Thought for the Month – November 2024

Matthew 22: 1-14

 “Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.  Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.”  But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them.  The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.  Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy.  Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so 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 a wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless.  Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  For many are called, but few are chosen.’”

St. Matthew gives us not one but two parables and I think perhaps it would be easier to understand if we look at each of them separately.

The events of the first parable were completely in accordance with normal Jewish customs.  So when the invitations to a great feast such as a wedding feast, were sent out, the time was not stated on the invitation;

and when everything was ready the servants were sent out with a final summons to tell the guests to come. 

The king in this parable had sent out his invitations long ago but it was not until everything was prepared that the final summons was issued—and then insultingly refused!

The invited guests who, when the time came, refused to come, represent the Jews.  Ages ago they had been invited by God to be His chosen people yet when God’s Son came into the world, and they were invited to follow Him they contemptuously refused.  The result being that God’s invitation went directly out to the highways and byways; and the people of the highways and byways stand for the sinners and the Gentiles, who never expected an invitation into the kingdom.

In fact it is a simple historical fact that if the Jews had accepted the way of Christ, and had walked in love, in humility and in sacrifice, they would never have been the rebellious, warring people who finally provoked the wrath of Rome.  Equally, this parable has much to say on a wider scale.

It reminds us that God’s invitation to us is to a feast, it’s an invitation to be happy and joyous.  To think of Christianity as giving up everything that brings us laughter, sunshine and happy fellowship is to mistake its whole nature.  Because it is to joy that we as Christians are invited, and if we refuse God’s invitation then we are the losers.

It also reminds us that sometimes we are so busy and preoccupied with other things in our lives and the world

that we forget about God. If we refuse His invitation of grace then someday our greatest pain will lie—not in the things we suffered, but in the precious things we have missed.

The second parable is a very close continuation and amplification of the first one.  It is the story of a guest who appeared at a royal wedding feast without a wedding garment.

If we go to visit a friend, we wouldn’t normally go in our dirty gardening clothes. Obviously we know that it is not the clothes which matter to our friend, but it is simply a matter of respect that we should present ourselves at our friend’s house as neatly as we can, and the fact that we bother to wash and change before going to see them outwardly shows our affections and esteem for them.

So it is with God’s house. 

This parable has nothing to do with the clothes in which we go to church; but it has everything to do with the spirit in which we go into God’s house.  It is true that church-going must never be a fashion parade. 

But there are garments of the mind and of the heart and of the soul—the garment of expectation, the garment of humble penitence, the garment of faith and the garment of reverence. 

And these are the garments that we should have to approach our loving God. 

All too often we go into God’s house with no preparation at all;

if every man and woman in our congregation came to church prepared for worship, after a little prayer, a little thought and a little self-examination, then worship would be worship indeed—It would become the worship in which and through which things happen in our souls and in the life of the Church and in the affairs of the world.

Prayer:

Eternal God, you are present in all our experience.  Help us to learn lessons from life no matter what happens to us. In days of strength show us how to use our abilities in your service; in days of weakness and ill-health may we grow more sensitive to the problems of others; in bereavement may the consolation you give us help us to console others.  Ever give us your strengthening power so that even life’s difficulties become occasions for praise and thanksgiving. Amen.

Penny Bonham