He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast,
but they refused to come.
What might these invited guests have been thinking? Most likely they regarded the king as a distant figure who had no appreciation for the difficulty of the daily grind. How nice for him to be able to spend his time on superficial celebrations. For the normal rank and file there was too much work to be done for that. To be sure they would celebrate in other instances, for their family, friends, and neighbors, because social reciprocity demanded it. They were all on a relatively level playing field so no one was being disadvantaged by a pause in productivity of that sort. But when the king asked them to attend the feast for his son they clearly imagined all of the other things they had to do. This was true even when the king tried to sweeten the invitation with more precise details of just how good the feast was going to be, with "calves and fattened cattle". He sent this as a message designed to induce the imagination to a mouthwatering vision of the wedding feast. Yet in response to this the people either further buried themselves in work or even became violent. The invitation was so provocative it was as though they had to avoid it all the more aggressively or risk conceding, giving in, and attending.
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.
These individuals seemed to be prisoners of their daily routines who would endure no disruptions. They were like people trapped in the Matrix who became hostile at the mention that another world might be exist beyond the one the knew. When we read about them it is easy to judge them and to imagine ourselves proceeding in a beeline to the feast if we were among those invited. But we are among those invited to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. And we are certainly also among those who sometimes ignore the invitation, preferring farm, business, or other quotidian engagements to something as abstract and distant as the Kingdom of God. This fact should also help us to at least have some empathy for those who resist all mention of the Kingdom even more aggressively, those who oppose the message of the Gospel in speech or even in action. When we recognize that such ones are in fact tempted by the invitation to the feast, and go to extremes to avoid imagining how good it might be, we can at least understand their motivation a little more.
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.
None were found that were actually worthy of the initial invitation. But the king was not to be dissuaded. He would find any who would accept his invitation, good or bad, wherever he had to look. It was to be an invitation of pure and unmerited grace. But that did not mean he was content to lower the standards for what the celebration was to be. Even those invited last would need to ensure they weren't wearing clothing soiled by their previous work. This would require a change of garments, but one which was within reach of any who desired it.
it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints (see Revelation 19:8).
This new garment was not something they bought in order to merit invitation into the feast. It was rather something that was only a possibility of those already responding to the invitation of grace in their lives. They could clothe themselves with righteous deeds only by putting on Jesus Christ.
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof (see Romans 13:14).
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (see Ephesians 4:24).
And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all (see Colossians 3:10-11).
It was, after all, God himself who promised to give us new hearts and new spirits. So it must ultimately be he himself who clothes us for the feast. But clearly we are free to reject this offer and to continue to present the appearance of our former self is we choose. Let us instead give him permission to do whatever he needs to do in our lives to make us fit for his glorious feast.
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