
forgive your sins anew, to strengthen your faith, to equip you for good works,
and to send you forth bearing good and much fruit in service of your neighbor
to the glory of the LORD. Jesus’ blood and righteousness are your glorious
dress, even your wedding garment. You are invited and worthy, you are called
and chosen, that the world may see it. Go forth in peace.
In
the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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