This is a paper I wrote for my New Testament class last semester. I'm interested in comments, critiques, and questions.
The Parable of the
Wedding Feast
Matthew 22:1-13(NIV)
1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The
kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his
son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been
invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who
have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle
have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field,
another to his business. 6 The rest seized his
servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The
king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned
their city.
8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is
ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go
to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So
the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could
find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a
man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 ‘Friend,’
he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was
speechless.
13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot,
and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.’
“This is a giant mess of a parable…”
-Shane Hipps, Teaching Minister at Mars
Hill Bible Church
[i]
In
the twenty second chapter of Matthew’s account of the life and ministry of
Jesus we find what could very easily be described as one of the most disturbing
and perplexing teachings Jesus ever told. In it we see the story of a king who invites a
large crowd to the wedding banquet of his son, and upon the rejection of his
invitation the king responds with gruesome violence by killing the invited
guests and burning down their city. Then the king invites anyone and everyone
from off the streets and has his servants bring them into the banquet hall. Upon
their arrival the king notices that one of the guests is not properly dressed
for an occasion of this magnitude. He orders his servants to bind the man’s
hands and feet and throw him outside into the darkness where there will be
“weeping and gnashing of teeth”.
[ii]
But What’s most disturbing about this story is that, according to the classical
interpretation, apparently this violent and vengeful king is meant to be
understood as representing God
and this
story is meant to reveal to its audience some truth about what the “Kingdom of
Heaven” is like.
Which raises some
important questions like what truth should be learned from this understanding
of this story? Or maybe the better questions would
be: Has this story been misunderstood? Is it possible that there is a different
way of reading it? A better way? And if so what is this story really about?
Parables and the Kingdom
Before we can
understand this particular story we have to recognize what kind of story Jesus
is telling. Jesus is teaching in a particular story-telling style called a
‘parable’. Harris describes a parable as “a short story in which something
spiritual is compared to something familiar to the audience”.
[iii]
Many times when you hear the purpose of
a parable described the assumption is that the story-teller is trying to make
something spiritual easier to understand. The problem with this assumption;
however, is that many times when Jesus tells a parable this doesn’t seem to be
the case.
In fact many times
when Jesus tells a parable, His audience seems to be more confused by what He
is trying to say. It seems like after hearing a parable from Jesus you would
walk away with more questions than answers. His teachings are so perplexing
that occasionally He has to explain things to His disciples and at one point
when He stops teaching in parables the disciples exclaim, “
Now you are speaking clearly
and without figures of speech.”[iv]
So it appears that Jesus has
no intentions of making things easier to understand. He never breaks His
teachings down into six easy steps and a practical application. Instead it
would seem that Jesus is trying to get His audience to struggle with what He is
saying. He is trying to get them to go deeper than just the surface level. He
is trying to engage His audience and challenge them to think, to question, and
to respond.
Another characteristic of
Jesus’ parables is that they deal with the “Kingdom of God” or as the author of
Matthew puts it “Kingdom of Heaven”. In fact, Jesus devotes more of His teaching time to the “Kingdom”
than any other subject and He even says of Himself that “proclaiming the Kingdom”
is the reason He was sent.[v] Yet He almost never speaks clearly about this kingdom, but
instead hides truths about it in parables so that those who “have ears to hear”
can hear and understand what He is saying.
There is only one occasion where Jesus really
speaks clearly about the Kingdom. One of the Pharisees asks Jesus when the
kingdom of God would come and Jesus’ response shows that the Pharisee has
assumed too much. Jesus responds, “The kingdom of God does not come with your
careful observation, 21nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’
because the kingdom of God is within you.”[vi]
Jesus, who knows the hearts of
all men[vii], knows that the Pharisees are
expecting the Messiah to come and lead a physical, violent revolt against the
Roman Empire and establish a new Empire or Kingdom of God. They are looking for
physical signs of the Kingdom to take place and the revolution to begin, but
the revolution that Jesus is talking about is an entirely different kind of
revolution, and when He talks about it He speaks in the present, not future tense.
Jesus says you are not going to see it coming no matter how hard you look for
it because the Kingdom of God isn’t out there somewhere and it isn’t coming
sometime in the future it is inside of you right now.
Finally, when understanding
the Kingdom of God it is important to realize that the kingdom language Jesus
used would have a much different effect on its original audience than it does
on us today. Brian McLaren writes,
“As
we’ve seen when Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, his language was charged with
urgent political, religious, and cultural electricity. But today, if we speak
of the kingdom of God, the original electricity is largely gone, and in its
place we too often find a kind of tired familiarity that inspires not hope and
excitement but rather anxiety or boredom.
