October 15, 2023 – Matthew 22:1–14

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Hope Lutheran Church
Manhattan, Kansas
October 15, 2023
Matthew 22:1–14
What’s an invitation you would say Yes” to, no questions asked?

• A free ticket to a Taylor Swift concert, the Superbowl, a free tropical cruise, a trip to the Masters in Georgia? There are some invites you’d always say “Yes” 
  
  • You’d clear the schedule. You’d plan ahead. You’d do everything you could to make sure you could go to that event
    
  • Why? Because they’re once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. You’d never say “no” to those invitations
    
• In our parable today, Jesus has an invite for us better than any of those. In this parable, Jesus says that…
  

You’re Invited To A Wedding Party. So…

1. Will You Go?
   
2. Who’s Going To Be There?
   
3. What Are You Wearing?
   

1) Will You Go?
We’re still on the Tuesday of Holy Week Jesus tells a parable to show what the kingdom of God is like. He starts:
“A king prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come”

• This a parable full of surprises. And this is the first one. Because if the most powerful person you’ve ever heard of invites you to a wedding, you go
  
• And especially back then you go. 1) Because this is going to be a celebration unlike any you’ve ever attended before and you don’t want to miss out. And 2) Because saying “no” to the king would be a total insult
  
  • You might expect the king to be outraged right then and there. But what happens instead? He’s patient with those people he invited. He sends more messengers to bring the invite to them again. Jesus goes on:
    

“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 butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’”

• The king wants so badly for these people he’s invited to know that everything is ready. There’s nothing they need to do. It’s all set. All that’s left is for the guests to simply show up and enjoy the wedding they’ve been invited to
  

“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.”

• If this story wasn’t crazy enough already, this is where it starts to get really weird. Who in their right mind says “No, my daily routine is more important than a wedding feast thrown by a king”?
  
• What’s going on? These people who have been invited, they’re indifferent. They don’t care. But their indifference doesn’t stop there. It moves to full-blown hostility against the king. And the king responds
  

“The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.”

• This rejection of the king’s invitation and the murder of his servants, it wasn’t just disrespectful. It was flat-out rebellion
  
• And when you rebel against the king there are consequences. The king meets this rebellion with righteous justice
  

​​This first part of the parable tells us about God and his relationship with the people he’d chosen and set apart from the rest of the world – the people of Israel

• God wanted them to join the marriage feast to celebrate his Son, Jesus. God wanted them there
  
• But they – especially the religious elite – said “No, we can’t come to the party. Too busy. In fact, we want nothing to do with your celebration”
  
• They responded to this once-in-a-lifetime invitation with insane rejection. They didn’t care. They were indifferent. And that indifference turned into hostility against God. And that rejection would have consequences
  

But this first part of the parable can also tell us something about ourselves. So what does that all have to do with us?

• Earlier this week, I was talking to a friend of mine about this parable. He said something that struck me: The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference
  
  • As I thought about it more, I started to think about how true that is
    
    • If I’m indifferent to things that come up in my marriage, things Camryn says, that can be incredibly hurtful. Maybe even more than disagreeing
      
    • If I completely ignore something one of you says to me, that’s going to send a negative, unloving message to you
      
• The people Jesus was talking to were indifferent to the invitation they’d received. And if I look at myself, I can be a lot like them. I can see how indifferent I am to God’s invitation to me as I fall into sin after sin
  
  • And the scary thing is, it can happen without me even really realizing it. Because rejection like this doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s a process
    
    • Sin has a way of tricking me. You know how it goes. Sinful thoughts turn into sinful words. And sinful words turn into sinful actions. Until I'm at the bottom of a pit in a place that I'm ashamed to admit I ever ended up in, too embarrassed to let anyone see just how far I’ve fallen
      
    • My sin becomes a slippery slope. I start by letting little things take my attention away from God and all of a sudden I’ve pushed him out of my life and I’m the edge of rejecting his invitation
      
  • And here’s a sobering truth and warning for me in this parable
    
    • I haven’t killed God’s messengers or rejected Christ. But if I continue on the road of indifference without repentance, my fate is the same as those who rejected the king’s invitation in the parable
      
    • And that’s all I can do on my own. On my own, according to my sinful nature, all I can do is reject God
      
• God knew that though. He didn’t want to leave me in my indifference, in my rejection. So what did he do?
  
  • God shifted the blame
    
  • He sent his Son into this world. He was despised and rejected by people all throughout his life. As he hung on the cross to die, Jesus was rejected by his own Father
    
  • And despite my sinful nature’s rejection and objection, God comes to me again and again and again. He comes to me again and again and again with the invitation to join him and the wedding feast of his Son
    
  • And he says that for me. It’s for you. It’s for all. That’s who will be there
    
    • Jesus explores that more in the next part of the parable
      

2) Who’s Going To Be There?
“Then the king said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’”

• There were no limits on the guest list. Everyone, all kinds of people, were going to be invited to come
  

“So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

• Here’s another surprise. Who in the world would invite people like this to a wedding? The bad and the good alike? It doesn’t make sense
  
  • But that’s the point. The so-called bad people were only bad in the eyes of the world. The truth is that Christ died for all people. Not just the people who lived the right way. Not just the people who have their act together
    
  • Christ died for, invited, all people – the bad and the good alike
    

That’s easy enough for us to say. But is it as easy for us to actually do it?

• Is it easy for us to invite the so-called bad people here so that they can hear God’s saving message? Or do I put limits on who I think belongs with us?
  
• Do I let things that I think are too bad hinder me from inviting all people? 
  
• Do we have a line that we’re not willing to cross when it comes to outreach and inviting people to join us in this wedding feast? Does God? He doesn’t
  
  • And praise God he doesn’t. Because if God had a line, I’d be lost
    
    • Instead what does he do? He calls out to us. He invites us again and again
      

And then he tells us we can invite others the same way he’s invited us

• So, who could you invite?
  
  • Think about it this way. At a wedding, you’ll often get to bring a plus one. Who’s your plus one for this wedding feast? Who’s one person I can invite? Cause all are invited. That’s the truth of the gospel
    
• If God wants all people to fill his wedding banquet, does that mean he doesn’t care about how we live? Jesus answers that question next
  

3) What Are You Wearing?
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. 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.’”

• Here’s what Jesus is telling us at the end of the parable: God calls people where they are, but that doesn’t mean we can stay exactly as we are
  
• God wants all people at this wedding feast. But being a guest at the wedding feast also comes with a change in my heart, a change in the clothes I wear
  
  • When God calls out to us, it's a call and invitation to come back and be with him as he always intended. God finds us as worthless sinners and transforms us into his faithful sons and daughters
    

And those aren’t clothes I can go out and buy on my own. I can’t live as a child of God by my own thinking or choosing. I have to be gifted those kinds of clothes. 

• God, through his gospel, gives us the clothes to wear – gospel clothes
  
  • I think that’s what Luther had in mind when he wrote this in his Catechism:
    
    • I believe I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me (invited) by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified (set me apart), and kept me in the true faith
      
• God’s clothed you with righteousness through his Son. That means we have a place at his table. We’re welcome at his wedding banquet. Now and forever. Because he’s given you gospel clothes
  

So, there’s a wedding to attend. And you're invited

• Will You Go? You will
  
• Who’s Going To Be There With You? Everyone – the bad along with the good
  
• What Are You Wearing? The perfection and the righteousness, the gospel clothes God gifted you. Amen!