David Bahn – Reflections

Wedding attire has changed over the years. I can still remember the near shock expressed by some fashion-conscious women the first time they saw brides maids wearing black. Now black is considered either chic or blase’ depending on your degree of fashion sophistication. But the issue of the man without the wedding garment is not a matter of fashion.

The initial guests have declined, treating the king’s servants shamefully. The hall is now filled with all sorts of people, “both bad and good” (v. 10). The king surveys the crowd and sees one out of many guests. This man is lacking a wedding garment – whether this would be provided by the king (as in Genesis 45:22 or Esther 6:8-9), or whether this is a matter of propriety and simple respect.

Two things challenge me in this parable. One is that the king walks through the banquet hall surveying the guests and takes note of one guest, even engaging him in  conversation. I guess, however, I can deal with that. But the severity of the judgment on the improperly dressed man is lost on me. What is Jesus saying here? To whom is he speaking?

I can see the Pharisees and chief priests clucking their tongues and nodding their heads in disdain toward the improperly dressed man. And that’s what doesn’t click for me: Jesus more often aimed his teaching at the religious elite and consoled the down-and-out (the kind who would lack a proper wedding garment).

Perhaps there is more to be said about this. But for now we are confronted with the need for the robes of Christ’s righteousness if we are to celebrate in the eternal wedding banquet feast of the Kingdom of God. Thank God we have that gift from God: “Clothed in his righteousness alone; faultless to stand before his throne; On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” (cf. Romans 3:21-31; 4:22-25; Colossians 2:19-21)

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.”