When Scripture Makes You Go "Huh?"
- Christopher Miner
- Oct 10, 2023
- 4 min read
After Pentecost (Proper 23) | Year A | Matthew 22:1-14 | Christopher Miner
The Gospel lesson this week caught my attention for a reason that can be a bit disconcerting - it made me wonder what in the world Jesus was talking about!
OK, that's overstating things a bit. But if you look at the story there are some things that should make you pause. A quick recap: Jesus tells a parable about a king who throws a wedding feast, but the invited guests don't come. The king then sends out servants to convince his invitees to show, and not only do they not come but they kill the servants. The king, understandably furious, wipes out his undeserving would-be guests with his army, but now he has a new problem: who will eat his feast? So he sends his remaining servants to the streets to bring in anyone they could find ("the bad as well as the good"), which they do. The king then looks around his full banquet hall and notices someone not wearing wedding attire. The king asks the guest about this, and the guest has no answer, so the king has him tied up and thrown out with the garbage ("where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth"). Jesus ends his tale with this line: "For many are invited, but few are chosen."
After reading this, I had two main questions:
Why did the king's invited guests kill the servants who were calling them to the feast? That seems a bit much, doesn't it? Why didn't they just politely make up an excuse like the rest of us would? (Or maybe that's just me...)
After inviting LITERALLY anyone off the street, why did the king toss out the one guy not wearing a tux? Maybe he didn't have one - this was someone just off the street, after all.
So what do you do with this kind of thing? Gloss over what you don't understand, assuming that it isn't that important? Try to find someone smarter than you to enlighten you? Do a quick Google search and see what pops up? Forget the whole thing and wonder why you ever read it in the first place?
If you read the Bible long enough you are bound to run across sections that make you stop and wonder what's going on. And if you are serious about understanding the way of Jesus it is important to learn how to wrestle with these passages. The Bible is different than almost anything you will normally read, and it requires some effort to understand in spots, but as you work and struggle with it, you will invariably find deeper meaning and insights that would not come any other way.
To be clear, I am not a Biblical scholar - I am a lay person with a college degree in history who works in an office job but likes reading theology in my spare time. (No, I am not a nerd, I am a geek - nerds do math.) But I have found some good resources and good people to help with the parts that confuse me. And if you are looking for advice that is where I would start - good resources to reference and smart people you can trust. (I will provide what I have been using lately at the end of this post.)
In terms of this passage, one thing that helps shed some light is the context within Matthew. The last part of chapter 21 contains two more parables - one about two sons and one about some vineyard tenants, and if you read them you will see similar images and ideas to the passage in chapter 22. The Bible does this a lot - themes are repeated in slightly different ways to really make a point. You can also see in chapter 21 that Jesus is addressing the Pharisees, the self-righteous super Jews who thought they had the fast track to God and knew what he was trying to do for Israel. So the themes in the parables - hypocrisy, status reversal, obedience, who enters God's kingdom - have a lot to do with the original intended audience. However, that does not mean we, the modern reader, are off the hook. The parables invite us to reflect on where we fit in - which side
are we, what kind of tenant, what kind of wedding guest?
I don't have exact answers to my original questions - if you do, feel free to leave them in a comment! But in doing a bit of leg work I was able to gain insight into the broader message of these parables, which challenged me in an unexpected way. And I'm pretty sure that's more the idea of reading the Scriptures, anyway.
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Lord of the feast, you have prepared a table before all peoples and poured out life with such abundance that death cannot claim the triumph over your universe. Call us again to your banquet where we may receive your holy food, and strengthened by what is honorable, just, and pure, be transformed into a people of righteousness and peace. Amen.
-From Revised Common Lectionary Prayers
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A great resource for Bible study is The Bible Project. Their website (www.bibleproject.com) and app have deep dives into all things Scripture, all for free.
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