Sam, our beloved current intern, went to Sacramento last week for a friend's wedding. It was funny that both of us were in the same distant city. Anyway, Matthew 22 features the "Parable of the Wedding Banquet."
[Speaking of Sam, he's having car trouble. I'm outta here for a while... I'm back.]
"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..."
Okay, the King of Kings, God in the flesh is telling us what the kingdom of heaven is like here. So the details in the parable mean something, of course. It's interesting that the main character is a king. The central element to a kingdom is the king. The king rules over and serves people. It's cool that this story involves a celebration -- a banquet. It's not talking about slavery or a group of men in the belly of a ship, churning the oars to make it go. It's describing a banquet for a wedding. It's always cool to see "kingdom talk" that mentions a son. It's like Jesus was wanting to reinforce the concept that God had sent His Son to save the earth. It's interesting that not only are people part of the story (in addition to a king and his son), but "servants" are brought up. I wonder if this would apply to the prophets that foretold the Messiah, or people like John the Baptist and later on the disciples. Maybe all of those. Maybe it's refering to us -- servants of God with a message to spread, inviting others to the "wedding banquet."
It's interesting and frightening that the invited guests who refuse to come anger the king in this story. Perhaps that is a clear picture of judgment towards those who refuse the offer of reconciliation that we as servants are to spread. In so many ways, converting to Christianity is so positive. It's a free will opportunity to respond to forgiveness from the One Who truly has power to offer it. The type of lifestyle that a convert is expected to live is not bad, either. Who wants to continue stealing, lying, killing, and commiting adultery? Obeying the Two Great Commandments (loving God and loving others) are "easy" when the Holy Spirit regenerates or resusitates our spirits and give us the special holy "zoe" abundant life power. It's not really that crazy of a concept. If we could make this choice and live that way on our own, most people would probably choose it. So refusing God's offer of reconciliation seems kind of insane.
I don't know. What do you think?
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at October 6, 2005 09:44 AMWhat does "Zoe" mean? You have it in quotes and I've only ever seen it used as a name. I'm interested to find out.
Posted by: KellyMichelle at October 6, 2005 05:17 PM