The Invitation :: Matthew 22:1-14
I’m not a cook. I don’t really enjoy grilling. I’ve also been accused of eating too fast. But at meal time, my wife and I do one thing right: We insist that our family eats at the table together.
It’s a sad sign of the time that many families today don’t eat together. Sixty years ago, the average dinner time was 90 minutes. Today one survey said it’s less than 12 minutes. In the last twenty years the frequency of family dinners has declined 33 percent. Another poll actually found that 40 percent of American families eat dinner together only three or fewer times a week and that ten percent never eat dinner together.
But it was a beautiful sign of the times last week when this congregation did just that. Families who eat together have stronger bonds. When people gather around food, conversation opens and relationships grow.
This idea of renewing relationships during a feast is prominent in scripture. Promises, covenants, and friendships are sealed around a table. God renews his relationship with us around the table. God invites sinners to his table, and He delivers to us a feast of heavenly proportions ... the forgiveness of sins.
5. Our readings today from Psalm 23, Isaiah 25, and Matthew 22 bear witness to this invitation.
Even the epistle to the Philippians ... has a shadow of a feast in the background. Here we rejoice always (Phil 4:4) as the Lord prepares our table, as our cup overflows (Ps 23). We have reason to rejoice as he provides a rich feast, the finest food, with aged wine (Is 25). Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Therefore, it’s not surprising to find the last great gathering of God’s people is a wedding banquet ... the celebration of the Lamb and his bride, the church that observes the end of an old way of life and the beginning of a new one. The Lord of hosts has invited everyone to delight in rich food full of marrow and well-aged wine. Come as you are, he calls through his invitation. Don’t worry about the day or the time. Whatever is pure, whatever is honorable, whatever is commendable, think about these.
The Jews ... like all of us ... were having trouble doing just that.
So Jesus today tells us another parable, which I will call the Parable of Invitation. It’s intimately related to the readings of the past two weeks, because they’re all one conversation and one invitation: Jesus invites you to be clothed in his righteousness.
In our Gospel reading today, like last week, it’s Holy Week. The Passover meal is about to be served. And the elders and chief priests have been plotting to kill Jesus. So Jesus turns to them and tells them three parables, inviting them to turn away from the evil in their hearts, to turn away from the things of the earth, to believe the words and promises of God, and to embrace the invitation.
Then Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. And He sent his servants to call those who were invited. ... Tell them, I have prepared veal, filets, tenderloins, and ribeyes ... tell them, we have Malbec wines and Sine Qua Nons ... none of that MD 2020 stuff. Invite them to come ... Remind them it’s free. Tell them the King is waiting and that all the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven will be singing.
Yet the king’s chosen people said no.
“We don’t have time for that.”
4. What greater invitation can you receive?
Marriages are among the most jubilant and joyous events of life. They unite families.
Yet amazingly people rebuff invitations to the wedding, just as they did in Jesus’ parable. Some turn away thinking of Christianity as the surrender of everything that brings laughter and sunshine and joyous fellowship. We must maintain tradition. Besides, that means I can no longer live as I want.
Still others are more interested in what they can do to work salvation.
Even more are too preoccupied with the things of life to celebrate the joy of heaven.
As Jesus told us: One man went to his farm; the other to his business.
Those aren’t necessarily bad things. It’s not like they ran off on some immoral adventure in Las Vegas. They went to work. That’s an excellent task we all must do.
But it is so very easy for a man to become so very busy with the things of time that he forgets all the things of eternity ... It is so very easy to be so preoccupied with the things that are seen that a man forgets the things that are unseen ... It is so very easy to hear the claims of the world and ignore the invitation of Christ, who invites us to his banquet, where he delivers the joys of heaven. ... It is so easy to become anxious about pandemics that we ignore the invitation.
3. Sadly, sometimes the gracious invitation just falls on deaf ears, or ears unprepared and unwilling to heed the invitation.
It isn’t necessarily that the folks who are invited ... dislike the king and his hymnody. They just deem the invitation to celebrate with the Lord to be not as important as their farms and businesses, as their fun and games.
The problem is one of priority. Their wickedness and stubbornness lead people to regard the invitation to worship as not worth listening to ... as actually being contrary to their best interests.
But these are also the excuses of those who Paul calls the enemies of the cross of Christ. Their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
Do you see the parallelism with the way some people treat God’s messengers today?
Justifiably, the king was enraged. So he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
Some scholars see the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 in this. That may be, but Jesus is definitely reminding us that while God is slow to anger ... his anger is always a pure, holy wrath. And his righteous anger proves he is a just God.
Sin is destroying you. And nothing makes God angrier than that.
So thank God, his heart burned with such a fierce wrath against your sin and mine that he was compelled to take action because he desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. ... Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.
2. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this invitation to celebrate the forgiveness of your sins belongs to you.
This feast didn't come without a price. Our heavenly father has directed his wrath, not against us, the sinful ... he directed his wrath against his only Son, his sinless Son, the Christ who has repaid your debt.
Just days after telling this parable, the chief priests seized Jesus, had him bound and beaten. All the while they slandered him, bore false witness against him, idolized themselves. Then they betrayed him, and handed him over to the Romans to be crucified. Finally, God poured out his full wrath on our substitute, Jesus.
Since Jesus fully and perfectly endured the wrath of the holy God, and since the Father has accepted that as the payment for all sins, he will not press the cup of his wrath to the lips of those who have faith in him. Instead, Christ invites you to acknowledge your sin and to receive the cup of salvation.
And even more than that, he is urging you to invite more guests to the banquet that ends all banquets. Call your brother. Call your sister. Call everyone. Proclaim the gracious invitation to all who will listen. The marriage feast of the lamb has room for everyone who hears the gracious invitation of our Lord.
Invite the good. Invite the evil. Invite them to be clothed in his righteousness.
Through the Lord’s invitation, you will be clothed in his righteousness.
That explains what happened when the king came in to look at the guests, and he saw a man who had no wedding garment.
That man didn’t embrace the invitation to clothe himself in God’s righteousness which is found in baptism. He thought he had no need for the forgiveness of sins.
And the king said to him, Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness.
On first hearing part of the parable, it sounds totally unfair. But it’s not just that this man was poor and couldn’t afford a fine garment to join the feast. It’s not that he didn’t have time to get dressed. This man was denying his need for a savior. He was denying his need for repentance. He was denying his need to return to baptism and to believe he was receiving the forgiveness of sins.
1. Won’t you now hear and receive his invitation: It’s for you.
In the name of Jesus, repent everyone of you and believe the Gospel. He has prepared everything for you. In baptism, he has clothed you with a garment of God’s grace covering the stains of our life. Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. ... Blessed are you who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God that he really did rise from the dead. Because you who believe this, who trust this, do indeed have the faith that saves. You were saved not because you were good, you were saved only because Christ was. You were saved on account of Christ. This is not your doing, it is the work of God so that no one can boast.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, your Heavenly Father has invited you to the wedding feast ... a marriage between the risen Christ and his church. Are you coming?
Christ has paid the redemption price for you. The Holy Spirit has extended the invitation to you through the sacraments. Whoever believes the words given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins has exactly what they say, the forgiveness of sins.