Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost |
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Scripture |
Matthew 22:1-14 22 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, 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.”
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Devotional |
Jesus tells a story in which the invited guest to a banquet all refuse to come./Now a group of people find themselves at a party they would have never dreamed of attending. Matthew has developed his story into an allegorical interpretation of the story. He tells the story of salvation history from the initial sending of the prophets to Israel to renewed invitation by Christian missionaries. Each participates continue to ignore the invitation, even after outsiders have been invited. I like for the story to be about a banquet where all the invited were too busy with some type of work to take part in the feast. We all have important work to accomplish in too little time, but ours is usually most important. What in life do we miss out on because we are too busy? What do you know of disappointment and anger of having people you counted on ignore or turn down your invitation to your party? Most of us do not spend much time with people who are not like us. We tend to stick close to those who are like us. Have you spent some time where there are people we do not ordinarily encounter, at the emergency room, soup kitchen, paying a bill, or at a food pantry? These are places we can avoid most of the time. What is the possibility you would go to one of these places to invite a group of people to your party? I like the story about people who are too busy at work that they do not have a chance to attend the dinner, especially if the work involves some type of religious work-God’s work. The last part of the story may relate to busy people also. Here is a man invited to the party but not preparing himself properly. God invites us to become part of the group. We accept the invitation, believing that after we arrive nothing is required of us. We join without preparing ourselves spiritually. We have not participated in the means of grace provided by God and our community but we expect to be a member in good standing. Randy Maddox describes the process as: “Salvation appears neither unilaterally nor spontaneous in our lives: it must be progressively empowered and responsibly nurtured along the Way of Salvation.” 1 This is a process that grows out of our participation in God’s grace. How often do we attend without being prepared? Do we take our place in the pew Sunday morning with little more than, “Lord, here I am bless me”? If you are comfortable, I recommend your read Responsible Grace and The Presence of God in the Christian Life: John Wesley and the Means of Grace by Henry H. Knight III. 1 Randy L. Maddox, Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology. Nashville : Kingswood Books, 1994. p. 192
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