Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matt 21:1-14, NIV)
I remember writing about this on my website about 20 years ago. I remember pulling down a lot of somewhat psychotic writing from my website and saving it somewhere, but a quick look wasn’t enough to find it. It doesn’t really matter since I remember what I would have said about it.
Which was where is the grace? If Jesus died for everyone, why did this story not end with Jesus interceding on behalf of the person who hadn’t observed the dress code and saying “friend, here, take my wedding garment”. And so the person gets to stay at the banquet and Jesus is thrown out into the darkness instead. Why didn’t the story go like this?
I wrote about dress code about a month ago, asking (I think) why there is often so much ‘unnecessary dress code’ added on by Christians to simply following Jesus.
Evidently in this story Jesus told, the dress-code was essential rather than an optional add-on. But I don’t understand why or what is going on here. Why is there no grace? Why is there no role for Jesus here? Ooh – is it because Jesus hasn’t died yet?