Why
is kingdom language not as dynamic today? First, because in our world, kingdoms
are a thing of the past. They’ve given ways to republics and democratic
republics. Now authority resides in constitutions, parliaments, and congresses. Where kings exist, they are by and
large anachronisms, playing a limited ceremonial role in relation to
parliaments and prime ministers, evoking nothing of the power and authority
they did in Jesus’ day. When people hear the “kingdom of God,” we don’t want
them to think “the anachronistic, limited, ceremonial, and symbolic but
practically ineffectual rule of God”! If there is any electric charge to the
language of the kingdom today, it is the faint current of the quaint and
nostalgic, conjuring knights in shining armor, round tables and chivalry,
damsels in distress, fire-breathing dragons, and Shakespearean thees and thous that doth go running hitherest
and witherest. In Jesus’ day, kingdom
language was contemporary and relevant; today, it is outdated and distant.
In
addition, for many people today, kingdom language evokes patriarchy,
chauvinism, imperialism, domination, and a regime without freedom. Not a pretty
picture- and the very opposite of the liberating, barrier-breaking,
domination-shattering, reconciling movement the Kingdom of God was intended to
be! So for these and other reasons, if Jesus were here today, I am quite
certain he wouldn’t use the language of kingdom at all… which leaves us
wondering how he would in fact articulate his message today.”
[viii]
The Wedding Feast
So now that we
have some context in which to understand parables and the Kingdom we can look
further into the specific teaching that Jesus gives in the twenty-second
chapter of Matthew. While Jesus is teaching in the temple courts in the city of
Jerusalem the chief priests and elders of the people come up to Him and start
questioning His authority. Jesus responds with a tough question of His own, one
that the chief priests and elders do not answer. So Jesus tells them that until
they are willing to answer His question He will not answer theirs.
Then Jesus tells
three stories to the religious elite, all of which are in the form of parables.
After telling the first two, which we now know as the Parable of the Two Sons
and the Parable of the Tenants, the religious elite realize that Jesus is using
these parables as a way of condemning them and their ancestors. They try to
find a way to have him arrested but they were too afraid because Jesus was
popular with the people. Then he tells them a third parable, the Parable of the
Wedding Feast.
This parable, with
all its violence and odd details, has proven to be one of the most disturbing
teachings of Jesus and because of that it seems that much has been assumed
about it. Shane Hipps observes, “The way
that this is classically understood is that the ‘king’ is God, that the
servants who went to invite the guests are the prophets and Jesus, the first
set of guests are the Jews, and the banquet is heaven…
God sends Jesus and the prophets to the
Jews; the Jews reject, and apparently kill the servants and then the king
decides to go out and invite anyone off the streets, as many people as he can
find from the streets, which many interpret to be the gentiles, the rest of the
people who aren’t Jews.”
[ix]
Most scholars
rightly point out that this parable seems to be a continuation of the theme
that Jesus is carrying through the two parables directly before this one.
Carter points out, “In the third of three parables (21:28-22:14), Jesus
continues to announce God’s punishment of the religious elite and their
rejecting city (22:1-14).”
[x]
And Byrne follows suit saying, “Jesus presumably told the parable as a comment
on the lack of response he was getting from the religious establishment (those
first invited), contrasted with the positive response from those on the
margins. With these he was already celebrating the joy of the Kingdom
(9:10-17).”
[xi]
Smith says, “It is
fairly obvious that it must have been addressed to the professedly religious
who were failing to respond to the call to repentance, the final summons to the
heavenly banquet, and that the men from off the streets have their counterpart
in the tax-collectors and sinners. But care must be taken not to misinterpret
the story. The parable is not meant to teach that God had not from the first
wished the sinful to be his guests. The mission of Jesus to the outcasts was
certainly not undertaken because others had turned a deaf ear to the good news
of the Kingdom. But the story is told from the point of view of the critics on
that mission. Granted that they are right in thinking of the heavenly feast as
prepared for themselves, they still must not be surprised if their places are
filled by the men they so greatly despise!”
[xii]
Towards the end of
the parable is when the story starts to get especially problematic. The king
sees that one of the guests who was brought in off the streets is not in proper
wedding attire. When the king questions the man about his wardrobe the man is
speechless. This is reasonable to understand, because he was literally just
brought in off the streets. He has no idea that he is going to be attending a
wedding on this day, and when the invitation comes it appears that he is not
allowed time to go home and change into his finest clothes. So why would the
king be so offended that he is not properly dressed? In fact, one could presume
none of the guests that have been brought in off the streets are properly
dressed, and it appears for whatever reason the king is singling out this one
person.
