“Open Invitations” Orange Congregational Church UCC, October 11, 2026, (Matthew 22:1-14) Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Today’s parable is about a wedding banquet. Personally, planning my wedding was joyous and sometimes stressful. My mother had given Neill and I the warning that one of the more complicated aspects to plan would be the seating chart. The dinner served at our wedding was plated and the staff needed to know who was sitting where. Some of the tables were easy to figure out, and others led to some serious headaches.
For instance, Neill had two colleagues at the time who could not stand each other. Literally Neill had to move desks in the newsroom to physically sit in between them. Even though the numbers would have worked out perfectly to have all his colleagues from that newspaper at one table, we worried about group dynamics. Because we wanted everyone to have a wonderful time. So we had separate tables of journalists doing our best to think through who knew each other from previous newspapers. What a bunch of drama queens!
Anyway, as we walked around from table to table during dinner, we noticed that these two enemies were sitting at the same table. We feared there had been some mistake. Because we had made sure to avoid this very scenario. I must have had a look on my face as it was sheepishly explained to us that everyone from the paper wanted to sit together at the same table. The waitstaff had to hunt around to find the people who picked up chairs and moved tables to ensure everyone had the right dinner, nevertheless they all made it work. I told Neill quietly that our love is literally bringing people together. He noted that it was more likely the open bar. Regardless! Amazing things can happen at weddings when we gather to celebrate love and the covenant of marriage.
So is it any wonder that Jesus used the setting of a wedding banquet to talk about the kingdom of heaven? Many cultures, religions, and societies have wedding traditions. In Scotland there’s a tradition called the Blackening of the Bride where the bride and groom are covered head to toe in any disgusting substance their friends can find—curdled milk, rotten eggs, fish sauce, mud, flour, you get the idea—and then the couple is paraded about town with people cheering them on and wishing them well. In South Korea, there’s this tradition called Falaka, or the Beating of the Groom’s feet. The groom has his socks and shoes removed, his ankles bound, and then his groomsmen and family members take turns beating the soles of his feet with a stick of even a dried fish. He’s quizzed during the beating—it’s basically a way to test his knowledge to ensure he is ready for marriage. And in some regions of Germany, guests arrive the night before the wedding, go to the bride’s home, and break any porcelain they can find. After the porcelain is broken, the couple cleans up the mess on the day of their wedding, which teaches that married life will not always be easy. Yet, if the couple can work together and clean up this mess on the first day of their marriage, maybe they can overcome anything side by side.[1]
In the Parable of the Wedding Banquet, the king throws a wedding banquet for his son and invites special guests to be part of the celebration. He sends his slaves to go out and call the guests to come because everything was now ready. Except the guests don’t show up! The king sends out more slaves to invite the guests and tells them to say, “Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.”[2] The king is showing forth hospitality. Though the guests make light of the invitation and go away. One went to his farm and another to his business. Some of the other guests seized the slaves, mistreated them, and even killed them. When the king hears what has happened, he is enraged. He can’t believe it! So he sends his troops out to destroy the murderers and burn their city.
Once that unpleasantness is handled, the king tells the slaves that those invited to the banquet weren’t worthy. He gives instructions to the slaves who are left to, “Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.”[3] So that’s what happens—the slaves go out and invite everyone they find to enjoy the banquet, both good and bad, everybody! Ya’ll come! But the king notices that one of his guests isn’t wearing a wedding robe and says, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless! So the king orders him to be thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Remember I told you months ago that Matthew loves that phrase?) Here it is again—for apparently many are called, but few are chosen. And if you go to a wedding banquet in the wrong outfit, even if you were literally invited in off the streets to come to this banquet, you will get kicked out.
Well, this is certainly another interesting parable that Jesus tells. And it is rather difficult because it seems at first like everyone is going to be accepted at this banquet. The guests are invited by the slaves going out into the main streets and gathering anyone they could find. The wedding hall overflows with guests. The VIP guests did not seem to appreciate the initial invitation, though others were found who wanted to be there. The party commences and it seems that all is well.
Though what’s up with the man who shows up without a wedding robe? How do we understand the treatment he receives from the king who has him thrown out? We can hold these two sides of the parable in tension. Everyone is welcome at the table even coming off the streets, no matter what. Once the wedding banquet invitation is rejected by the original guests, the king does throw open his doors to all people.
Though we can also recall that Matthew wrote his Gospel at a time when the followers of Jesus were having a rough time within the Jewish community. Just as Jesus himself had a rough time with the Pharisees and Sadducees during his lifetime. Lots of family fighting going on. Yet once the guests arrived, they were called to show mercy as they had received mercy. The party seems to be about more than just showing up—it matters that you bring your best self here.
Weddings do have a way of bringing people together! Sometimes we try to look our best or act our best—to put differences aside as we celebrate with a loving couple. I know this can happen because this happened at my own wedding! In the parable, it matters that folks accepted the invitation wholeheartedly, even that people dressed the part to show that they accepted their place here among the people of God.
There’s deeper symbolism going on in the parable of the wedding banquet. The king is meant to be God. The son receiving the wedding party is Jesus (Jesus was most likely unmarried, but we’re dealing with symbolism here so can roll with it.) The symbolic meaning of the wedding robe is the mercy of God. God is inviting everyone to Jesus’ party and there is room at the table for everyone. But we have to say yes to the invitation. The important thing here is that we can also say no. We can reject the invitation. We can go our merry ways to our farms or our businesses like the original invited guests. We have free will. God does not seek coerced love; God desires wholehearted love. Though if we say yes and show up to the wedding banquet—we best be clothed in God’s compassion.[4] For just as that compassionate invitation to the table was extended to us, we are invited to extend it to one another.
What would it be like if we believed that we can be clothed in the garments of Christ? What would it look like if we lived as if we accepted an invitation to the banquet and then put on those garments of mercy for one another? Or even went out into the streets ourselves and invited others to the table of Jesus Christ?
For there is room at the table for everyone. There is room in the church for everyone. Many are called. Invitations have been extended. Though no one is going to force us to make an appearance at the wedding banquet. No one is going to twist our arms and tell us that we must accept the invitation. It’s up to each of us to say yes to God’s calls in our lives. To extend the compassion that God has shown us to one another and therefore have the kind of happy and holy community we can imagine at that wedding banquet where there is room for everyone. Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Kristen Droesch, “Wedding Traditions from Around the World,” Huffington Post, September 29, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/29/wedding-traditions_n_3964844.html
[2] Matthew 22:4, NRSVUE.
[3] Matthew 22:9.
[4] Erick J. Thompson, Commentary on Matthew 22:1-14, Working Preacher, October 15, 2017 https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3443
Photo from Lauren & Neill’s Wedding at The Society Room in Hartford, CT in 2022. David Butler Photography.
