Jesus tells another story about some familiar scenes from everyday life to tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like. Jesus has come, he’s king of this world, the invitation to follow him as king now stands. What is life like in a world where that invitation to follow Jesus is there? And this time the story is based around a wedding party.
There are four stages of the story, and each stage tells us something about what life in this age is like.
1. Royal wedding banquet
Stage one: This is a royal wedding banquiet. The kingdom of heaven is like a banquet. The invitation to follow Jesus is the invitation to a party. So many people think that following Jesus almost requires you to be miserable. Now, in fairness, some people do have lots of really good and really sad reasons why their life is miserable and really hard, and Jesus is not saying we have to go around with a fake smile on our faces. But neither is there something particularly virtuous about looking miserable for looking miserable’s sake, and some people seem to think that being a Christian is all about being really miserable. In fact, Jesus invites us not to attend a funeral but to attend a feast.
It’s like a banquet. But it’s not just like a banquet, it’s like a wedding banquet. We are invited to the marriage feast of God’s son. But it’s not just like a wedding banquet, it’s like a royal wedding banquet. Of all the wedding banquets to which you could be invited, a royal one is the most prestigious, the most lavish, the most expensive, the most luxurious of them all.
I have never been invited to a royal wedding. Anyone been invited to a royal wedding? Shame — good stories to talk about later, couldn’t we. I can remember a few royal weddings. I think you go back — well, Harry and Meghan, and you go back further, William and Kate, Catherine as she was — there, because you have to be formal at the wedding — and you go back a bit further, somewhere I’ve got a ceremonial mug from Charles and Diana. I was never invited to any of these weddings. They didn’t invite me back to Westminster Cathedral yesterday — not that that was exactly a royal wedding, but, you know, they don’t invite me to royal weddings. Why not? I’m not important enough. If you get invited to a royal wedding, it means you’re kind of in the top flight of society, and it’s a real privilege to have those kinds of connections where that’s the invitation that you get. And that is what we are invited to: a royal wedding banquet.
And everything is ready. Verse four: “those who have been invited — I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and fatted cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready, come to the wedding banquet.” The most amazing food, and everything is ready and prepared — come. If you’re vegetarian, I’m sure they’ve got alternatives for you, it’s fine. It’s just whatever you think will be the most fantastic food, that’s what will be there for you.
The invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to a party, to a feast, to the royal wedding of all time.
2. The rude refusal
Royal wedding banquet. Second stage of the story: the rude refusal.
Verse 3: he sent his servants to those who’d been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. He’s a kind and gracious king, this one — gives them a second chance, second bite of the cherry, a second chance to say yes. Verse four: “then he sent more servants and said, ‘tell those who’ve been invited, I’ve prepared my dinner, everything is ready, come to the wedding banquet.’” But they all have better things to do. Verse five: they paid no attention and went off, one to his field, another to his business. This is rude. This offends the hospitality and the graciousness of this king, that they think they’ve got something better to do with their time.
Now, maybe you’re thinking, as you hear this — here we are, we’re in church, so by definition this is talking about something that other people do. Other people decline the invitation to the wedding banquet, but because we’re here, this isn’t our mistake. Maybe that’s what you think. Just not quite so fast.
In the ancient world, for an occasion like this, two invitations would have gone out. The first would say: the king’s son or daughter is getting married, and you are invited — would you like to come? And you say yes, or you say no. The royal family then knows how many people are coming, so they know what the catering is, they know how many sheep and cows to kill, how many casks of wine to prepare, how many batches of bread to be made, how many sets of herbs to plant, and so on. It all takes ages to get that quantity of food ready, they need to know how much they’re preparing. And then, when the food is ready, the invitation goes out — because everything is ready, the wedding you said you were coming to, it’s time to come.
These people were people who, when the first invitation came, said yes, they were coming. In other words, this is us. And then some of them, when the actual second invitation went out, said, “actually, I’ve got something better to do.”
So this is not like when you get an invitation to a friend’s wedding and you send them a little polite required reply back that says, “actually, I’m afraid I’m not free that day, I can’t come, but I wish you all the best, I hope it’s great.” This is not that. This is more like if you decide you’re going to invite your entire street to Christmas dinner. So you write to 30 households at the beginning of December and say, “we are holding Christmas dinner for the street, but we need to know how many turkeys to get in and how many sprouts to peel, so are you coming? Tell us by a week’s time and we’ll make some plans.” You then know how many sets of sprouts to buy and how many turkeys to order in, and you then set about working, working, working, making sure there’s enough Yorkshire pudding to go around — or whatever you have with your Christmas turkey. We have Yorkshire pudding with every meat. It always goes, and that habit will continue. I’ve moved to Yorkshire so that habit will continue. And you make sure that everything is ready, and you then say, “okay, what I’ll do is I’ll ring you on Christmas Day when the food’s cooked.” 2 o’clock, you get on the phone: “right, guys, the food’s ready, it’s hot, the gravy’s ready to pour, it’s time to eat!” And they say to you, “it’s quite sunny for December, we’re actually going to have a barbecue in the garden.”