Even more
disturbing than that is how the king responds to this individual. Rather than
asking the man to leave, the king has him bound hand and foot and thrown into
the darkness where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, which seems to be
an extreme and violent response to this situation. Shane Hipps asks, “Now how
many of you at the end of this parable are like, ‘If this is what the kingdom
of Heaven is like is there a way I can get a pass?” and then he adds, “If God
is the king it would appear that God is a narcissistic sociopath, because the
king exhibits these kinds of behaviors”.
[xiii]
Byrne
does not see these details as anything to be overly concerned about saying,
“While people still hear the parable as a story, it is probably best to make
clear from the start that it is an allegory through and through and that we
should not be too dismayed by all the aspects that fail to add up.”
[xiv]
And
H. H. Halley claims that it is just merely adding a warning to the parable. He
says, “God’s Elect nation, for its shameful treatment of God’s messengers, was
now to be cast off, and other nations called in. Also, it is a sort of double
parable: having a warning for the newcomers, that they be careful, lest they
meet the same fate.”
[xv]
Still
it appears that these random acts of violence and lack of any sort of
forgiveness seem to be opposing the nature of a loving, forgiving God. Is this
the image of God that Jesus really meant to stir up when He was telling this
story? Is this how we are supposed to understand the Kingdom of God? Or has
this story been misunderstood? Is there a better way to read this?
“There
is one Greek word that betrays [the classical understanding, and conveys] that
this is something very different than all the other parables” says Hipps.
[xvi]
In all the other parables Jesus tells He uses the phrase “the kingdom of heaven
is like
x” and in all the other
parables the Greek phrase He uses literally means “is like”. Matthew 22 is the
only time we see Jesus use this same phrase but in a different tense and a
different voice.
Verbs can be past or present
tense and active or passive.
In all the other
parables we see an active present tense verb, but in this case we have a past
tense, passive verb. So in all the other passages the Kingdom is doing the
action (it is like) but in this passage the kingdom of heaven is receiving the
action (it has been made into).
Another
point of interest about this parable can be found in the original Greek.
According to Hipps where our English translations say the Kingdom of Heaven is
like a king, the Greek uses a very specific word for king. The word that is
found in the Greek literally means a “human king”. It is not the same phrase that
would be used for a divine king, or God as king.
[xvii]
So
according to the literal translation of this parable it would appear that what
Jesus is actually saying is that the Kingdom of Heaven has been made into a
human kingdom with a human king. Jesus is not telling the religious leaders
what the Kingdom is like; He’s calling them out on what they have tried to turn
it into. He knows they want the Messiah to be a human king who will ride in
with power and overthrow the Romans and rule over Israel like David once did. He knows they have come to believe
that violence and hatred are the ways in which they hope to achieve their
victory. The religious leaders of Israel are trying to twist and contort the
message of Jesus into a message that suits them and as the narrative unfolds it
becomes increasingly clear that they will use the same kind of violence that Jesus warns against here when they have him
tortured and crucified.
It’s also worth
pointing out that in this story the king is throwing a wedding feast for his
son, but one crucial guest seems to be missing. Nowhere in this story do we see
the son. It would appear that the one person for whom this feast is being
thrown is not present. This feast is supposed to be all about the king’s son
and yet it would appear that in the midst of all his violence and spontaneity
the king in this story has entirely missed the point.
This
parable is not a comparison, then but a contradiction for the religious leaders
of Israel to ponder over. Jesus tells two stories prior to this one to show
what the Kingdom is like and how they are going to miss out on it, then He
turns it around and shows how they have tried to distort and corrupt the
Kingdom by turning it into something that it isn’t. They can’t seem to
understand that this Kingdom is not coming in physical power that they can see,
but it is rooted within you.
But
this leads to another question. If the king is not the hero of this story then
who is? To understand that we have to reference back to the thirteenth chapter
of Matthew in which Jesus tells some parables to his disciples and a large
crowd. He tells what we know now as the Parable of the Sower, the Parable of
the Mustard Seed, and the Parable of the Hidden Treasure. In all three of these
particular stories there is a common factor, the field. The field in these
stories is always the location of the Kingdom of Heaven. The kingdom of heaven
can be found out in the field.
So
going back to the Parable of the Wedding Feast we see an interesting detail.
When the invitation to the feast is first sent one man ignores it and returns
to his field. What happens to the man who goes to his field? He is neither
murdered nor murders, neither goes to the feast nor gets kicked out. This man
returns to his field and he avoids all the violence and despair surrounding
this wedding feast. It would appear that maybe this man knows something. Maybe
he recognizes that this feast is missing the point and so he returns to his
field.
Finally
it’s worth noting that in Luke’s account we have basically the same story
except for some crucial differences. For
starters, in Luke, Jesus uses the Greek phrase for “is
like” (present, active) which contrasts the past, passive verb used by Matthew.
