Sunday Meditation: The Parable of the Royal Wedding Feast

Jesus continues His parables this week again from the Gospel of Matthew.  This time the central metaphor is not a vineyard but to a wedding feast, and not just an ordinary wedding feast but for a royal wedding feast of the King’s son.  That should tip us off as to the significance of the symbolism, but there are some really wacky twists in this parable. 

 

Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying,

"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king

who gave a wedding feast for his son.

He dispatched his servants

to summon the invited guests to the feast,

but they refused to come.

A second time he sent other servants, saying,

'Tell those invited: "Behold, I have prepared my banquet,

my calves and fattened cattle are killed,

and everything is ready; come to the feast."'

Some ignored the invitation and went away,

one to his farm, another to his business.

The rest laid hold of his servants,

mistreated them, and killed them.

The king was enraged and sent his troops,

destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

Then he said to his servants, 'The feast is ready,

but those who were invited were not worthy to come.

Go out, therefore, into the main roads

and invite to the feast whomever you find.'

The servants went out into the streets

and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,

and the hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came in to meet the guests,

he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.

The king said to him, 'My friend, how is it

that you came in here without a wedding garment?'

But he was reduced to silence.

Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind his hands and feet,

and cast him into the darkness outside,

where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.'

Many are invited, but few are chosen."

~Mt 22:1-14

I have to confess, I really burst out laughing at the ending.  Poor man off the street is invited to a wedding reception and, though he shows up under dressed, the King, after calling him his friend, has him bound hands and feet and tossed outside for not being properly dressed.  Next time you go to a wedding, make sure you dress well.  You wouldn’t want to be beaten up for it…lol. 

No one explains parables better than Dr. Brant Pitre.  He explained last week’s and I have to call on him again this week.  His explanation for this one comes in two video clips.

 

 

The man lacks righteousness, which I take to be the corporal works of mercy, which would tie it to the Parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew’s Chapter 25 and which will be read shortly in a future Mass.  But why is the man without the wedding garment speechless?  Dr. Pitre doesn’t say.  Perhaps he has no excuse and doesn’t bother to argue. 

Meditation: “Many are invited, but few are chosen."