Deo Gloria
Sermon for October 15, 2023
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Matthew 22:1-14
Theme: Come to the Banquet!
- Don’t reject the invitation of the king.
- Be sure to wear your wedding clothes.
The invitation came in an elegant, ivory-colored envelope. It was printed on cream-colored, parchment-like paper with deep purple ink. It read as follows:
Mr. and Mrs. Howard Olson
together with
Dr. and Mrs. William Miller
are pleased to announce the wedding of their children
Philip Michael Olson
and
Patricia Ann Miller
at
Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Plymouth, MN.
The two will be united in holy matrimony on
the 1st of July, Two Thousand and Twenty-three
at 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon.
You are cordially invited to join them in celebrating this happy occasion.
A reception will be held following the service at
Pebblewood Country Club
452 Country Club Drive
in Plymouth.
It had every indication of being a gala event. She was the only daughter of a well-known doctor. He was the son of a very successful, local businessman. Rumor had it they were even planning to serve prime rib at the reception. It was without question the most anticipated social event of the summer. But Ed and Ruth weren’t going. Oh yes, they received an invitation, but they threw it away. You see, that was Ed’s big fishing weekend, when he and a few of his buddies head up north for their annual fishing outing. And Ruth—well, even though she was related, she never did care much for Mrs. Miller–a little too stuffy, too hoity-toity, if you know what I mean. So, they didn’t go. Ed went fishing and Ruth stayed home.
Sounds foolish, doesn’t it? Why would people pass up an opportunity like that? Why would they throw away an invitation to such a grand, wedding banquet? As foolish as it sounds, the truth is it happens all the time. Every day people throw away wedding invitations. They discard the invitation they received to the greatest wedding banquet of all time, the heavenly wedding banquet. Today in the parable we have before us we hear the invitation being extended: “Come to the banquet! Come to the wedding banquet of the Son!” May we not be so foolish and reject this invitation from the king! And may we likewise remember to wear our wedding clothes!
As Jesus tells the story, a certain king prepared a banquet, a wedding banquet for his son. When everything was ready, he sent his servants to summon those who had been invited to come; but the people refused. So the king sent some more servants: “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”(v. 4). But again the people refused. In fact, Jesus tells us that they “paid no attention.” They ignored the servants of the king. They weren’t even interested in listening to what they had to say. Apparently, some were just too busy. “I gotta go to work,” said one.
“Yeah, me too,” said another. “I better go check on my corn.” And off they went—one to his business, another to his field. Talk about an insult! Talk about a slap in the face! Can you imagine the president of your company sending you an invitation, a personal invitation to his son’s wedding and you reply, “Sorry, Boss, I’m gonna be busy that weekend. I gotta mow the lawn” or “Sorry, Boss, that’s my weekend for cleaning the garage.” Do you think you’d still have a job after that?
And if that wasn’t bad enough, some of the people became belligerent. They seized the king’s servants, we are told, and mistreated them and killed them. Can you blame the king for becoming upset? I imagine you might get a little hot under the collar yourself. So the king sent his army and destroyed those people and burned their city.
Naturally, the king in this story represents God the Father, the King of heaven and earth. Like the king in this story, God has prepared a banquet, a wedding banquet for his Son, the most grand and glorious celebration that will ever take place, a banquet that will be held in the wedding hall of heaven, where Christ, the bridegroom, will be wedded to his bride, the Church. Again like the king in this story, God sent out his servants to invite people to the banquet. His servants, of course, are the prophets, prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel, prophets who foretold the coming of the Savior and invited people to the banquet. We could even add John the Baptist, who invited people with his well-known message of repentance, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
And how did the people respond? How did the people of Israel respond to God’s invitation? In far too many cases they responded just like the people in this parable. They rejected the invitation. They paid no attention to God’s messengers. They ignored what the prophets had to say. Many were too busy with other things. They had fields to plant and crops to harvest. They had sheep to tend and cattle to feed. They had pottery to make and houses to build. They couldn’t be bothered with something as frivolous as a wedding invitation. In some cases, they also became belligerent. They not only ignored God’s servants, they mistreated them and killed them. I mean, look at what happened to John the Baptist. Because he preached repentance, because he called attention to King Herod’s sin and told him he needed to repent, the king had John arrested and later beheaded. Or look at how the people responded to God’s ultimate messenger, his own Son, Jesus. Did they listen to him? Did they accept his invitation to come to the banquet? In some cases, yes; but in many cases no. In fact, just three days later, these very same people to whom Jesus was speaking would demand that he be crucified.
Not surprisingly, the King became angry. Yes, the King of heaven is a patient King, a very patient King as we heard about in last week’s sermon. But there comes a point when even God will say, “Enough’s enough.” So he sent his army and destroyed these people and burned their city. One cannot help but think of what happened about 40 years later, when the Roman army invaded the land of Israel, when they put to death hundreds of thousands of Jewish people and burned the city of Jerusalem to the ground. It serves as a sobering reminder: Those who reject God’s gracious invitation are doomed to fall under his condemnation.