This indicates that in Luke’s account he is not giving an “anti-parable” or
contradiction parable but rather a comparison parable. Secondly it is worth noting
that Luke’s parable leaves out all of the violence and chaos that make
Matthew’s account so much of a mess. In Luke’s account the guests miss out on
the feast, which is not specifically a wedding feast, but the king does not
respond with violence. Finally, in
Luke’s account, the time and
location differ noticeably from Matthew’s account. Matthew’s version appears
late in the ministry of Jesus but Luke’s appears much earlier. Also Luke’s
account happens as a conversation with some Pharisees at one of their homes but
Matthew’s account happens outside the temple as the climax of a scene which
takes place a day after Jesus clears the temple for apparently a second time
(it seems they went back to the corrupt dealings after His first temple
clearing at the very start of His ministry) and immediately follows two other
parables in which Jesus calls into light the corrupt and wicked ways of the
Pharisees.
So
it appears that Matthew’s account may actually be an entirely different
instance, in which Jesus refers back to a previously told story about what the
kingdom is like, but in this situation He expresses the ways in which they have
corrupted even his earlier message about the kingdom and how they have even
tried to provoke the movement of Jesus into a violent-earthly kingdom. Which is
exactly what they wanted Jesus’ kingdom to be like all along, and they were sorely
disappointed when they realized the kingdom Jesus was preaching was an entirely
different kind of kingdom; a
kingdom that was
misunderstood by the religious elite during the time Jesus was on earth and in
many ways a Kingdom that is still misunderstood by religious people today. A Kingdom
that wouldn’t be found in temples, palaces, churches, cathedrals and the
banquet halls of kings but instead in the fields, on the mountains, and in the
wilderness outside. This
is
all a very Jewish way of saying that it was for the whole world and refers all
the way back to the prophet Isaiah, the Exodus from Egypt
, and even the Garden of Eden.
[i] Hipps, Shane. (speaker)(2010,
November 7). “Returning to the Field” [Podcast]
Mars Hill Bible Church. Grand Rapids, MI. Retrieved April 4,
2011 from Mars Hill Bible Church iTunes Podcast.
[iii] Harris, S. L. (2009). The New Testament: A Student’s Introduction (pg.
472)
New York: McGraw Hill
[vi] Luke 17:20 (NIV), Due to the
troubling nature of this truth some interpretations attempt to use the phrase
“among you” rather than “within you”. However, this is probably a bad
translation. The Greek word Jesus uses here is the same word He uses when he describes
how the Pharisees clean the outside of the cup but not the inside. So taking the “among you” interpretation seems to assume
that Jesus accused the Pharisees of not cleaning among the cup, which doesn’t make any sense.
[viii] Mclaren, B. D. (2006). The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the
Truth that could change everything. (pg. 138-139)
Nashville: W Publishing Group.
[ix] Hipps, Shane. (speaker)(2010,
November 7). “Returning to the Field” [Podcast]
Mars Hill Bible Church. Grand Rapids, MI. Retrieved April 4,
2011 from Mars Hill Bible Church iTunes Podcast.
[x] Carter, Warren. (2000). Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical
and Religious Reading. (pg. 432)
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books
[xi] Byrne, Brendan. (2004). Lifting the Burden: Reading Matthew’s Gospel
in the Church Today. (pg. 163)
Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press.
[xii] Smith, B. T. D. (1937). The
Parables of the Synoptic Gospels: A Critical Study. (pg. 203)
Cambridge: University Press.
[xiii][xiii] Hipps, Shane. (speaker)(2010,
November 7). “Returning to the Field” [Podcast]
Mars Hill Bible Church. Grand Rapids, MI. Retrieved April 4,
2011 from Mars Hill Bible Church iTunes Podcast.
[xiv] Byrne, Brendan. (2004). Lifting the Burden: Reading Matthew’s Gospel
in the Church Today. (pg. 164)
Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press.
[xv] Halley, H. H. (1965). Halley’s Bible Handbook: New Revised
Edition. (pg. 444-445)
Grand Rapids: Regency Reference Library.
[xvi] Hipps, Shane. (speaker)(2010,
November 7). “Returning to the Field” [Podcast]
Mars Hill Bible Church. Grand Rapids, MI. Retrieved April 4,
2011 from Mars Hill Bible Church iTunes Podcast.
[xvii] Hipps, Shane. (speaker)(2010,
November 7). “Returning to the Field” [Podcast]
Mars Hill Bible Church. Grand Rapids, MI. Retrieved April 4,
2011 from Mars Hill Bible Church iTunes Podcast.
