Familiarity with this parable ruins the violence and bizarre behavior found within it. These are the worst people who do not want to go to a party, and this king is unhinged and over-the-top in his responses. Yet, somehow, it works to show both the grace of God — he wants us at his big party and keep inviting us even though we are completely unworthy, and also his expectation of holiness from us — once we are there at the party we need to recognize there are standards. Oh, and hell. There is hell.
Now, without delay, here is my translation from the Greek New Testament of the parable from Matthew 22:1-14 and then behind that I have some thoughts.
Translation and Notes
1. Jesus again told them a parable.
There are actually three different words in this that mean Jesus talked – in fact, the entire sentence reads like this: ‘And Jesus answered again he said in a parable to them saying’. The translator must decide if the redundancy is part of the message or is it idiomatic. I take it to me an idiomatic structure and therefore boiled it down to just one verb.
2. The kingdom of heaven is like a man, who was a king, that held a wedding banquet for his son.
Our problem in translating this, or even understanding the cultural significance, is that the wedding banquet is at the same time not the same thing as the wedding but it is absolutely the same thing as the wedding.
3. He sent his servants to gather the invited guests for the banquet, but they did not want to come.
This sounds clunky, but the practice was to invite people without really telling them what day or time until it was all ready. Again, culturally this makes sense. ‘Come to my party, I’ll tell you when its all ready!’
4. He again sent other servants, instructing them to say to the invited guests, ‘Behold, my meal is ready, the bulls and the fatlings have been butchered; everything is set. Come to the banquet.’
5. But they did not care. Most went off to their own field or workplace.
‘Did not care’ is a participle, ‘having not cared’ but could also be ‘paid no attention’. ‘They paid no attention to the party and went about their own business.’
6. But the rest of them seized his servants. They attacked and killed them.
7. The king now became furious. He sent his army which destroyed those murders then burned their city.
There were two groups and two different responses. Those who were apathetic and those who responded with violence. It seems to me in my reading, only those who responded with violence received violence. The apathetic were not sought out and murdered and did not have their city burned. However, if they all lived in the same city . . .
8. Then he says to his servants, the banquet is ready, but the people I invited were not worthy.
I have elaborated this verse a little, as the ending of it is ‘the invitees were not worthy’ but that doesn’t ring true to modern vernacular in my ear, so I turned the noun into a verb.
9. Therefore you must go to the main street and invite as many to the banquet as you can find.
‘Main street’ is my rendering of ‘the road that leads out’. The idea is the major artery out of the city that people would be taking coming and going rather than the side streets and alleys of individual neighborhoods. To really get the vibe in a modern way, you’d need to say, ‘go down to the expressway and round up folks.’
10. The servants went out into the roads and they assembled together everyone they found, both evil and good. The banquet was filled with dinner guests.
Two notes here. First, ‘assembled together’ is a verbal form of the noun ‘synagogue’. Second, many translations use the word ‘hall’, the banquet hall– but I am not convinced that is required. It is just as likely this event is intended to be seen as outdoors. As most of these parables have vineyards as backdrops and themes, I see this banquet happening in a beautiful vineyard.
11. Now the king went to look at the dinner guests and he saw a man not wearing proper attire.
My first go at this had the man not wearing a ‘celebration suit’, and I tossed that out for obvious reasons, but I stand by the fact the language in the New Testament actually means ‘celebration suit’. And by the way, everyone should have a celebration suit!
12. He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it you have come here and did not wear proper clothes?’ He didn’t say a word.
Literally, ‘the man was silent.’
13. Then the king said to his servants, ‘Have his feet and hands shackled then throw him outside in the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
It is at this point you realize the servants are very busy people indeed – they are responsible for invitation, crowd control, cooking, serving, and also bouncers. Weeping and gnashing of teeth is a symbol for hell.
14. For many are invited, but few are welcomed.
The actual words are theologically loaded – many are called but few are chosen. Chosen could be elected or selected. I like my rendering precisely because it tones down very loaded words used differently in different places. It could be also be translated, I suppose as, ‘Many are asked to come, but only a few get to stay.’
Brief Commentary
There are so many thing one could say about this amazing, absurd, strange parable but I will attempt to be brief.
