Come to the Feast
“God’s kingdom,” he said, “is like a king who threw a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out servants to call in all the invited guests. And they wouldn’t come! “He sent out another round of servants, instructing them to tell the guests, ‘Look, everything is on the table, the prime rib is ready for carving. Come to the feast!’” Matthew 22:1–4 MSG
One of the dangers when you set yourself the target of writing a short devotional each day as an aid to memory of what you want to carry through the day, share with your friends and the public at large is the temptation is to focus on the comfortable aspects of a chapter.
In this chapter there are a number of such things. But the important thing about bible reading and devotions according to 2 Timothy 3:16 is that besides teaching, Scripture must also correct and rebuke. And that is the tone of this passage for me.
The wedding feast is analogous to life in the kingdom which is not a matter of eating but ‘righteousness, peace and joy’. However to help us understand the richness of life we are given this picture of a wedding feast. When Manju and I got married 22 years ago (!) we couldn’t afford a lavish wedding. In fact the church hosted the wedding, a friend who was a caterer arranged the meal and we paid nothing. It was a simple affair. Not like weddings these days where hundreds of people are invited, tens of dishes are served and lakhs of Rupees are spent. The wedding feast in our passage is like this kind of a wedding – lavish in scale. And that is what people are being invited to.
The main point of the story is that people will refuse the invite or come in uninvited and will then have to be shown the door. It is not understanding how lavish the feast is and how good life in the kingdom is that prevents people from coming in. That doesn’t mean life in the kingdom is one continuous party because it isn’t. It does mean however you are ‘right’ with the King, He welcomes and loves you and will care for you. Yes, you will still fight the battles of lack and sickness and emotional hurts but you now have the strength and wisdom of the King to help you.
So yes it’s about not realising the value of the feast, the abundance of life in the kingdom that stops people from coming in, from responding to the invitation. But what is true for them is also true for me. As I examine my enthusiasm, passion and effort to ‘invite people into this banquet’ I wonder if I truly believe how good it really is. Or am I just plain selfish (wanting to keep the feast to myself) or just lazy (too satisfied with the food and unable to get out to invite others). Either way whilst the main point of the story is about refusals, the main application for me is to renew a passion to invite people in. They may not respond but let me believe in the lavishness of this feast by not keeping it to myself and inviting as many as I can.