Big Buts of the Bible

An excerpt from Chapter 22.

In or Out?

RSVP. It’s shorthand for the French phrase répondez s’il vous plaît—“please reply.”

An RSVP calls for a response. Ignoring one is considered pretty poor etiquette. The host may need to know how many chairs to set up, how much food to prepare, or how many place settings will be needed. Maybe there are even grab bags involved. You certainly wouldn’t want to arrive unannounced and discover there wasn’t a grab bag with your name on it.

The point is simple: an invitation expects an answer. Are you coming or not? Are you in or out?

That question hangs over much of what Jesus has been teaching in these final days before the cross. The religious leaders have heard God’s invitation. They know the Scriptures. They have seen the signs. They heard John the Baptist call them to repentance, and now the promised Messiah is standing in front of them.

The invitation has been extended. Will they come?

The Big But

Jesus told another parable, this one about a party—a wedding banquet prepared by a king.

“He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.“

There it is.

But they refused.

Jesus framed this parable in two parts, and the first echoes the lesson He has been driving home through these recent encounters. Those who should have been eagerly anticipating the kingdom were the very ones rejecting it.

In ancient times, an announcement of an important celebration could go out well before the actual event. Think of it as an ancient save the date. Then, as the celebration drew closer, the formal invitation would follow. Finally, when everything was prepared, servants might be sent to tell the invited guests that the time had arrived.

In other words, nobody in Jesus’ story could complain, Wait—when did this happen? Nobody told me!

They had been invited. They knew the banquet was coming. Now the king was telling them that everything was ready.

Come.

But they refused.

The king graciously tried again. He sent more servants with an even more specific message: “I have prepared my dinner… everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.” This time the invitation practically said, The food is on the table.

But they paid no attention.

One went off to his field. Another went to his business. Others went considerably further, seizing the king’s servants, mistreating them, and killing them.

Well, this party story just went from G to PG for violence.

What began as indifference became outright rejection. The king had invited them to celebrate with him, but they had more important things to do. Some simply couldn’t be bothered. Others responded to his generosity with hostility.

The king was enraged, and judgment followed. Jesus’ point would have been increasingly difficult for the religious leaders listening to miss. God had been sending messengers to His people for generations. The prophets had spoken. John the Baptist had come announcing that the kingdom of heaven was near. Now God’s own Son stood among them.

The invitation had not been hidden.

But they refused.

Grab Bags for Everyone

The king’s banquet was prepared, however, and the rejection of the original guests wasn’t going to leave the celebration empty.

He sent still more servants:

“The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.”

Anyone you find.

Depending on which part of town you’re in, you can meet some pretty interesting people on street corners.

The servants went out and gathered everyone they could find, both “the bad as well as the good,” Matthew tells us, until the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Grab bags for everybody!

Here again is that great exchange Jesus has been describing. If someone walked into this banquet and looked around, they might have wondered, How did these people get in here?

Tax collectors? Prostitutes? Sinners? Those people?

Yes. Those people.

And the connection with the previous chapter is difficult to miss. Jesus had just told the religious leaders that tax collectors and prostitutes were entering the kingdom of God ahead of them. Not because their sin didn’t matter. Not because God had suddenly lowered His standards. They were entering because, when confronted with their need, they responded.

They were willing to come.

That makes one little phrase in the parable particularly interesting. The king said, “those I invited did not deserve to come.”

Deserve?

At first glance, that sounds like a moral qualification. But look at the people filling the banquet hall. Jesus specifically says that the servants gathered “the bad as well as the good.” The religious leaders could certainly have pointed to people in that room whose moral résumés looked far worse than their own.

So what made the original invitees undeserving? Their refusal.

They had received the invitation and rejected it. They had been summoned and would not come. They had been given opportunity after opportunity and remained unwilling.

Jesus had already pointed the religious leaders back to John the Baptist. John had confronted their hypocrisy all the way back in Matthew 3, calling them to repentance—to a genuine change of heart. But they saw no need to change. They would not admit their need. They would not surrender their standing. They would not repent.

Meanwhile, tax collectors and prostitutes heard the same call and came.

That is one of the great surprises of grace.