The Great Feast
Matthew 22:1-14
Pentecost 20 (Proper 23)
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen. The sermon text for the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost is the Gospel reading Matthew 22. Everyone likes to be invited to a feast. Most people like to go to wedding receptions, family reunions, birthday parties and holiday gatherings. In other words we all like to be invited to a gathering of family and friends to eat good food and enjoy each other’s company.
In our Gospel reading for today Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a great wedding feast. Jesus says that the kingdom is like a king who prepares a wedding banquet for his son. The king is God the Father, the son is Jesus and the wedding feast is the kingdom of heaven. The king sends out his servants to invite the people to this great feast. It is a feast that is far greater and more magnificent than anything that any person has ever seen or experienced. The feasts and gatherings that we go to in this life are nice, but they are far from perfect and will eventually end. Not so with the feast that the Lord is inviting us too. It is a feast where there is no sin or death. It is a perfect feast that will last forever.
To be invited by God to come to a feast and a glorious celebration is truly magnificent. You would think that everyone would want to come to the Lord’s feast. You would think that everyone would want to come to the Lord’s banquet. It makes no sense for anyone to reject or ignore this invitation from God. Yet when we take a look at our Lord’s parable we see that there are people who actually reject this invitation. Recall what Jesus says in the parable. “The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.”
The king invited the people to the great wedding feast but they did not want to come. How could that be? Jesus gives us the answer. Many who were invited were too preoccupied with the things of this world. They were more concerned with their farm or their business than they were with the Kingdom of God. This happened in the first century. The apostles went out and proclaimed the good news about Jesus but many ignored it because they wanted to focus their attention only on the temporal things of this world. They were not concerned about the eternal. We see the same thing happening today. People immerse themselves in the day to day activities of their life that they forget what is most important.
Jesus goes on to tell us that some people rejected the invitation because they were hostile to God. That happened in the first century. The apostles proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was met with resistance. People hardened their heart and persecuted the apostles. We see that in our day as well. There are those who are hostile to God. There are those who openly speak out against Christian teaching and actively try to silence those who confess Christ. The king invited the people to the great wedding feast, yet they rejected the invitation. Some were preoccupied with the world, and others were openly hostile to God. Jesus tells us that God will judge those who reject the invitation. Recall what was said in the parable. “The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city”. We will see the final fulfillment of these words on Judgment Day.
In this parable Jesus is describing those who openly reject the invitation to the feast. He also describes another type person who rejects the Lord. That sort of person is described at the end of the parable. ” But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to his attendants, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.
In this part of the parable Jesus is talking about those who come before the Lord on their own terms. It is the person who may come to church but in their heart rejects God’s Word in favor of their own understanding. They rely upon their own strength, and they think that they can come to the feast on their own terms. In the first century, the master of the house would give wedding clothing to his guests to wear for the feast. To not wear the wedding clothing would have been a great insult. The man who attempted to get into the feast without wearing the proper wedding clothing is thrown out. The man who is thrown out represents those who think they can enter heaven on their own merit. They think that can inter heaven without the righteousness of Jesus Christ covering them.
Our Lord tells this parable as a warning to all of us. When we wake up in the morning do we think about Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven? Does our invitation to the eternal feast shape our day or do we preoccupy ourselves with the things of this world? Sure things need to get done. We need to go to work, raise our kids, and be involved in the community. But do we immerse ourselves in this world to such an extent that we forget what is eternal? When someone confronts us in our sin or points us to what God’s Word says, do we get angry? Are we critical of the person who confronted us? When it comes to God do we rely upon His Word or do we rely upon our own understanding? Do we come before God humble and in need of grace or do we come before God on our own terms relying on our own strength? All too often our preoccupation in this short-lived world shoves the coming forever kingdom of God aside because we think the world is more worthy. Yet those who reject the Lord and only live for this life will indeed be separated from God forever. They will go to a place with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Our Lord tells us this parable to call us to repentance. He calls us to turn away from the idols of this world and turn to Him. Our Lord tells us this parable because he wants us to receive the Gospel. Remember what the Lord said in this parable. “Then he (the king) said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you can find. And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
We are the ones on the roads that Jesus is talking about. God has found us and He has invited us into His Kingdom. He has invited us to come and join Him in His eternal feast. We are able to go to this feast and be part of the Kingdom of Heaven purely out of God’s grace, through His Son Jesus Christ. When Jesus died on the cross, He took all of our sins upon Himself and He gave us His righteousness. Indeed through His death and resurrection we are forgiven and saved. We have been given the robes of Christ’s righteousness. Because of Jesus and what He has done for us on the cross we are able to come to the feast.
Our Lord tells us this parable so that we can celebrate. Life with the Lord is always a celebration. We have reason to praise God because our sins have been forgiven. We celebrate because we have been rescued from sin and death. We celebrate because the Lord loves us and blesses us. We now wait for the coming of our Lord when He will dwell with us in the kingdom of heaven.
And what a feast it will be. We will be in the full presences of God. We will be with all other believers in Jesus. We will sit at the Lord ’s Table and celebrate and rejoice at a feast that will last forever. It is a feast that is described in our Old Testament reading from Isaiah. “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces” This invitation to the feast is yours to keep and comes to you by way of Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.