Daily Devotional • July 4
A Reading from Matthew 22:1-14
1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so 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 a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, 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.”
Meditation
“Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
I confess that this is a devastating parable to me. The first reversal conforms to my expectation of the gospel: the original invitees who couldn’t be bothered to show up are rejected and there is a newly radical invitation to good and bad alike to be brought to the wedding feast. But the second reversal, where a man is gathered off the street in this radical hospitality only to be cast away into outer darkness for not having the right garment? This is a bit more difficult to square with what I expect of the gospel.
Of course, it is just in these moments in which my expectations are confronted and judged by the witness of Scripture that I should be paying closest attention. So how do we respond to this parable that has been likened by our Lord to the kingdom of heaven? We might say that this parable represents the unfathomable mystery of our election, or we might make it into a churchly allegory of the salvific necessity of baptism. Such interpretations are good and proper, but ultimately unsatisfying to me at least: do they ultimately punt the question raised, and can they get away from the parable’s reader needing to assert that I will not be like this man? I will surely be one of the elect, I will surely not neglect baptism, etc. Again, this seems not an entirely implausible reading, but I still remain unsatisfied if we are to continually disidentify with this one who is cast out of the wedding banquet.
But I wonder if a third reversal might occur in this parable when we consider that it is in fact our Lord who is also one who has been bound and thrown into outer darkness. And more than this, he has bound himself, thrown himself into the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and it is precisely there where he has demonstrated his omnipotence. His kingdom is one that is manifest not in its king casting out, but in its king being cast out. I wouldn’t say I’m quite ‘satisfied’ with this christological reading of this parable (though I should probably give up a desire for satisfaction in my reading of Scripture), but I do and will take great comfort in worshiping a Lord who will always be in utter solidarity and unity with those who are bound and cast out.
Maxine King is a lay Episcopalian and student of theology at Virginia Theological Seminary.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Good Shepherd – Igreja Anglicana de Mocambique e Angola
Church of the Transfiguration, Vail, Colorado