Matthew
22:1-14
NARRATOR- Once more Jesus spoke to
the people in parables, saying:
"The kingdom of heaven may be compared to
a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those
who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he
sent other slaves, saying,
KING- `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.'
NARR- But they made light of it and went away, one
to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves,
mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops,
destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves,
KING- `The wedding is ready, but
those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite
everyone you find to the wedding banquet.'
NARR- 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.
"But when the king came in to
see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and
he said to him,
KING- `Friend, how did you get in
here without a wedding robe?'
NARR- And he was speechless. Then
the king said to the attendants,
KING- `Bind him hand and foot, and
throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.'
NARR- For many are called, but few
are chosen."
BACKGROUND
Seems like an overreaction for a
dress-code violation, especially in the context of a parable about the kingdom
of heaven. ..
THE CONCERNS OF MATTHEW’S COMMUNITY
For the most part the commentators
see this as a reflection of Matthew’s concern for maintaining high ethical and
spiritual standards in the Christian community. Just because the new community
was more inclusive and generous than the old didn’t mean it had no expectations
of its members. On the contrary, its expectations far exceeded those of
established Judaism
…The whole section, in fact,
is directed to the Matthean reader. It is instruction and warning to insiders,
not a description of the fate of outsiders…. Boring (Matthew, New
Interpreter's Bible) DISCIPLESHIP AS A “GARMENT”
Often in the Pauline corpus one's life after conversion is often pictured as "putting on" the new life in clothing terms (Ro 13:12-14; Ga 3:27; Ep 4:24; 6:11; Col 3:9-10; 1Th 5:8; see also Lu 15:22; Re 3:4; 6:11; 19:8).
Isaiah 61:10 also uses clothing image:
I will greatly rejoice in the LORD,
my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. [NRSV]
. “…throw
him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Our first response to such words is
to assume they refer to some kind of “hell” where people are separated from God
and the kingdom of heaven. But Ched Myers and others have observed that “outer
darkness” is precisely where Christ goes to establish his new kingdom. “Outer
darkness” is the habitation of the poor, the outcast, and the rejected. To the
primeval imagination, “outer darkness” is the abode of demons, monsters, and
predators, human and otherwise. On the day of crucifixion, “darkness came over
the whole land until three in the afternoon” (Matthew 27:45), and the passion
narratives draw heavily upon imagery from psalms like Psalm 22, where, in verse
16, “they open wide their jaws at me, * like a ravening and roaring lion,” and
where (v. 16) “packs of dogs close me in.” It would seem that “gnashing of
teeth” is not only a symbol of misery and extreme discomfort, but a reliable
indicator of the presence of the Messiah.
I can’t help but sympathize with the
wedding- guest-sans-tuxedo. The commentators notwithstanding, he seems more
“Christ like” and more like “kingdom of heaven material” than does a bossy king
with a penchant for violence. Remember, this is Jesus, who defied hallowed
tradition to allow his disciples to “eat with unwashed hands.” And now he makes
a villain out an underdressed man at a party? A party he was forced to attend
at gun point? Give me a break…
Perhaps there is a paradoxical truth
here. My own experience confirms what the Gospel of Matthew proclaims:
Christianity does have drastically high expectations of adherents,
coupled with its lavish inclusiveness; as Desmond Tutu has eloquently observed,
grace is more demanding than law. However, just because I have
been invited to the wedding party along with the other riff-raff doesn’t mean I
have carte-blanche to drink all the fancy wine and barf on the bride. What it does
mean is that even when I do presume upon God’s generosity, even
when I do barf on the bride and exile myself to the outer darkness of
teeth-grinding alienation, even then the king’s oddball son will come looking
for me, come without an army and without any slaves, come gently into the place
of exile, into the domain of dogs and lions, come wounded and divorced, to calm
the lions and feed the dogs who came to lick my sores and his.
It is with that son that we are
called to party. To that wedding even the old mad king is called, his troops
demobilized, his slaves emancipated, his rage dispelled.
“I
think the ill-dressed wedding guest is God and we are the terrible king, who
keeps making demands of God and eventually kicks him out because God never
conforms to our ways. So, then, if we want to be with God, we, too, will be
kicked out. God has left the building.”
Pastor Manisha
Dostert
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