Today's reading offers us another of Jesus' parables about the Kingdom: the parable of the wedding feast. To understand its meaning...
Today's reading offers us another of Jesus' parables about the Kingdom: the parable of the wedding feast. To understand its meaning, it is important to remember that the relationship between God and the people of God had often been compared to marriage since the preaching of the prophet Hosea. And in the context of the prophet Jeremiah's teaching about the renewal of the union-covenant between God and the people of God on the day of the Messiah's coming, the wedding feast becomes a symbol of the messianic Kingdom.
Jesus' parable explains what keeps the invited guests from coming to this feast. On the one hand, they are hindered by attachment to everything earthly, to everything that makes them forget the Kingdom (vv. 3-9). Here, clearly, the situation in view is the one that had developed among the people of God even before the exile, when messianic preaching first sounded in Israel. In those days messianism was indeed thoroughly permeated with politics, and many understood the Kingdom in completely earthly terms, as an independent and powerful Jewish state that would be founded by the Messiah sent by God. But even after the Babylonian exile, already in the Gospel era, popular religious life still assumed precisely this view of the Kingdom. It is no surprise that this messianism was doomed to defeat, for no such earthly kingdom existed in God's design. Meanwhile, the rejection of the prophets was often connected precisely with the fact that they said about the Kingdom something other than what the majority expected from them. It is no surprise that those who expected an earthly kingdom ultimately come to ruin: they reject the true Kingdom for the sake of their own idea. But problems also arise for those who eagerly hurry to the wedding feast. It is no accident that the parable mentions a man who entered the banquet hall without wedding clothes (vv. 11-14). At first glance, this seems a strange complaint, considering what kind of people had gathered for the feast (vv. 9-10). But in those days the host sent festive clothing to the invited guests, so all they had to do was put it on. In such a situation, neglecting the clothing that had been sent meant disrespect for the host, a claim that the guest's own clothing was no worse, and perhaps even better, than what the steward of the feast had sent.
It is no accident that the parable of the wedding feast continues Jesus' conversation with the chief priests and elders about "the baptism of John": many Pharisees were held back precisely because they did not think they needed any cleansing, being sure that they were already fit for the Kingdom. But it turns out that merely accepting the Kingdom is not enough; true humility is also needed, an acknowledgment of one's own unreadiness for life in it. Only then can one put on the clothing given by the King.
