The Wedding Feast

Thus, Jesus’ words that many are called, but few are chosen, even in the first generation of the Church, received a single interpretation: the called are those whom God invites to the wedding feast, while the chosen are those who remain there.

Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching, Vol.4 - The Parables of Jesus, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

Let’s start off with a bang on this one.

Romans 8: 28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

I don’t intend to try to reconcile these two ideas: if they are called, are they chosen, or aren’t they? There are far more learned theologians than I am that can argue each case very well.

I live in both worlds – meaning, I attend a Protestant church that very much leans into this passage from Romans, while also occasionally, but regularly, attending an Orthodox Church that understands things differently.

I have been counseled that this living-in-two-worlds is problematic, but so far I don’t see it this way. For example, on this precise point of different doctrines of soteriology: by God’s grace, I am here now, studying Jesus’s parables; by God’s grace, I have the Scriptures; by God’s grace, I pray.

By God’s grace, there is a path open in front of me – and that path doesn’t care as to which doctrine of salvation is the true one. And this is true for everyone reading this blog.

On to the parable. There are two versions of this parable, one in Luke 14, and another in Matthew 22. In Luke, Jesus first counsels that when one is called to a wedding, he should take the lowest room, not the highest. For to be moved from the lowest to the highest after one is seated is an honor; however, to be asked to move from the highest to the lowest after one is seated brings shame.

Jesus continues: when preparing a dinner, call not your friends or brothers, but call the poor, the maimed, the sick – these cannot offer anything in return, but you will receive the return at the resurrection of the just.

From here, Jesus offers the parable: a certain man prepared a great supper, and had his servant call his friends. Yet, one by one, they each had an excuse – excuses for tending to some task or errand.

Luke 14: 21 So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’

23 Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

24 For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’”

In Matthew, the setting is a wedding feast. The servant is sent, and once again, one by one all those who were called had an excuse. Further, the servants were killed.

Matthew 22: 7 But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ 10 So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Immediately some differences are noted: Luke’s version was told at a supper, while Matthew’s was told in the temple. A man in Luke is now a king in Matthew; instead of a great supper, now a wedding feast for the king’s son. In Luke’s version, financial distractions are given as excuses, in Matthew, it is a blatant disregard of the king’s will. And it is this version told in the temple – and in this version, the servants are not only ignored, but killed. The king responds by destroying the murderers.

Matthew’s version is clearly pointing to God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Gregory the Great sees the wedding feast prepared by the king for his son as an allegory of the birth of the Son of God from the Virgin.

God the Father sent His servants to invite the friends, but these were rejected. Symeon the Theologian wrote:

“Who, then, were those who had been sent? The prophets, he says. Who were those who had been called? The children of the Jews, for they were those who then and from the beginning had been called, and they did not want to listen to them”

John Chrysostom sees this parable as a continuation of the parable of the wicked servants. Both parables are directed against the Jews, and both parables climax in the soon-to-be destruction of Jerusalem.

Even here, Chrysostom writes, God showed His longsuffering – waiting forty years, waiting even after Stephan and James were put to death, waiting even after the ill treatment of the apostles. God had planted a vineyard – Israel – and sent His servants numerous times even after one by one they were ill-treated and many put to death. Eventually He sent His Son.

St. Nikolai Velimirovich writes:

“Of all the nations on earth, the Jewish people should have greeted the coming of the Bridegroom Christ most joyfully, for this people had been most prepared by God to meet him.”

He continues, regarding the relationship between the Church and God after this time:

“This is a new people, chosen by God, a New Israel, a new tribe of righteous Abraham. Old Israel changed and lost its elect role in the history of mankind, and God created a new channel of human salvation, a New Israel.”

I know that today such words are considered anti-Semitic. Jesus often denounced the Jews. The reasons why are clear: not because they were Jews but because in their religious practice, they were not righteous; because in their lives, they were hypocrites. In this, Jesus is an equal opportunity critic.

…the polemic against Judaism as a religious tradition is a major theme of most of the books of the New Testament.

There are other interpretations – designed to avoid any negative comment about the Jews of Jesus’s time: the parable was a warning about absentee landlords, or a story about a successful murder. Within the context of all of Jesus’s comments about the scribes and Pharisees, it seems clear that the appropriate path in understanding this parable is the one as described here by Metropolitan Hilarion.

There is one last piece to this parable, found only in Mattew:

Matthew 22: 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. 12 So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Why would someone inappropriately dressed be kicked out for not having the right clothing? Per Metropolitan Hilarion, the custom at the time was for each guest to be given appropriate clothing as he came to the wedding feast. So, this is a case where someone rejected the king’s gift.

Those who are called include those to whom in various times and in different circumstances the voice of God spoke. Those who are chosen are those who heeded the voice of God.

He offers a quote from Gregory the Great somewhat supportive of this view: coming to the house of the marriage feast, the Church, with some fault of some aspect of your heart’s clothing, is a sign of a lack of belief and of love. As I said, “somewhat.” This comment from Gregory leaves the door open for a fairly wide variety of understandings regarding soteriology.

In any case, I know that doctrinally Metropolitan Hilarion’s case doesn’t work for some; I have said my view at the opening of this post.

Conclusion

None, really. This parable offers, at least to me, in the first part an interpretation pretty easy to understand, and in the second, one that raises disagreements regarding an important – and what has been a divisive – doctrinal point. Again, I am not qualified to arbitrate on this soteriological issue.

The plain reading of the text is sufficient enough: not all called are chosen. Then again, what does plain reading mean? If it was so simple, the controversy on points of soteriology would not exist.

Perhaps Jesus was saying nothing more than speaking to His audience: You had your opportunity. You blew it. Now the king will invite others.

I can understand this, in all places and in all times.

Epilogue

This might be the first parable where I feel I am really missing something by not having a second book from a protestant as a companion, just as I did regarding the Sermon on the Mount. I did look online, though, and found similar interpretations as what is presented here.