If I asked you which version of this parable you preferred, Matthew’s version or Luke’s, I think it would be a safe wager that Luke would win the popularity contest.   It probably won’t surprise you that, so far, I have successfully dodged preaching on Matthew’s version of this parable for what are, I think, obvious reasons.   I simply have never known what to do with the jarring words and disturbing events which seem like intrusions in what is otherwise a wonderful parable about hospitality.  There are events in the parable which seem hateful and belligerent, and there is something dark and foreboding casting its shadow over the king’s gracious invitation.   These unfortunate events fly in the face of words that have appeared earlier in Matthew’s gospel - words about forgiveness, about loving your enemies, about doing unto others, about not judging,  AND they fly in the face of words that appear later in this same chapter, just a few paragraphs away, where Jesus says that love of God and love of neighbor are the highest goals to which one can aspire and that love is the overarching ethic by which everything in the law or the prophets is to be understood.   Yet here in Matthew’s telling of this parable anger and cruelty seem to undercut the higher message of a gracious invitation to a banquet of joy.

What are we to make of it?  Who is this volatile king?   One minute he lays out a banquet and invites guests to share it with him.  Then when his slaves are killed, he retaliates by sending in troops and burning down the city.  Who is this volatile king who not only lays out a banquet but when the invited guests do not come, he goes out into the street to invite all, bad and good alike, to come share his feast with him?  Then when one individual comes in without the proper attire, he throws a fit and has his servants cast the poor soul into outer darkness.  Who is this volatile king, and what are we to make of him?   It is hard not to see this king as representing God in Matthew’s eyes, for Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God (or the kingdom of heaven, as it is called in Matthew).   Yet something keeps nagging at me.  Surely this king cannot represent the God in whom we trust, the Holy One of Israel, who says that love is the foundation of the greatest commandments of all. 

    So where do we go from here?   I have found it is indeed helpful to remember the historical context of Matthew’s gospel.  Matthew’s focus and his audience are different from those of Luke.  Matthew is most likely a Jewish Christian, speaking most likely to a Jewish audience.   And most importantly, he has witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and wrestles with the meaning of the destruction of this most holy of cities as well as the sacred temple there. He wonders if God may be punishing those Judeans who ‘refused their invitation’ to follow Christ, to sit at table in the kingdom of God.   He also wonders about the Gentiles who have been invited to God’s table.  Will they put on the garment of Christian life?  I think whenever we experience some major catastrophe, it is human nature to ask where God is in it all.   Think of 9/11, hurricane Katrina, the recent economic turmoil, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  When Matthew witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, it is no wonder he asked, as we would, “Where is God?”  What does it mean?”

    As I struggled to understand Matthew’s particular spin on the parable, I decided to take a look again at the Jesus Seminar.   It was over twenty years ago now that this group of 150 scholars and theologians came together to address the question, “What did Jesus say?”  While I realize these scholars make up an ultra-liberal group of theologians, their proceedings have yielded a great deal of provocative material, and while the methods of the Jesus Seminar are controversial, they do combine an intriguing mixture of brilliant scholarship and total trust in the collective view of the group to establish the historicity of Jesus.  

    Determining what Jesus actually said, however, is quite problematic because, first of all, we have nothing that Jesus actually wrote.  Furthermore Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and the only records of his life and his words are in Greek.  And the earliest complete copy of any one of the gospels is separated from Jesus by three centuries. 

    In addition to these limitations, the words of Jesus which we have recorded in the gospels are recorded through numerous layers of tradition.  Imagine, first, Jesus talking about the kingdom of God.  Then imagine the disciples talking about Jesus talking about the kingdom.  Then imagine the community talking about the disciples talking about Jesus talking about the kingdom of God.  Finally, imagine the community talking about itself talking about the disciples talking about Jesus talking about the kingdom of God.  Pealing back the layers is easier said than done. 

    Many scholars agree, however, that “the parables of Jesus are the bedrock of the tradition [and] believe that with the genuine parables one is very close to the authentic voice of Jesus.”   And so the Jesus Seminar focused on the parables, in particular, and tried to determine which parables are authentic and which are not, which are the closest to the true voice of Jesus and which are influenced by other layers of the tradition.  The parable of the wedding banquet is a good case in point because we actually have three versions of it -one in Matthew, one in Luke, and one in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas - and all three have there own take on the message.  Can we peal back the layers and then root out what is the central core of this parable, that is, the authentic voice of Jesus?

