Out the window at the wedding feast

Yesterday we had the parable of the Wedding feast (Matt 22) and the story touched me greatly in the parallels and instructions contained within it.

First the Father invites the guests to His Son's wedding feast - but they don't come.

Then He send out messengers and they are abused and killed.

So, He invites the rest of the people 'Good and bad' to the feast.

Then, arriving at the feast, seeing someone incorrectly dressed, the King has the man bound and thrown out the window into the darkness where there is a weeping and wailing and a gnashing of teeth!

Now the parallels between the Jews and the Gentiles, the former being invited first and failing to arrive and the later being invited as substitutes, is obvious and much like the vineyard owner story last week, must have caused som angst amongst the religious at the time.

BUT

1. EVERYONE is invited to the banquet. This is because Jesus died for EVERYONE!

2. The person who turns up and is improperly dressed is ejected from the party into the outer darkness.

Now point the first seems to say that we need to adopt universalist thinking, because ALL are invited. But the second says that unless we turn up properly dressed, wearing the garments of righteousness, then we are not going to get in! It seems to me that this passage tells us that we need to respond (getting clothed properly is a response, isn't it?) in the right way to live within the salvation that was won on the cross (the invitation is the Cross isn't it?).

So, my previous thinking which was:

Jesus dies for ALL and ALL are therefore given access to heaven - we just need to walk up to Him, look Him in the eyes and take our ticket from Him seems to have yet another confirmation in the Matt 22 parable.

So here's today's big question:

Are we sowing seeds of righteousness today, seeking to clothe ourselves with righteousness or are we going to live our own way trusting in a God who, father Christmas-like, will just open the doors to all?

Mmmmmm!

Happy Monday

“The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come!
4 “So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ 5 But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them.
7 “The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. 8 And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honour. 9 Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ 10 So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests.
11 “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. 13 Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”