Scripture: Matthew 22:1-14
Many of us are old enough to remember that royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, 44 years ago this Tuesday, which was watched by millions around the world. I was eleven. I remember my mom and my sisters watching it. I remember everyone talking about it. That wedding was the biggest deal imaginable. To say the least, if you got an invitation to that wedding—or even more recently, to William and Kate’s, or Harry and Meghan’s—you would likely move heaven and earth to be there… to show up… All of us would!
So when this king in today’s parable has a wedding for his son, it was the exact same kind of big deal. And to turn down the invitation would be unthinkable!
Yet that’s what so many people do…
Let’s look at verses 2 and 3:
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.
He invited them a second time. They would not come. What was their excuse? Verse 5: “But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business…”
Jesus tells a different version of the same parable in Luke, where the excuses are more detailed: “The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’”
In Luke’s version, they’re at least polite in turning the king’s invitation down! But polite or not the end result is the same: they are excluded from the king’s great banquet.
Now before we rush to judgment, can’t we all relate to these “polite” people who turn the king down. For instance, Lisa and I received a “Save the Date” card in the mail from a dear friend not long ago. And well… the wedding was on a Saturday afternoon—out of town—in the fall—on a college football Saturday… Do I have to say more?
But I was still going to go, I promise. The truth is, however, selfishly speaking, I wasn’t entirely disappointed that the wedding ended up being canceled. Long story… But I’ll be honest: it felt a little bit like a relief. Because we know from experience: it’s great to have an excuse to avoid doing something we don’t want to do! “Oh, I’d love to go, but…”
And these originally invited subjects of the king had their excuses…
But here’s what I need us to consider: At one time, each of these people originally invited to the wedding feast said that they were going to go… They said that they wanted to be there… They said that they intended to be there… This was not a surprise invitation from the king, or a last-minute invitation.
See, there were two parts to a wedding invitation in the ancient world, just as there are often two parts in today’s world. You know, you get a “save the date” card in the mail. And then, later, there is a more detailed invitation—time, place, chicken or fish, R.S.V.P. card, whatever.
But in the ancient world, these original invitees would already have told their king that they planned on being there. That was Part One of the invitation. What Jesus describes in this parable is Part Two—when the king says, “It’s time to come. Everything is ready.”
So each of the people originally invited already said they were coming. And make no mistake… at that time, for all we know, they may have been completely sincere!
It’s like how Lisa and I handle leftovers. We often have leftovers. Because the food is wonderful, and we don’t want to waste it. It’s worth having again. So we put it in a ziplock bag. Or a Tupperware container. Which means rummaging through the cabinet for several minutes trying to find the matching lid for the Tupperware container… which is, of course, the hardest part! But we do it! We do it because we have every intention of eating these leftovers!
Until about three weeks later, when we find the food in the back of the fridge, and we remember… “Oh, yeah… Those leftovers… If we just eat around the green mold, this will still be delicious!”
No, I’m kidding. We toss them. But it’s like we have to quarantine leftovers in the fridge for a couple of weeks before throwing them in the trash. We can’t directly throw them away. It’s crazy, I know. We never learn!
But my point is, we have the best of intentions!
And when these originally invited guests said “yes” to “Part One” of the invitation, they, too, likely had the best of intentions! “All things being equal, if we have nothing better to do, sure… we’ll show up.”
And here, brothers and sisters, is a warning for all of us…
Now… What I’m about to say can apply to any church anywhere. It does apply to any church anywhere. But I’m going to talk about something I have experienced at Toccoa First. And it breaks my heart. And I’m sure it will break my heart at the next church, too… A few years ago, our previous youth pastor, Josh, led several of our youth through a months-long confirmation class. He did a great job! Very conscientious about. And he invited me to participate in a weekend retreat that he had at the Yonah Dam. And my main concern for the entire confirmation class—a concern which Josh also gladly shared—a concern which Pastor April also gladly shared—we were all on the same page. But the concern was this: that we do everything we can—within our power, understanding that only the Lord can ultimately change hearts and lives—but that we do everything within our power to ensure that these 12-, 13-, 14-year-old young people would commit to following Jesus as his disciples for the rest of their lives… By God’s grace, that they would make a deliberate decision to be Christians.
And I’m thinking in this case of children whose parents were not previously connected to the church, but for many months they brought their precious children to confirmation class. For many months these families came to worship.
And at that weekend retreat, I told all the kids what confirmation meant: that they were going to be promising the Lord, promising their families, promising their church family, and promising the world that they are going to live the rest of their lives as dedicated followers of Jesus. And all of these young people said, “Yes, we are going to do these things.”
And we gave their parents the same message: that choosing to be disciple of Jesus is the most consequential decision one makes in life! Heaven and hell literally hangs in the balance of this decision. And we only have this life to make that decision. When we die, it’s too late. And these parents, and these children, all said that they understood.
