The Parable of the Wedding Feast

Our Sunday gospel today is the Parable of the Wedding Feast, which is not easy to interpret unless you have a good understanding of Jewish customs and traditions. You can read it in Matt.22: 1-14.

 “1 Jesus again in reply spoke to [the chief priests and elders of the people] in parables, saying 2”The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. 3 He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. 4 A second time he sent other servants saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”’

 5 Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was so enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. 9 Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find. 10 The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests.

 11 But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. 12 He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?” But he was reduced to silence. 13 Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ 14 Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

 If you read this parable on its surface story without seriously considering its historical links to Jewish society, you would think that the king being referred to by our Lord Jesus Christ wasn’t really that popular to the people. He invited guests to his son’s wedding that, in Jewish tradition, was not an ordinary wedding but a royal wedding that often lasted for a week. So when the king summoned his servants to announce to them that the fattened cattle had been slaughtered signifying that the feast was ready, the invited guests were not so eager to accept his invitation and merely ignored him. To make matters worse, they even killed his servants.

 The enraged king then had those murderers killed and their city burned. Feeling dejected, the king then told his servants to invite any one they found, even if they were not worthy to be invited. So the servants gathered the good and the bad, and the banquet hall was filled with people. Then the king noticed a man who wasn’t dressed for the wedding and questioned him. But the man kept silent, so the king had him bound and thrown into the darkness. Come now: Is this king so cruel and so strict that he did not realize that those his servants took from the main road were a ragtag bunch of people who were not dressed for the occasion?

 Of course the real meaning of this parable is: God is represented by the king who invited his chosen friends to his wedding feast, which represents the kingdom of God. They are reserved for the first-born sons of God, the Israelites. But despite this special invitation for the Israelites to join God, they ignored him and even killed the servants that the king sent to invite them. The servants of course represented the many prophets that God sent and many were killed by the Jews. Clearly these people are the Jews, many of whom were waiting for the Messiah’s coming, but rejected and not recognized him, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 So finally the king asked his servants to go to the main streets and invite anyone they found, good or bad and they brought these people to the banquet hall. These people represented the Gentiles, who responded to the invitation of the king even if they were not deserving of his invitation. While these Gentiles were taken from the main streets, Jewish custom dictates that whenever they join a wedding feast, they were handed a wedding garment at no cost to them. Thus when the king saw a man who was not dressed for the occasion, it was an affront to him, akin to accepting the invitation but refusing to show any respect to the king.

 The plot of this parable is simple. The Israelites are the first ones to be invited to the kingdom of heaven, but they did not show any respect to God and those who killed the prophets, so God destroyed their cities and killed them. The invitation then goes to the Gentiles many of whom responded to the invitation of God. However there are norms and customs that Gentiles must follow to show respect or reverence to God. Hence those who do not follow God’s will, by respecting the king in the wearing of a wedding garment, is thrown out into the darkness by the servants, who are the angels of God who on Judgment Day would separate the sheep from the goats.     

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