Matthew 22:1-14

1 Jesus also told them other parables. He said, 2 “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come!

4 So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ 5 But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them.

7 The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. 8 And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. 9 Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ 10 So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests.

11 But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. 13 Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Comments

This parable echoes and extends the one from yesterday. Here again, the servants sent out represent the prophets of Israel who received just such treatment: ignored, beaten, or killed. Like the landowner, the king sends troops to deal with those who have spurned his invitation, representing Israel’s history of captivity and occupation. No detail was given about the other farmers who were brought in, but here we get more detail on the alternate guests. They are “everyone they could find, good and bad alike.” It should be our goal to fill our churches with everyone we can find, good and bad alike. And we get one crucial caveat here in the part at the end about the man not wearing a wedding robe. Everyone is invited, everyone can come, but entering in does require a change. The missing wedding robe represents holiness, which must be the active pursuit of every follower of Jesus. We often get into trouble by trying to name specifically what a path to holiness looks like for someone else; it can look very different for each person. Still, every follower of Jesus must be on a path to holiness and seeking out spiritual direction in that quest is a good thing. This does not undo the message of infinite grace from yesterday, because we can only walk a path of holiness by the power of Jesus’ grace. Holiness is an expression of grace and a necessary one. If that thought is new to you, I encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to move you forward in holiness, to give you direction – a specific command – about what your next growth point is. The man in the parable is thrown out as much for his speechlessness as for his lack of robe. Don’t stay silent, say, ‘Hey, give me a robe and I’ll put it on so I can stay for the feast.’ That’s the sort of prayer that always gets answered.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Matthew 21:33-46

33 “Now listen to another story. A certain landowner planted a vineyard, built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenant farmers and moved to another country. 34 At the time of the grape harvest, he sent his servants to collect his share of the crop. 35 But the farmers grabbed his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. 36 So the landowner sent a larger group of his servants to collect for him, but the results were the same. 37 Finally, the owner sent his son, thinking, ‘Surely they will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenant farmers saw his son coming, they said to one another, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate. Come on, let’s kill him and get the estate for ourselves!’ 39 So they grabbed him, dragged him out of the vineyard, and murdered him. 40 When the owner of the vineyard returns,” Jesus asked, “what do you think he will do to those farmers?”

41 The religious leaders replied, “He will put the wicked men to a horrible death and lease the vineyard to others who will give him his share of the crop after each harvest.”

42 Then Jesus asked them, “Didn’t you ever read this in the Scriptures? ‘The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is wonderful to see.’ 43 I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the proper fruit. 44 Anyone who stumbles over that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone it falls on.”

45 When the leading priests and Pharisees heard this parable, they realized he was telling the story against them— they were the wicked farmers. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowds, who considered Jesus to be a prophet.

Comments

This parable appears in Mark (12.1-12) and Luke (20.9-18) as well but Matthew’s account is unique in one feature. He has the religious leaders answer Jesus’ question about what the landowner will do, while Mark and Luke have Jesus answer his own question. The answer is the same in all three, the only difference is who is speaking. This is interesting because the answer represents what we might expect the landowner to do more than what he actually does (note how Jesus asks the question). The landowner represents the Father, the servants he sends represent Israel’s prophets,  the son represents Jesus, and the tenet farmers represent Israel’s religious leaders. They have mistreated the prophets just as described here and they are about to kill the son, but as the son hangs dying, he does the opposite of what this parable suggests: he asks the Father to forgive those killing him. Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Paul of Tarsus show us that grace extends even to Israel’s religious leaders, even to the wicked tenet farmers. The Father doesn’t reject anyone who doesn’t reject Jesus, no matter what. 

Which is good news because the point of this parable is not for us to read it and think, ‘wow, glad I’m not a Pharisee.’ As we read through the Gospels we continually encounter dumb disciples and self-pious religious leaders. We can tend to think that we are somehow removed from both of these groups, that we stand apart from them and their problems, that we understand Jesus in a way they don’t. But this is never as true as we think and even less so if we remain blind to the fact that their problems are our problems. We are the dumb disciples. We are the pious religious leaders. We are the wicked tenets who have trouble remembering that the work we do (all the work we do) is for God first and not for ourselves first. But Jesus dies even for those who kill him and he is raised from the dead even for those who put the stone in front of the tomb. We can confront our own sinful condition (our dumbness and self-piety) head-on because it is already covered by God’s infinite, unlimited grace.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.