And even the following Sunday, confirmation Sunday, I preached a message aimed squarely at these youth and their families. I preached a message of great encouragement, I hope, but also with—yes—a sober warning: Confirmation is just the beginning. This is not a one-time decision. This isn’t a rite of passage like a driver’s license or a high school graduation. This is everything. This is the rest of your lives. Because Jesus is your life! And I said that I wished our Methodist confirmation liturgy were as direct and to the point as the confirmation liturgy, for instance, of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. That denomination asks its confirmands the following question:
“Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?”
And the correct is, “Yes, I will.”
Regardless, some of these young people and their families—some of them hung on for a couple of months. But they’re gone. As best I can tell, at least some of them haven’t been back to our church or any church.
When Judgment Day comes, are they counting on the fact that their names are on a dusty church roll somewhere. Who cares? The Lord doesn’t. He’s not impressed. How confident can they be that they will be saved?
And maybe you say, “Pastor Brent, church attendance doesn’t save anyone.” That’s true. But if you’re an able-bodied person who is, at this moment, disobeying the Lord by never showing up to worship the God who created you and redeemed you, alongside your brothers and sisters—as God’s Word commands you to do… If you’re never showing up to receive the grace of the sacrament of Holy Communion… If you’re never showing up to hear God’s Word proclaimed and taught… If you’re never showing up to glorify God through worship, which after all is the reason you were put on this earth in the first place…
If you’re never showing up because you don’t like the pastor… well, you’re not even going to have that excuse much longer…
But if you’re not showing up now, it’s unlikely you’re going to be prepared for that great wedding feast of Jesus Christ and his Bride, the church, which takes place on the other side of the Second Coming and resurrection, which Isaiah and the prophets, the Book of Revelation, and this parable all point to.
You’re voting with your feet right now. You’re saying, “Lord, I have other priorities.”
I had a Georgia Tech professor, 35 years ago… I assume he’s gone on to meet the Lord, for better or worse… This professor told the class, only half-jokingly, “I’m not so sure about Christianity, but my name is on the roll at First Baptist Atlanta… just in case.”
Who’s he fooling? Not God…
My point is… in spite of our best efforts with these confirmands… we might have gotten… and I use this word quite literally… but in spirt of our best efforts, we may have gotten—only God knows—but we may have gotten the same “damned” results with a few of these young people and their families. That’s not a curse word in this case.
How is that possible?
Maybe the parents weren’t telling me and Josh the truth. Maybe these young people weren’t telling us the truth. But gosh… maybe they were. I happen to think they were. I think the parents and children were sincere at the time. They had every intention…
Intentions don’t ultimately matter.
See, in so many words, these young people and their parents were R.S.V.P.’ing for that future wedding banquet that today’s parable points to. And they were saying, “I’m going to be there.” “I am completely sincere.” “I have every intention to be there.”
And of course, maybe they still will be there… But what I’m about to say is true for all of us Christians: being accepted by God, in final judgment—rather than being rejected—is never about merely getting started… however important and necessary that is. It’s much more about finishing.
If not, how else do we interpret Paul’s words—about himself—in 1 Corinthians 9:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Let’s just focus on those last words: “lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” Could Paul, of all people—who, as far as I can tell, suffered more than anyone for the sake of his faith in Christ… could he still at the very end of his life be disqualified?
Seems incomprehensible for a man who, up to that point, had done so much, sacrificed so much, suffered so much… for Christ!
Yet Paul still understood the danger… of backsliding.
Paul was not presumptuous about this gift of eternal life. He was not presuming upon God’s grace. He wasn’t, in other words, taking for granted his salvation… as if it to say, “It’ll be there when I need it, regardless how I live the rest of my life… I have this record in my past that I can point to and be proud of, so I am A-OK!”
Also… let us not dare presume that we’ll have more time to “get our lives right” with God. “Like, yeah it’s true that I’m not exactly following Jesus right now… I don’t really know where I stand with God at the moment… Things are a bit hazy… I know I’ve gotten off track… But I’ll get it all figured out some day… after I’m out of school… after I get married… after I have kids… after the kids are out of the house… after I retire…”
But listen! There may not be an “after” for any of us.
All we know for sure is that we have this moment… that God is giving us… to get our lives right with him!
James says so in James 4:13-16:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
Or you may recall last week’s parable of the Rich Fool: “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” 1
So my urgent question is, Are we presuming on a future that we don’t know that we have?
All of us church people, after all—when we are baptized, when we make a profession of faith, when we walk down an aisle and pray a sinner’s prayer, when we get confirmed—all of us church people, at one time or another, say to God, “This is my R.S.V.P., Lord. When that wedding feast is ready, I plan on being there, dressed and ready to go.”
And here’s the potentially scary part: We will either “show up” or we will have good excuses for not “showing up,” in part, based on how we live our lives now! Our lives, much more than our words, will make the excuse for us! When we die,we have no further meaningful “words” left to say to Christ our King—no further promises to make… At that point, it’s too late. Why? Because the life we’ve lived—a life of thinking, speaking, and doing—has already said everything necessary to God about the sincerity and the reality of our faith.