That’s what these people were doing in the story. The rude refusal.
And then the story takes a slightly strange turn when those who were invited murder the postman. Now this is not what would happen in real life, neither is what the king does in response. What would happen in real life? Remember, the king’s concern is the food is ready, so it’s time to come and eat. At this point the king decides to let the food get cold and deal with the problem just arisen, which is that these people have killed the postman. So he pauses the whole wedding festivity and commissions the army to go and deal with this troublesome town that thinks it’s got something better to do, and when the army has sorted out the problem and taken off their riot gear, let’s try again.
This just would not happen in real life. Often in Jesus’ parables there are lots of details that are exactly how the story would play out in the real world, and a few details that are just not normal. And those little details that are just not normal are the things that we’re meant to notice, latch onto, and pay attention to, because that is Jesus telling us what it is that he’s trying to communicate. They’re there to get our attention.
And the point is this: it always offends God when people refuse his kindness. But sometimes people more than just refuse — they throw it back at him violently, they fight God and they fight his people. And Jesus is saying: if you do that, God will send in the army. He will do that when Jesus returns. You do not pick a fight with God and expect to win. But neither do you refuse his invitation to come to the wedding. It’s just rude.
3. The rammed party
The royal wedding banquet. The rude refusal. Number three: the rammed party.
Verse 8: he said to his servants, “the wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet everyone you find.” So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
The fact that so many refused was not going to make the king allow his son or daughter’s wedding to go off like a damp firework. And so the end result: the wedding was full of guests. And note: the bad as well as the good. We were thinking last time, were we not, how God’s wedding feast is not just for the good, how it’s all about God’s gracious invitation and his mercy to people who do not deserve it — it’s about God giving us things we don’t deserve. But the party will be rammed.
And two things follow for us from how full that party will be. The first thing that follows is that that party will be the place to be. So if you refuse God’s invitation, not only will you have offended him with your rudeness, but you will miss out. Everyone who’s anyone will be there. So the people that you know who just slightly embarrass you by being a little bit too enthusiastic about their Christianity — they will be there, and you won’t. It’s where all the fun will be: the crowds, the laughter.
It’s so easy in this day and age to write off the church as a minority show for weirdos. The media loves to paint us in that light. Today, Sunday, about three percent of the population of the village of Kemsing will go to church somewhere. The remaining 97 will decide that they’ve got something better to do. So it’s easy to let that affect you, and you start to think, “what am I doing here? Have I backed the wrong side? If this was what it was all about, wouldn’t there be more people here?” Well, when Jesus comes back, the boot will be on the other foot. It’ll be totally reversed. And if you’re not in the party, you will be the one feeling left out.
So that’s the first thing that follows for us from the rammed party: that party will be the place to be. But the second thing that follows for us is that we’ve got work to do. Verse 9 is Jesus’s task for every one of us. Jesus says, “go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” We don’t know, do we, who will refuse the invitation to come to the banquet and who will accept it. We have no way of knowing that in advance. So go and get them — find anyone that moves, anyone that breathes, and tell them that God invites you to the wedding banquet of his son. God wants his son’s wedding feast to be full, and he wants us to go out and fill it up.
4. The rejected gate-crasher
The royal wedding banquet. The rude refusal. The rammed party. And number four: the rejected gate-crasher.
The story is not quite yet over. Jesus has one more slightly surprising twist. When the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, “how did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?” And the man was speechless. The king told the attendants to tie him hand and foot and throw him outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
The wedding feast may be for the bad as well as for the good — it is — but this man couldn’t be bothered to go home, have a shower, and put on some clean clothes of the kind that were appropriate for a wedding. He just turned up in his grubby, smelly work clothes and thought that would be okay. That is an insult to his hosts. He’s thrown out. This wedding is not for him.
Everyone is invited to God’s party, but you have to come on God’s terms. You can’t come thinking that your best is good enough for God — it isn’t. You can’t come thinking it’ll be unreasonable of God to expect you to change some areas of your life. He can. Now, none of those things mean that we earn our place at the party. It remains a party for the bad as well as for the good. Everything we thought about last time still stands. But if you stroll in as though you have every right to be there and God is lucky to have you, you’re gate-crashing, and you will be thrown out.
Conclusion
So: God’s kingdom is like a royal wedding. It is rude to refuse. If you refuse, the party won’t be smaller — just you will miss out. If you would come, you need to come on God’s terms. The only way to come is to receive from Jesus the righteousness that is not yours from the things you’ve done, and then, once forgiven by him, to hand him the keys to your life. But the invitation to the royal wedding banquet of all time is open to everyone. It’s open to everyone here, so come — come to Jesus. And it’s open to everyone you know, everyone you meet, so go — go to the street corners and invite to the banquet everyone you find.