So what about you? The people of Israel are not the only ones who were invited to the banquet. That same invitation is being extended today, to people like you and me. We too have heard God’s gracious invitation to come to the banquet, the wedding banquet of his Son. How will we respond? Will we respond like the people in this parable, like so many of the people of Israel? Will we reject the invitation? Will we ignore God’s messengers, because we too have more important things to do? “Ah, don’t bother me with all that talk about God and religion. I’ll worry about that when I get older, maybe after I retire. Right now I’ve got a business to run. I’ve got money to make. And times a wasting.” “Church? I don’t have time for church. Sunday is my only day off, the only day I can sleep in, the only day I can do the things that I want to do. Sunday is my day to go golfing, my day to go fishing, my day to work around the yard. And I’m not about to waste my time by going to church and listening to some stuff-shirt preacher talk about God and how we all need Jesus. If I wanna worship God, I’ll do it right here at home or out in the woods. That’s where I feel close to God.” Yes, the same thing still happens today, doesn’t it? People today, when they hear the message of God’s Word, when they hear God’s message of repentance and forgiveness, when they hear God’s gracious invitation to come to banquet, they reject it. They ignore it. They throw the invitation away—with the same tragic results.
No, they may never have an army come and burn their city or destroy their home. But when they leave this life or when this world of ours comes to an end, they will not be welcomed into the heavenly banquet hall. Instead they will be met at the door by the King, an angry King, a righteous and holy King, a King who knows their every sin, a King who knows how they rejected and despised his gracious invitation. And he will see that they are punished, that they receive the punishment they deserve for their sins and their rejection: eternal death in hell.
Could the warning be more clear? Don’t be like the people in this parable. Don’t reject the invitation of the King. Don’t ignore the message of his servants, because you think you have more time, or because you think you have more important things to do right now. Accept his invitation. Believe his holy Word. Recognize your own sinfulness, how you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Put your trust in God’s gracious promise: his offer of forgiveness, life and salvation in Jesus Christ, his Son. Yes, heed God’s gracious invitation and come. Come to wedding banquet of the Son.
And be sure to wear your wedding clothes as well. As the story continues, we find that the wedding hall is finally full, full of guests. And the king is there greeting the guests and welcoming them to this grand celebration. But as he’s greeting the guests, he notices one man who isn’t wearing wedding clothes. “Friend,” he says, “how in the world did you get in here without wedding clothes?”
Just like today, people back then wore special clothes to a wedding. That was particularly true of royal weddings. No one was going to show up at the royal court in a t-shirt and a pair of dirty, faded overalls. In fact, what the king would often do as an act of kindness is provide wedding clothes for his guests, so no one would have any excuse that they didn’t have anything decent to wear to the wedding. For a person, then, not to wear those wedding clothes and show up at the royal wedding in their dirty, grungy work clothes was an insult. It was a slap in the face. Here he had gone through all the trouble and expense of providing wedding clothes for all the guests. And some person has the nerve to show up without them?
Naturally, the guy is speechless. He knows he has no excuse for being there without wedding clothes.
“Guards,” the king calls out. “Guards, take this man. Bind him hand and foot and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The same is true in the kingdom of heaven. You and I are not allowed to attend the wedding banquet of heaven, dressed in our old, filthy rags; in the clothes of our own sinfulness. We need to wear our wedding clothes, the clothes the King has provided for us. Yes, being the gracious God he is, the King of heaven has provided us with appropriate wedding attire. He has provided us with righteousness. He has made us holy and righteous in Jesus Christ, his Son. That is what took place in our baptism. When you and I were baptized, our heavenly Father washed away our sins and covered us or dressed us in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is Paul’s point in Galatians, ch. 3: “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ”(vv. 26+27). Yes, God has provided us with a robe of righteousness, with pure and perfect wedding clothes. Dare we, then, show up at the feast without them? Dare we try to enter the royal banquet hall of heaven dressed in our own sin-stained clothes?
And yet, that’s exactly what many people today would like to do. They see no need for wedding clothes. They see no need to be covered in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. They think God should accept them just the way they are—dirty sins and all. “Yeah, so what if I’m gay or trans or queer? So what if I’m a drunk or a liar? So what if I was unfaithful to my spouse? God loves everyone. He’ll accept me just the way I am.” Or, “Yeah, I know I’m not perfect. Nobody is. And besides, God loves everyone. Why wouldn’t he let me into heaven?” But such people are badly mistaken. True, God is a loving God, but he is also a holy and just God, a God who cannot and will not tolerate sin; nor will he let the guilty go unpunished. In love for them and for all people, God has provided righteousness, true righteousness through his Son, Jesus Christ. If they think they can reject that righteousness and show up at the wedding banquet in their own righteousness, in their own sin-stained clothes, they will have a rude awakening. Just like the man in this parable, they will be ushered to the door and thrown out into the darkness, “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
So don’t even try it. Don’t even think for a moment that somehow you don’t need the righteousness of Christ in order to get into heaven, that you really aren’t all that bad, that you don’t need to repent of your sins and trust in Christ for forgiveness; because you do. We all do. As the Bible says, we all have sinned. And we all need Jesus and his forgiveness. We all need to be covered in the righteousness of Christ if we hope to attend the wedding banquet of the Son.
Yes, the invitation has been extended. It may not have come in an elegant, ivory-colored envelope, but none the less it has been extended. We heard it again this morning: “Come to the banquet, the wedding banquet of the Son.” Whatever you do, do not reject the King’s gracious invitation. And likewise, be sure to come in proper attire, dressed in the wedding clothes the King himself has provided for you, the righteousness of Christ, your Savior. Amen.