Matthew 22:1-14
A Hall Full Of Guest
I. Each
One Invited By Grace
II.
A
Hall With No Room For Those Who Can’t Make Room For Jesus.
In the name of the King calling us to His Wedding Banquet, dear
children of God,
The earliest Sunday school
lesson I can remember was the story of the crowded house where Jesus was teaching. The house was so crowded that when some men
came with their paralyzed friend they could not get close to Jesus. So the friends went up on the roof and broke
open a whole to lower the man down in front of Jesus. Shortly thereafter there was the story of the
Feeding of the 5,000 where Jesus did the miracle of feeding them all with a few
fish and scraps of bread. Or the crowds
pressing around Jesus when the woman who had been sick for years just touched
the edge of his garment and was healed. When
I think of crowds around Jesus I think of the crowds of saints and angels
singing Jesus’ praise in heaven in John’s revelation vision. I occurs to me that as good as Jesus is one
on one sitting with Nicodemus at night or sitting and listening to my rambling
fragmented prayers that Jesus loves a crowd of people. Today in God’s word he pictures for us a
crowd of people in a wedding hall-A Hall Full of Guests! I.
Each one invited by grace.
II. A hall with no room for those
who can’t make room for Jesus.
Jesus is speaking these words on the Tuesday
before he would suffer and die on the cross.
The rumble of his enemies has now turned into a roar against him. The Pharisees want to know from Jesus "By
what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this
authority?" They were talking about
the authority to do the things only God can do, like forgive sins and invite to
heaven. Jesus answers their sassy
question with a parable about a King who wanted a hall full of guests. ““The kingdom of heaven is like a certain
king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.” What a
happy time! While the way that we do
weddings today might bring a little bit of stress they are a fun and happy
time. Here’s a king who wants to share
the joy of his son getting married with all of his friends. He wants to have a hall full of guests to
share his happy day with. The invitations are sent out. “3He sent out his servants to summon those
who were invited to the wedding banquet, but they did not want to come.” Now remember this is the king who is
inviting. No one who is invited is on
his level. They are invited by the
goodness of the king.
God’s amazing love and man’s sinful stupidity don’t fit our
way of thinking, so the parables Jesus tells about the Kingdom of God take some
stunning turns sometimes. Think of the
Father receiving back the prodigal son or the group of numb skulled tenants who
though that if they killed the heir that the inheritance would belong to
them. Imagine this, those invited don’t
want anything to do with the king and his wedding. That would be like getting an invitation to a
royal wedding and declining it because you are going to use that time to mow
the yard. The gracious king still wants a hall full of
guests. 4“Then he sent out other
servants and said, ‘Tell those who are invited: Look, I have prepared my
dinner. My oxen and my fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is
ready. Come to the wedding banquet!’ But now those invited really make clear
that they didn’t deserved the invitation. 5“But those who were invited paid no
attention and went off, one to his own farm, another to his business. 6The rest
seized the king’s servants, mistreated them, and killed them.”
The King wanted a hall full
of his friends to share his joy but those invited showed that that were not the
king’s friends that they did not deserved his initial invitation nor his repeat
invitation. Jesus was looking the
Pharisees in the eye, calling to them, urging them to come to the Wedding
Banquet the King of heaven and earth had prepared. He had made the preparations. He wanted a hall full of guests. But Jesus’ enemies threw aside God’s
invitation. They made clear they were
not worthy of the invitation.
In the second half of our Psalm for today,
Psalm 23, God tells us that the Shepherd King invites to a dinner. He prepares a table before me in the presence
of my enemies. But remember the words of
Scripture, “We all like sheep have gone astray.” Before we look down our noses at the
Pharisees we recognize our own unworthiness.
One of my daughters (I won’t say which one, but her name starts with B)
was home this week for teachers’ Conference.
Her car had a terrible odor in it.
After some of my fatherly badgering she admitted that she had forgotten
a gallon of milk in the back last week when it was so warm and it had sort of
exploded with a stinky, curdly mess all over the back of the car. That stinky curdly mess is like even the very
best of our actions. “All our righteous
acts are like filthy rags,” the Bible tells us.
That sin stink shows itself in our lives all too often, the words we say
even to those close to us- the thoughts we think that we would never want
anyone to see- the things we do when we think no one is watching. On top of this we act like there is no smell
at all to our sin. We think we don’t we
need Jesus too much. We push the King
our out of life because we are too busy with other things. But the King wanted a hall full of
guests. The King wanted you and me
there. The King came himself. The King poured out his life so that we might
have enjoy life-eternal life in heaven. He washed away the stench of sin. He did all that not because we deserved
it. The king did it all because by
grace-undeserved love. You and I have a
place in the hall because of God’s grace.
Some of the other places
Jesus used this parable put more emphasis on the shallow excuses the miserable
invitees gave, but with Jesus’ enemies standing right there with their
threatening chins sticking out the emphasis is more on how final and awful the
rejection of the King’s invitation is. Listen. “7As a result, the king was very
angry. He sent his army and killed those murderers and burned their town.” Sounds pretty final and awful! The King wants a hall full of guests. But there is no room here for anyone who
doesn’t have room in his heart or life for the King.
“Then he said to his
servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not
worthy. 9So go to the main crossroads and invite as many as you find to the
wedding banquet.’ 10Those servants went out to the roads and gathered together
everyone they found, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with
guests. 11But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who
was not wearing wedding clothes. 12He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in
here without wearing wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. 13Then the king
told the servants, ‘Tie him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14For many are called, but
few are chosen.”
In Jesus’ day most people
did not have a closet full of clothes nor a store nearby to pick out something
nice to wear for the wedding. So it was
pretty common practice to send wedding clothes along with the wedding
invitation. Apparently there was one man
in the crowd who felt he didn’t need the wedding clothes-that his old dirty clothes
were just fine. His arrogance stood in
stark contrast to the King’s graciousness.
Again bringing home the finality of rejecting Jesus, the King throws him
out of the Wedding. Lord keep me from
that kind of arrogance! Keep that
arrogance that thinks I don’t need Jesus far away. Keep that sinful stupidity that pushes Jesus
out of our lives. The King wants a hall
full of guests. But the truth is that
there is no room for anyone there for
whom there is no room for Jesus in there lives.
By his grace the Lord has given us eternal life. Now would be a good time to re evaluate our
lives. Now would be the time to check to
see if the King and his kingdom have there proper place in our lives. Now would be the time to get rid of the
things that are crowding the king out of our lives.
The King wants a hall full
of guests! One of the children’s
bulletins for today has a drawing of the King with the table and hall all
prepared. There are all kinds of people
in the street walking by. There are all
kinds of people in the streets walking by today too. The king wants a hall full of guests. Let’s tell them. Let’s gather them. Let’s bring them. Amen.
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