David Bahn – Reflections

Why would you ever beat and kill a servant who is bringing an invitation to a wedding feast? I can understand being too busy for a wedding. I realize that not all people will be all that excited about attending a feast. But the only reason to kill a king’s servants is because you consider the king to be an enemy. He stands for principles and ideals that are completely at odds with yours. I would, in fact, decline a wedding invitation from Muammar Gaddafi.

Jesus’ parables provide profound lessons by means of outlandish extremes of behavior and unlikely situations. While we can identify with a king’s desire to have a full banquet hall, it’s difficult to comprehend any king going to the extreme of inviting people off the streets to join in the celebration. And though we may believe that proper attire at a wedding banquet is a reasonable expectation, binding hand and foot and casting a poorly dressed fellow into outer darkness seems a bit extreme.

One thing is clear, however. If your enemy invites you to a wedding, you will surely decline. One point of this parable is that if we are enemies of God we will have no desire to celebrate the eternal wedding feast in the Kingdom of God. But we who know the King of kings to be good delight in the invitation. This is a party we don’t want to miss!

Matthew 221-14

The Parable of the Wedding Feast

¹And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, ² “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, ³and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. ⁴ Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’ ⁵But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, ⁶while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. ⁷The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. ⁸Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ ¹⁰And 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.

¹¹“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. ¹²And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. ¹³Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴For many are called, but few are chosen.”