Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost 2023
Mattew 22,1-14
Rev. Neli Miranda
Today, Jesus continues in Jerusalem confronting
the Jewish authorities publicly denouncing their corrupt practices. However, instead
of repenting, they resist God and reject Jesus. They have tried to arrest Jesus
when he concluded addressing them about the parable of the wicked tenants, but “they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.” (21,46). Again, with God’s authority and the people’s recognition, Jesus
continues with his denunciation and tells the people a third parable, known as
“The parable of the wedding banquet”.
Jesus begins this parable by saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a
wedding banquet for his son…” (22, 2). Here, Jesus changes his usual introduction to his
parables from “The kingdom
of heaven is like…” to “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…” In
the text, the king sends his slaves twice to call the invited guests to the
wedding, but when some refuse to come and others kill the messengers, the
enraged king sends his troops and destroys those who refused to come and burns
their city. Then, since the wedding banquet is ready, the king instructs his
slaves to go into the main streets to invite everyone to the banquet; so, the
wedding hall fills with guests. At the
closing of this parable, Matthew adds a strange episode: when the king comes in
to see the guests, he notices a man who is not wearing a wedding robe (a garment
usually provided by the host). He instructs his servants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness,
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (22,13). What a violent king!
In a traditional allegorical interpretation of this parable, the
king is God, his son is Jesus, the wedding banquet is the Kingdom of God; the
original invitees who refuse to attend are the Jews, and all those who are
subsequently invited are the gentiles (us, the Christians); and the city which
is destroyed is Jerusalem (destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE). This sounds quite
logical; however, this interpretation raises several issues: first, the extreme
violence in the parable is not consistent with Jesus’ message of a loving,
merciful God; it depicts God as an angry, vengeful tyrant who forces people to
do his will. Second, it does not explain why the initial guests refuse the
king’s invitation when an invitation such as this is considered an honor.
Third, the extreme violence perpetrated over the inappropriately dressed person
is not justified in any way. Moreover, this interpretation supports an
antisemitic position.
Really,
is this vengeful, bloody king representing God? Rather, wouldn’t this king be
more Herod, Caesar, or some other
tyrant, evil ruler?
We
need to read and interpret this parable distanced from the idea of a violent,
vengeful God, which definitely is not the God Jesus proclaims. Some Bible
scholars propose that this parable be read within its socio-political,
religious context; that is, the context of the violent Roman occupation of
Palestine and in the light of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew about nonviolent
resistance to domination. Read in this
way and considering Jesus’ introduction, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king…”, the
parable is not a depiction of what the Kingdom of God is like but a critical
description of what many think the Kingdom of God is like. Jesus’ criticism is directed
particularly to the Jewish authorities who collude with the violent kingdom of
the Romans. The Kingdom of God is not like the violent kingdom of the Romans!
In this perspective, the king in the parable may represent the
abusive, tyrannical regime of the Romans who forced the Jews and other peoples
to do their bidding and accept their legitimacy. The original invitees, selected
invitees by the Empire to collude with it, are those who bravely resisted
against the roman authority and then suffered destruction in retaliation. On
the other hand, the last-minute guests from the streets represent those who were
not able resist the Roman power; they practically were forced to attend the wedding
banquet.
Marie Hause[1],
a Bible scholar, proposes that the guest who did not wear the wedding robe for
the banquet constitutes a non-violent challenge to the king’s authority. By purposely
not wearing the proper attire, this man was openly disregarding the king’s
authority. Hause thinks that this guest is the central character of the parable,
as he refuses to support the violent system by not honoring the king who had
left an appalling trail of blood in its wake.
The actions of this guest are consistent with the nonviolent resistance
to domination that Jesus teaches in Matthew. This person, expelled from the wedding
feast, from the system, may represent Jesus and his disciples who nonviolently
resisted and denounced the violent
power of the Roman Empire. They paid with their own lives for dissenting, but
they were not buried but sown and their seed of resistance continue to flourish
today in our midst.
Jesus
concludes this parable by saying, “For
many are called, but few are chosen” (22,14). How could we understand these words today?
An Indian, Lutheran minister responds, “Many might be called to the kingdom of God, but few are
chosen because they resist, dissent and protest against the empires of the
world, even though it might cost them their lives.”[2]
Brothers and sisters, as disciples of Jesus, we
continue confronting the evil powers of this world, embodied in men and women
who dominate and oppress the people. How do we confront them? With more
violence, colluding with the system, wearing garments of injustice? Or do we
resist and practice nonviolent resistance against all that is evil? Nonviolent resistance is not passivity. It
is Jesus’ way that encourages us to confront and denounce evil!!
In the
current, critical situation the Guatemalan people is facing, how can we, following
Jesus’ way, confront the corruption, oppression, and injustice ruling the
country today?
May Jesus
inspire us to live and proclaim the Kingdom of God! Amen.
[1] Hause, M. (1994). “The Parable of the Wedding
Protest: Matthew 22:1–14 and Nonviolent Resistance,” Pages 49-61 in The
(De)Legitimization of Violence in Sacred and Human Contexts. Louisville,
Ky: Westminster John Knox Press.
[2] Patta, R. (2023). “The cost of dissent”.
Political Theology. https://politicaltheology.com/the-cost-of-dissent/
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