¹και αποκριθεις ο ιησους παλιν ειπεν εν

And     answering        -    Jesus         again     spoke   in

παραβολαις αυτοις λεγων

parables             to them     saying:

²ωμοιωθη η βασιλεια των ουρανων ανθρωπω

it was likened the  kingdom      of the      heavens      to a man

βασιλει οστις εποιησεν γαμους τω υιω

a king,         who         made        a wedding^[1]      for the son

αυτου ³και απεστειλεν τους δουλους αυτου

of him.     And    he sent                the      slaves         of him

καλεσαι τους κεκλημενους εις τους γαμους

to call           the      having been invited to   the      wedding¹,

και ουκ ηθελον ελθειν ⁴παλιν απεστειλεν

and   not    they wished to come.  Again     he sent

αλλους δουλους λεγων ειπατε τοις

other        slaves        saying:      tell              the

κεκλημενοις ιδου το αριστον μου ητοιμακα

having been invited  Look! the   supper    of me   I have prepared

οι ταυροι μου και τα σιτιστα τεθυμενα και

The  bull         of me and  the  fatted beasts having been killed and

παντα ετοιμα δευτε εις τους γαμους ⁵οι δε

all             ready ;      come      to     the    wedding¹.       They but  

αμελησαντες απηλθον ος μεν εις τον ιδιον

not caring                went off,      < one  >   to       the    own

αγρον ος δε επι την εμποριαν αυτου ⁶οι δε

field ,       another  on     the      trading          of him;     the and

λοιποι κρατησαντες τους δουλους αυτου

rest          seizing                    the       slaves        of him

υβρισαν και απεκτειναν ⁷και ο δε βασιλευς

insulted        and    killed.                  The  and  king

ωργισθη και πεμψας τα στρατευματα αυτου

became angry and  sending   the    armies                   of him

απωλεσεν τους φονεις εκεινους και την πολιν

destroyed         the      murderers   those        and    the    city

αυτων ενεπρησεν

of them     burned.

 

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet                                      (Lk 14.15—24)

1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

                4 "Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'

                5 "But they paid no attention and went off -- one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, ill-treated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

⁸τοτε λεγει τοις δουλοις αυτου ο μεν γαμος

then      he says   to the  slaves       of him: the indeed wedding ¹

ετοιμος εστιν οι δε κεκλημενοι ουκ ησαν

ready            is,         the  and  having been invited not were

αξιοι ⁹πορευεσθε ουν επι τας διεξοδους των

worthy;    you go           therefore to   the     partings          of the

οδων και οσους εαν ευρητε καλεσατε εις τους

ways^[2]     and  <as many as> you find     call                 to       the

γαμους ¹⁰και εξελθοντες οι δουλοι εκεινοι

wedding     .  And  going forth       the slaves      those

εις τας οδους συνηγαγον παντας ους ευρον

into      the  ways      assembled          all           whom they found,

πονηρους τε και αγαθους και επλησθη ο

bad              both  and    good;           and    was filled    the

γαμος ανακειμενων ¹¹εισελθων δε ο βασιλευς

wedding^[3]    of reclining.        Entering       but  the   King

θεασασθαι τους ανακειμενους ειδεν εκει

to see                the       reclining                  he saw  there

ανθρωπον ουκ ενδεδυμενον ενδυμα γαμου

a man            not     having been dressed in a dress of wedding,

¹²και λεγει αυτω εταιρε πως εισηλθες ωδε

  and     he says to him:  friend,        how    did you enter   here

μη εχων ενδυμα γαμου ο δε εφιμωθη ¹³τοτε

not   having  a dress   of wedding? The and was silenced. Then

ο βασιλευς ειπεν τοις διακονοις δησαντες

the King             said      to the   servants;          Binding

αυτου ποδας και χειρας εκβαλετε αυτον εις

of him     feet         and  hands        throw out       him        into

το σκοτος το εξωτερον εκει εσται ο

the   darkness   the  outer;           there     will be   the

κλαυθμος και ο βρυγμος των οδοντων

wailing           and  the gnashing     of the  teeth.^[4]

¹⁴πολλοι γαρ εισιν κλητοι ολιγοι δε εκλεκτοι

Many           for       are       called,       few ^[5]       but   chosen.

 

8 "Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' 10So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and 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 wedding clothes. 12 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.

                 13 "Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

                14 "For many are invited, but few are chosen."

 

Luke 14:15-20

The Parable of the Great Banquet

 ¹⁵When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."