First, it is absurd because the set up is something that could never happen. When king’s throw banquets, everyone comes. When kings burn down cities, no one is left to be found afterward. Food doesn’t wait until after armies march and attack. It’s all ridiculous. Again, though, I insist to you, the absurdity is part of Jesus’ brilliance. As soon as the hearer figures out what he is talking about, it makes perfect sense and the human reaction to the kingdom of God is revealed for what it is: absurd. We refuse a party in preference for weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Second, we get two parables for the price of one. The first part of the parable leads to the second, but the story of the original invitees is markedly different from the story of the man improperly dressed. Yet, the point is the same, and here is the point, the king will deal with people who treat the kingdom lightly. The first story is about those who show apathy and violent rejection toward the kingdom. The second is about those who do not treat the invitation with the respect and dignity it deserves.
I do think we should see the first story as analogous to the Jewish response to the work of Messiah and the ministry of the prophets. They reject Jesus, the bridegroom and his banquet and respond with violence toward the servants, which may or may not be both the prophets of old and also the early believers who were persecuted. The result is that Jerusalem would be burned to the ground. This vacancy of people in the kingdom then leads to a rounding up of new guests. It strikes me this is likely allegorical to the age of the church in which those who formerly had no place at the table – Gentiles, women, slaves and other outcasts now were invited in to celebrate the kingdom’s consummation. It is in this way the parable is said by many commentators to be a great sweeping description of the scope of salvation history covering allegorically in a few lines almost the entire experience of humans and God.
Yet, in that environment, the improperly dressed person is singled out. What can that mean?
That takes us to a third intriguing idea. Is our Lord really talking about wearing the right kind of clothes? I am pretty sure that is a hard ‘No.’ In the New Testament, clothing is symbolic of righteousness. We are told to put on Christ by the Apostle Paul (Romans 13:14) and the idea of clothing as righteousness is also present in Revelation 6:11 where white robes are given. That leads us to a special part of the story Jesus told, for it is likely understood that the king, being the benefactor, would have provided wedding clothing for all the people in attendance. That the man is not properly clothed is not because he didn’t have the clothes, he refused to put on the king’s designated attire. Remove it from the allegory and the teaching becomes that even in the church, where grace and mercy abound, those who systematically reject and rebel and show disrespect for the ways of Christ and flaunt unrighteousness will be removed and there will be no place in the banquet. It is a stern warning for those of us who call upon the name of the Lord. Put on Christ — he is the clothing.
But no, as much as I would like for it to be a prohibition on cargo shorts in worship services, that is not what Jesus is talking about.
However, I do have a thought. At least one. As we read this parable, we begin to understand a little of why our parents and grandparents insisted we wear nice clothes to church. Remember? They likely read and studied passages like this one a little more literally than Jesus intended and were concerned the Son of God would expel them from the church because their trousers were unironed or their collar as open. Or, maybe, just maybe, coming from a more formal age than ours, a time when propriety and decorum were normal – compare that expectation with any trip to Wal-Mart on a Tuesday morning to see the shocking difference – maybe our forefathers and mothers understood something about this parable we miss or rush by too quickly. There is something in this parable about respect and care and dignity in the kingdom of God. There is right way and wrong way.
Fourth, and I will wrap this up soon, the parable here is incredibly violent. There are parallels to this story, and the closest is in Luke 14:15-24. The set up is very much the same but now it is a rich man and he is having an extravagant party. People beg off and make excuses such as I just bought a field, or I have a new team of oxen to take care of, or I just got married and obviously have no time for you. His servants are told to go out and compel people and bring them in. The theme is similar and the desire of God is clearly made evident: He wants people to be in the kingdom of God.
The key difference, though, is a lack of violence. Matthew’s parable of the wedding guests has troubling violence. Out of nowhere, it seems apathy toward the invitation turns to murder (v. 6) and this is what infuriates the king. He matches that violence by then burning down the entire city and killing the people who had committed the crime. One can imagine many innocent people being harmed, displaced, and killed in such a maneuver. But there is more violence as later the poorly dressed person is not just asked to leave, but he is seized, shackled, and sent out into darkness with weeping and gnashing. Weeping and gnashing seems to be a favorite phrase of Matthew – 8:12, 13:42, 13:50, 24:51, and 25:30. The wedding feast is one of great violence with a high body count, which now brings a high dose of irony. It is a bloody wedding, indeed.