The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son…Come to the wedding banquet. But they paid no attention…
Apparently many are too busy with their own agenda, their own business to even RSVP. This is no way to treat a King and His Son!
Here the Teacher continues the theme of recent parables: If we aren’t interested in preparing ourselves to be a part of what God is doing, He will seek those who are!
Those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find!
How many times have we turned down an invitation because of the effort required to get ready to go? Remember what you were thinking?
This party isn’t worth my time! I really don’t feel like making the effort. I don’t have anything to wear!
Even here, at least one guest showed up for the king’s banquet without any preparation at all. The king noticed! How did you get in here without wedding clothes? Throw him outside!
It’s obvious to be a part of God’s kingdom requires more than a polite RSVP and showing up. No this banquet is a full-dress deal!
Of course, we understand the Teacher isn’t talking about clothes – cotton shirts, silk blouses or blended wool suits. He’s talking about spiritual dress for the kingdom – the adornment of our hearts.
Get dressed! A place is reserved at the table for those who say yes to the Teacher’s invitation to become His student. He alone can make us ready!
For many are invited, but few are chosen!
Imagine you are a servant of the King, told to go invite the nobles to a wedding banquet. In the parable - the King sends his servant to "those who have been invited" (vs 3) This would have been the Jews, no? God's chosen people. The religious - the people of God - the teachers and scribes and ...
ReplyDeleteNow, those who were invited didn't show up. They even mistreated and killed some of the servants. The King destroys them, then gets another servant.
Imagine you're that servant - "Go to the street corners, and invite to the banquet anyone you can find" (vs 9)
Surely not! Tax collectors, foreigners, prostitutes, drunkards, sinners of all types. Surely not. Those people haven't bathed in weeks. They stink, they are not right to come into the presence of the King, to eat at his table...
We are servants of the King.
We have been told to "go into all the world"
Yet, who are we hesitant to invite?
And if we are hesitant to invite others, people who aren't of our social class, people who are "sinners," people who we don't enjoy associating with, people whor may be vile, who may be drunkards or addicts or prostitutes, or ... (fill in the blank with people you ma have trouble with) then what does that say about our hearts?