 ¹⁶Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. ¹⁷At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'

 ¹⁸"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'

 ¹⁹"Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'

 ²⁰"Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'

 ²¹"The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'

 ²²" 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'

 ²³"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. ²⁴I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' "

 

1. So you invited me to speak about a wedding feast. But unlike  my last visit, regrettably, I have not produced a sample. So if you were hoping for a wedding feast tonight, you will be disappointed!

Going back to the Bean Seeds.  If you planted the bean seeds, you should now be harvesting. I am and God has provided in spite of me being in China for three weeks, on a youth residential for a week and a Holiday club. That is the lesson of seed. You plant it. But God makes it grow, sometimes regardless of our lack of attention to it. And that rather neatly steps us to today’s parable.

The parable of the Wedding Feast is all about God providing and us responding to his grace.

There are two versions of the parable and they are quite different. In Luke 14:15-20 Jesus is sitting a a meal table. So the story is informal with jokes about the excuses people make and none of the punishment we read in Matthew.

Context of Matthew’s version:

Jesus is in Jerusalem.  He has arrived as the King on a donkey. He has attacked the status quo of the temple management who have little interest in what God wanted and much interest in preserving their way of life.

Jesus tells a series of parables about the Kingdom of Heaven where the central theme is the rejection of the invitation. The parable of the two sons is about doing not just saying. The parable of the tenants is about the Jews ability to persecute the very people God sent to tell them his way.

2.This parable gives a more complete picture. It tells us that the wedding banquet is ready. It tells us the guests have not only been invited but twice sent reminders. Their reaction is ill-treat and kill the messengers. That results in the King annihilating those who reject his invitation. Then we move on. The rejection by the invited guests is replaced by a different invitation. Good and bad are invited from the streets. One guest sticks out because he is not wearing the wedding clothes and he is booted out. Jesus ends the parable with a proverb “For many are invited, but few are chosen.

 

1.        3.The wedding banquet is ready. The kingdom of heaven is a party. This is not the first time Jesus has said so. In fact John records the first miraculous sign as Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding feast. In the story of the Prodigal Son it all ends in a celebratory party as does the preceding parables of the lost coin and lost sheep. The 10 virgins are waiting for a party to begin. 5 enjoy what is clearly an all-night event. Too often we turn our religion into a sober and serious business. But Passover and the other feasts of the Jewish calendar were feasts. Sacrifice at the temple involved celebration meals as in 1Samuel. Heaven itself is described as the wedding supper of the Lamb. So loosen up, Jesus has died and is risen. Your sins are forgiven, you have the guarantee of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the certainty of a home in heaven for eternity. If that doesn’t excite you, well, maybe you are missing the point of being a Christian.

It is about what Jesus has done not what we do. Our salvation is about receiving not seeking to earn it. We believe there is nothing you can do to earn your salvation. Without Christ there is no hope, no way to God, no eternal life. Forgiveness comes at a price, but Jesus has paid the price. So don’t sit in the corner and be miserable. If you have put your faith in Jesus, get up and dance, you have forgiveness of your sins, unlimited life and all the riches of the Kingdom to enjoy.

2.        4. The guests are invited. It is important to understand that the Jews are invited to the Kingdom of heaven. The implication of the story is that the Pharisees and teachers of the Law were invited. They simply wouldn’t enter. They had, in their view, too much to lose. All their culture and upbringing led them to believe they were the upholders of all that is right and proper. The idea that God was about to change the rules so that they along with everyone else could enter the Kingdom of Heaven by grace was too much.

3.        5. The guests reject the invitation But most refused to enter because they wanted salvation on their terms not God’s terms. This is a solemn challenge to us. It is all too easy to turn our relationship with Jesus on its head. Instead of your kingdom come, your will be done we allow ourselves to be seeking our solutions, our wants our ambitions and getting cross with God because he does not respond like a cash machine to our prayers. Punch in the right numbers and out pops what we want. The rejection here is two-fold, some go off to work and business, burying themselves in making their own way. The others get angry with the messengers, and silence them one way or another. Persecution is always irrational. It is a rejection of Jesus, often for totally crazy reasons. I had two Muslims visit me one day and all they could say was that I did not believe in one God but three, even though I protested that I was monotheistic and that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were one God. I was rejected because I could not explain in human terms what God is like. As if God was explainable in scientific terms. They could not explain how there was one creator God any more than I could. Persecution is random and vicious. People who have rejected God’s ways are no longer guided by the principles of tolerance and respect, so persecution takes all forms from cold-shouldering to angry comments, from refusing to give employment to imprisonment. From beatings to violent executions and endless depravity.

