worship this Sunday…

We are often told to interpret every story and passage in the Bible according to the rule that the one in the story with all the power is always God. For instance, in the case of our passage this week, the king in our story wielding strength and commands should be viewed as God.

But there is an important question here which is…does this king really fit with Jesus and who he was? Can we picture Jesus acting like the king in our story? If not, then what does that mean about our initial assumption? And so, what if in this passage, we don’t interpret it that way at all, but instead begin with the idea that the king is someone very different than God? I wonder how differently we would hear our story then. We might instead get a parable that is not about expectation or demands of power, but is instead richly about grace and a table set for all. 

See you on Sunday as we think through this story and who God is!
-Brent

Matthew 22: 1-14

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent others, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, maltreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8Then he said to his servants, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” They went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.’