    When I looked to see what the Jesus Seminar thought about the parable of the wedding banquet, I was interested that Luke’s record was considered authentic while  Matthew’s version was considered inauthentic, although including some ideas close to Jesus’ own.  It was concluded that Matthew’s version is inauthentic because there appear to be interpretive layers, modifications, and evidence of a social situation that moves the parable beyond what the Seminar has agreed are the marks of the genuine parables.   The overlay caused especially by the destruction of Jerusalem is a case in point and has influenced Matthew’s focus on salvation history.  Imagine how you might retell such a parable in light of some crisis you have experienced? 

    Remembering the historical context of Matthew as well as looking at what other scholars like those in the Jesus Seminar think - all this might help us understand Matthew’s version of this parable a little better, but I have to confess that I still find Luke’s version more palatable.  Luke seems much more in keeping with the heart of Jesus’ teaching - teaching on forgiveness, on love, on justice, on mercy, and on compassion.    Furthermore, Luke seems much closer to the contemporary church where hospitality is all the rage.  When Indianola did its most recent remodeling, the first question we asked was how can we make the building more people-friendly.   Many churches are doing complete remodels to make them more hospitable and accessible to all sorts and conditions of men, women, and children.   I know pastors who have received  doctorate degrees in church hospitality.  Books are being published daily on becoming a welcoming church.  There are conferences and websites devoted to teaching church members how to make their church more welcoming and hospitable.   The open hospitality to all that is clearly the heart of Luke’s gospel seems right on with regard to this major focus of most mainline churches today.   And I think Jesus would most certainly approve, for are these churches not trying to simply do as Jesus would do? 

    The dilemma is that Matthew tells the story differently.  His focus is, after all, on this guy he calls a king, the one who is generous, open, gracious, inviting but at the same time is unpredictable, even inscrutable, a bit passive aggressive.    What is Matthew trying to tell us about this king?  It has been suggested that “not only is the king generous enough [that is, hospitable enough] to throw the party in the first place, sensitive enough to feel a social snub and gracious enough to invite all comers, he is also free to act as he wills, demanding appropriate gratitude for his hospitality.  The reign of this king is free from human constraint and prejudice, but it demands also freedom from human presumption.”  

     We asked the question a few minutes ago whether this king could possibly represent the God in whom we trust, the Holy One of Israel, who says that love is the foundation of the greatest commandments of all.  While the parable probably, however, should not be interpreted as a strict allegory, it seems pretty obvious that Matthew intends to understand the king as God.   In his own disturbing way Matthew seems to be making the point that God’s grace is freely given, but that does not mean “that grace is ‘bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort,’ as Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed.  The grace of God remains costly . . . [And furthermore] the kingdom of God is not infinitely malleable . . . [something] that can be bent and shaped into whatever we want it to become . . . In other words, [for Matthew] the subject of the story is not us.”  

    Matthew’s focus is upon God whom he finds difficult to understand or explain.  For Matthew the parable is all about God who is beyond our comprehension, who defies our words or imagination, who is gracious but demanding, who has laid a banquet for us, longs for us to sit down at the table, who is hurt when we turn away, who is angered when we are unloving.  Nonetheless there is at its core the germ of what probably was the heart of the authentic parable - that is, the invitation to good and bad alike.  William Barclay was a Scottish professor and minister who wrote the 17 volume Daily Study Bible of which we have many copies in our library.  While his scholarship is dated, he still maintains an appeal for his ability to dig underneath weighty exegesis and really get at the heart of the matter.  And for us what he has to say may be the most helpful of all.  I think he is right when he says that “those who were gathered in from the highways and byways had no claim on the king; they could never . . . have expected an invitation to the wedding feast . . . It came to them from nothing other than the wide-armed, open-hearted, generous hospitality of the king.”  God IS gracious.  And I think he is right when he says that “the invitation of God is to a feast as joyous as a wedding feast.  It is to joy that the Christian is invited; it is joy he [or she] misses when the invitation is refused.”   If we strip away the layers, we find the heart of Jesus’ message - that God has a heart of love for all God’s people. And God’s people are called to have a heart of love for God and each other.   And when this does not happen, then our troubles begin.

    The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  When the wedding was ready, he sent his slaves into the streets to invite good and bad alike to share the joyous feast that he has prepared.