4.        6.Judgment falls on those who reject the invitation. It is somewhat unsettling in this day and age to read that The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Oddly the idea that God should have any opinion about bad behaviour seems to upset people. When I tweeted the verse “Woe to you who are well-fed, for you will go hungry” I got an angry response for suggesting God would starve the rich!  Yep, let’s not have justice where the punishment fits the crime, how dare I suggest the rich might face the consequences of their behaviour!  But like it or not, Jesus speaks twice here of judgement for rejecting first his invitation and second his way of salvation. In simple terms if you wouldn’t get in the lifeboat there can be no salvation!

5.        7. The invitation is widened to include all, good and bad. Then the king opens the invitation to those on the streets. Specifically he says good or bad. This flies in the face of not only the Pharisees and teachers of the Law to whom the kingdom was for the moral, upright citizen with a good, provable, track record, but it also challenges the middle class aspirations of many church go-ers, to whom salvation might be by grace alone and through faith alone but please don’t bring the messed up lives around us into our church. Never before in recent history has the church faced so many challenges. People who are coming to Christ are drug addicts, complicated marriage/divorce or living with partner with children and grandchildren, often from multiple partners. They come with oversized debt problems, health issues and health consequences of their lifestyle choices. But the King invited them and if you are not happy with his choices, you have forgotten that you are not chosen because of your life-style, or choices or status in this life. God chooses to love you because he is love. Grace is grace. You do not merit salvation either but you received it as a gift. So the church is and will remain a collection of messed-up people who have found the Saviour and discipleship involves working through the consequences of the mess we have made in the light of this guidebook, the Bible, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Gary Northrop was minister to a church in USA which was doing just nicely when, according to Gary, God messed it up and brought in prostitutes, bouncers, and night-club clientele. That church now numbers thousands because they were not turned away even though there were protests. God chooses the street people because they appreciate his love, they find grace where they are used to judgement. The rich and the middle class tend to have ‘better’ things to do and fail to enter the kingdom. It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than a camel to go through the eye of a needle, Jesus said.

6.           8. The matter of the wedding suit. Just when we thought the story was over Jesus adds this extraordinary sub-plot. 9. There is all sorts of speculation that the guests were provided with a uniform or even a whole range of clothes at the whim of the King. The point here is that the man did not have the clothes he was offered. He got into the party under false pretences. He accepted the grace invitation but it didn’t go as far as changing his clothes! He was probably wearing a very nice fashionable and expensive outfit but is was not what the King required. 10. He required his guests to receive an outfit of grace! This rings close to the song “I am covered over with a robe of righteousness that Jesus gives to me.” We will not enjoy the kingdom if we are still clinging on to ideas of our own righteousness, our own rating. Our righteousness is as filthy rags, whoever the draper is. Be careful to rate yourself by grace. Come on, you are a jewel in the crown of the King of Kings because you demonstrate how his love has won, how his death on the cross has made you whole. Your value is not in this world but in the world to come. Enjoy the love and joy and peace that come from the Father through the Son to you. These are the currency of heaven. Hanging on to our own righteousness is doomed because it is not the substance of heaven. It is in fact the substance of hell.

 

7.        11. “For many are invited, but few are chosen”

This is always a bit uncomfortable at the end of a parable about the king sending out to the streets to fill his banquet. We like to think vaguely that all should respond to the invitation, but Jesus has pointed out the original invitees rejected the invitation and were not chosen and the man with the wrong suit was rejected because of his choices. This parable divides. It says quite simply that the Kingdom is for those who receive the invitation and put on the wedding clothes. It is not for those who reject the invitation or hang on to their own righteousness. That leads me to prayer, prayer for those in my family who have yet to receive the invitation into the kingdom, for my neighbours, the majority of whom are very nice people but have either not heard the invitation or not responded to it. It leads me to pray for a world where millions live without Christ and without hope. But there are many faithful Christians inviting people to the Kingdom of Heaven. I met one recently in Xining. He was a missionary from Mongolia. There has been an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Mongolia and the church is sending out missionaries to Tibet. Isn’t that exciting! 12. This Good News is spreading across the world and people are responding. Some are rejecting it as the Pharisees and teachers of the Law did and the man without the wedding suit. But all over the world people are receiving the Good News and entering the Kingdom. God has chosen them on the same basis as he has chosen you. Because he loves you and you willingly receive his grace. Enjoy the party. Revelation 19:6 describes heaven in these terms:

6 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:

 

“Hallelujah!

    For our Lord God Almighty reigns.

7

Let us rejoice and be glad

    and give him glory!

For the wedding of the Lamb has come,

    and his bride has made herself ready.

8

Fine linen, bright and clean,

    was given her to wear.”

 

(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)

 

9 Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

Jumping to 21:2

2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

 

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”