Sermon Notes: Matthew 22:1-14 (Year A, Proper 23)

My sermon ended up looking nothing like the note that I posted. Here are the notes I ended up preaching from.

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Matthew says, “And again Jesus spoke to them in parables,” and then he tells a parable about a king who throws a wedding feast for his son. 

Matthew says, “again,” because he’s just told two other parables about a father and a son. 

At Matthew 21:28, it’s a man with two sons, one of whom says he will obey, and doesn’t; the other of whom says he won’t obey, and then does. 

At Matthew 21:33, it’s “another parable,” in which the man is now described as the owner of a vineyard, who is interested in seeing fruit grown in his vineyard, which symbolizes Israel. The vinedressers, who symbolize the chief priests and elders are more concerned with what they can get out of their work than with the fruitfulness of Israel, and they prove this by killing the man’s son. And in this story sequence, the death toll isn’t final. 

At Matthew 22:1, there’s one, final parable. The man is back, and now he’s described as a king. The bigger surprise in this sequence is that his son is back, that now he’s getting married, and that there’s a feast being thrown in his honor, a feast for his wedding. 

This feast - for the wedding of the resurrected Son of God is called, by John, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Matthew tells it here, and John tells it in Revelation 18-19. Before reading  Matthew 22, I want to show you the pattern that it participates in:

1. The City is Destroyed, and the Dinner is Ready

Isaiah 25

Isaiah 13-24 prophesies the destruction of Babylon, Assyria, Moab, Damascus, Cush, Egypt, and Tyre. In today’s reading, Isaiah says, “I will praise your name… for you have made the city a heap. … Cities of ruthless nations will fear you, for you have been a stronghold for the poor… the song of the ruthless is put down…”

Then he describes the feast that’s coming: “On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations: He will swallow up death forever.”

The mountain: Sinai

The ruthless nation: Egypt 

The feast: Passover

Psalm 23

David deeply internalized this picture of salvation for all of us. 

Revelation 18-19

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit… Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”

John sees an angel throwing a great millstone into the see, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more; and the sound of the harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery, and in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.” 

“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying, “Hallelujah, for the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”

2. The Wedding Feast of the Son

“And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, 

• Q. Will the people God has already called answer the second call?

• The drama of freedom… the danger of being spoiled… the need to recognize when you have slipped back into the very thing you had been saved from

“…but they would not come.”

• Q: Why not?

• A1: It’s the king’s son—it would have been in their best interest, politically and economically. 

• A2: They’re deceived. 

“Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ But they paid no attention and went off, one to his [own] farm, another to his [venture], while the rest [showing their ruthlessness] seized his servants, treated them shamefully [Sodom?], and killed them.”

• At first, I wondered why they didn’t come.

• But I think it’s plain: Jerusalem has become Babylon. Tragic aspect of sanctification: We often do the same things that have been done to us - we receive sins from our families, friends, and communities of origin.

• Now I wonder how people could come at all: “No one comes to me unless the Father draws him.”

“The king was angry, and he sent his [soldiers, (not his servants, who didn’t retaliate; nor his son, since it’s his wedding day, and you don’t deploy the newly-married)] and destroyed those murderers and [set] their city [on fire].”

• Q: What was the king angry about?

• A1: Not disobedience in the abstract, but the lack of affection for his Son and lack of attention to his big moment. 

• A2: He doesn’t kill everyone. He kills those who murder his prophets—blood for blood. He burns their city, and I imagine that those who had been less deceived may have gotten out. When God destroys a city, he often leads out a mixed multitude (Exod.; Rahab).

• God’s love for his Son is more expansive than his wrath. And his wrath is an expression of love for his Son. 

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’”

• His servants have a new mission: to call those who haven’t already been called.

“And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

• This is the end of this part of the story. From an individual perspective, salvation is about each one of us - what God saves us from, and what he saves us to. From the perspective of this story, salvation is about the Father’s desire to make sure he is able to extend his hospitality as widely as possible on the occasion of his son’s wedding. 

• That’s why even our prayer of confession focuses on Jesus: “For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have  mercy on us and forgive us.”

“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.”

• Q. What was he wearing?

• A1. Rev 19: “Fine linen, bright and pure—...the righteous deeds of the saints.” Were his clothes, or his righteousness, not good enough?

“And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’”

• The last time a man in a parable called someone, “Friend,” it was because he was upset that other people were being treated as well as he had been treated: In that story, he was upset that, having not worked for twelve hours, and having not borne the heat of the day, other people who had been gathered off of the streets were being paid as well as him. His complaint wasn’t that he wasn’t being paid more. His complaint was, in his own words, “You have made them equal to us.” It was a complaint against the shape of salvation: That God raises the lowly as high as he raises the rest of us.

• A2. I think he may have been wearing something nice. And that he was embarrassed that “the bad” from “the road” were wearing the same garments as him. 

“And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

• The man was “speechless.” 

• The only other time in Matthew that people are described as being “speechless” is later in this same chapter, after Jesus answers the Sadducees’ question about the resurrection. 

• The Sadducees, famously, are an elite, progressive group who aligned themselves doctrinally with elements of Roman philosophy, and what would popularly be called “karma” today. Matthew points out, as does Luke, that they deny the resurrection.

• These next stories in Matthew 22 are sparked by the Sadducees and Pharisees “gathering together” (vv. 15, 34, 41) rallying around what sets them apart, offended at being lumped together, wearing the same garments, with “the bad.”

• A3. The man doesn’t want to look like the bad, who are dressed in the righteous deeds of the saints.

3. How to get ready for the Wedding Feast

“Therefore, you must also be ready…” (Matt. 24:44)

Come out of the city. 

• It is deceptive (Rev. 18; Matt. 22) and ruthless (Isa. 25; Matt. 22).

• The city deceives us into doing things we never would have done outside her influence. 

• Discern the voice of the bridegroom: “Arise, my love… and come away… The time for singing has come.” (Song 2:10)

Clothe yourself with the righteous deeds of the saints (Rev. 18).

• Those deeds aren’t deeds of distinction, but deeds of solidarity and community. 

• James: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

• The deeds themselves need not even necessarily be ours:

  • C.S. Lewis on humility: Humility is being just as glad as your brother’s having done something good as if you yourself had done it.

  • Charles Williams: These garments are the good deeds that others have done because of our love for God. 

• Actually love the saints - beginning with Jesus and the disciples, and continuing with the saints - their radically simple obedience and charity don’t judge us, they clothe us.

Show up for cocktail hour.

• In the parable, plenty of well-meaning people had intended to attend the Son’s wedding but, when the time came, they found themselves entangled in their own property concerns and business ventures. 

• When Luke tells this story, he prefaces it with a note about dining with the poor: “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

• Matthew follows this story up with a similar concern: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me. [This feast checks off four of those boxes] … Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Go into the roads and invite people to the wedding feast.

• Our overfocus on the Great Commission can obscure this commission. Invite other people to dinner. Go to Unity Cafe. Listen to Morgan. Care for one another. Tell people about Jesus. Invite them to church.