Jesus makes this point elsewhere, over and over, for example, when he talks about how we need to “abide in the vine”: “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned”2… or when he talks about how good trees will inevitably bear good fruit; otherwise “every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire”3… or when he says, “On that day”—i.e., what this parable refers to as “wedding day”—“On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”4
Or remember the parable of the sower? Jesus warns that merely getting started—even getting off to a great start—isn’t enough: The sower threw seed on four kinds of soil: on a hard walking path, on rocky ground, on thorny ground, and on incredibly fertile ground. The seeds thrown on the second and third of those soils, please notice… they sprout… they get started… before dying off or failing to produce fruit.5 In either case, the seed becomes worthless. Even though at one time it sprouted and started to grow.
Now let me try to answer the most intriguing question the parable raises… by turning our attention to this man at the banquet who’s not wearing a proper wedding garment. So the king says, “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” These words, of course, are a recurring poetic description of hell, imagery that Jesus uses elsewhere.
But Jesus makes clear that if we’re not wearing a “wedding garment”—whatever that means—we will not enjoy this heavenly banquet. We will be separated from God for eternity.
So we better make sure we’re “wearing it,” right? Whatever it is!
Let’s figure out what it is: I think, alongside many preachers and commentators, that the king provided the proper garment to all of his guests. We see this portrayed in at least two other places in scripture: Genesis 45:22 and Esther 6:8-9. But even more, notice that the king’s servants usher in all these people from off the streets. And the meal was ready right now. No time to delay… No time to get your act together… Even if these people owned or could afford the proper wedding attire—and keep in mind that most of these people were poor—they still wouldn’t have had time to purchase what they needed or even to go home and change.
If they were going to be properly dressed—such that this king would know just by looking at one person in the crowd, whether or not that one person was properly dressed—then it stands to reason that the king supplied everything these newly invited guests needed in order to enjoy the banquet.
Therefore it’s shocking that even one of the invited guests failed to meet this bare minimum requirement! What lack of respect must he have had for this king to not even bother to put on a suit—a suit fit for royalty—which he didn’t even have to purchase but was given as a free gift?
How does this insolent behavior honor the king who invited him and paid his way?
And it’s not like he’s asking the man to attend a funeral, after all… He’s asking him to attend the biggest party imaginable. Even an ordinary wedding reception in a small village in the ancient Near East was an event that no one wanted to miss: it was fun; it was a celebration; it brought great joy. Imagine being invited to a king’s wedding reception!
And so… this parable forces us to ask, what about us? God is offering us eternal life with him. And he’s paid an infinite price for this gift that he’s offering us—the death of his Son Jesus on the cross—and he’s telling us, “Claim this life, enjoy this life eternally, enjoy it more than you can enjoy any pleasure that this world has to offer, celebrate this life with me forever.
“It’s yours. It’s available now. It’s free. Just receive it…”
How do we receive it? Through faith.
So, like Martin Luther and others throughout church history, I believe that this “proper attire” is nothing other than faith. Not mere intellectual belief… that lives in our heads, like a set of facts… Like you sign off on something… You check some boxes… “Yep, yep… I believe that.”
But saving faith. And the faith that saves us, the apostle James makes clear, is faith that will necessarily produce good works. You can’t have one without the other, James says. And Paul makes the same point: Galatians 5:6: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” Or Ephesians 2:8 though 10: “For by grace you have been saved through faith,” he begins. And then verse 10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
So this kind of faith, which changes us within and produces good works, is what Jesus is getting at when he talks about the proper “wedding garment.”
We are saved by faith alone… but not by a faith that remains alone.
You probably heard that Hulk Hogan—that very colorful and outspoken professional wrestler—who I know as that giant man who gave Rocky a run for his money in Rocky III… at least until the gloves came off! Anyway, Hulk died last week. He is in heaven right now not because of anything he did… but because of what our Lord Jesus Christ did for him. Christ lived a life of perfect obedience that Hulk was unable to live. Christ died a god-forsaken death that Hulk deserved to die. And Christ suffered the hell that Hulk would otherwise have had to suffer.
It’s only because of what Christ did that Hulk Hogan is in heaven. Period. And praise God that Christ did everything necessary. If he were here, Hulk Hogan would be the first one to tell you that. “It’s all because of Jesus I’m alive…” As we often sing.
In December 2023, Hulk Hogan received this gift of eternal life through faith. And I’ve been heartened and encouraged by seeing photos making the rounds on social media of Hulk being baptized back then… marking that occasion.
But that’s not all he received: he also received the Holy Spirit, who gave him new birth… who gave him the desire and the ability to change the way he lived. Who produced within him and through him good works—works that include being in a living relationship with God through Christ—treasuring Christ above all—works that include living his life for Christ, conquering sin in his life, and bearing witness to the inward reality of his faith in outward and visible ways.
Our Lord may be inviting you to the wedding feast this morning. Because you haven’t yet accepted that invitation. He’s inviting you because he loves you… so much, in fact, that he paid an infinite price to give you this invitation—because he paid for it with his own precious blood.
Will you please receive it? And come…