Social Event of All Eternity

Matthew 22:1-14

Human society is consumed with the “Who’s Who” of entertainment, wealth, trend setters, even our social clique, and the most coveted thing is the invite to the party. In our parable this Sunday, there is the Social Event of the decade, the Royal Wedding. The invitations are sent out, but when the time comes for the R.S.V.P. there is nothing but regrets or even ignoring of the invitation.

The invited become the disinvited. Yet, the King wants his banquet filled! So the unpopular, the losers, the outcast, and the undeserving are brought into the banquet hall to the joy of the King.

Yes, as you read the text, this is a complicated parable (the simpler version is in Luke 14.) But the surprising event in the parable is that people ignore the great invitation. This is the response that we often see to the Good News God is offering. People’s lives are filled with property, careers, entertainment that they just ignore God’s gracious invitation. The challenge of this parable, and especially Matthew 22’s record of it is: “Do we take the invitation of God seriously?” Not only the invitation to experience the forgiveness and grace through Christ, but even the daily invitation to walk with God, to be in the presence of God, and to have God in our lives. We often ignore that invitation.

That is what Lent is for, the putting aside, at least for a short period of time, the things that crowd our lives and take up the room for God. The honor it is to be invited to the Royal Wedding should signify to us the desire that God has to be in fellowship with us, to be at a party with us.