11 - Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI THE MAN WITHOUT THE WEDDING GARMENT
Mat 22:11-14 IN Matthew’s version of the Great Feast, after the great rejection the servants were instructed to invite ’ everybody you happen to meet ’ (Mat 22:9), and those who responded included the bad as well as the good (Mat 22:10). In view of the Christian emphasis on character, if there was not to be grave misunderstanding of the point of the parable, some explanation seemed to be called for.
It is easy to see how the story that emphasized the importance of the wedding garment came to be added: it is not so easy to feel sure that the addition was made by Jesus, at least in connection with this parable. Our Lord was not at all afraid of being misunderstood, since men had ears to hear with. The treatment of the unfortunate guest is painfully out of harmony with the gracious spirit of the parable. The story is brief to the point of obscurity. We are not told that a particular dress was obligatory on the guests. We wonder why the guest, when questioned, did not give the obvious answer that paupers have no decent clothing of any kind, much less wedding robes. If it was the custom, as some would have us believe, for royal hosts to provide suitable array, why is a fact so important left to the imagination? The doom of the rejected guest is expressed in conventional language (cf. Mat 25:30, Luk 13:27 f, and the implication of Mat 25:12). The conventional moral that Matthew draws is also misapplied (Mat 25:12) since, of all the guests to whom the later invitation was sent, only one was rejected. The figure may have been suggested by the threat in Zep 1:7 of punishment ’ to all such as are clothed with strange (foreign) apparel.” In any case the parable conveys the true lesson that while the invitation is to all, admission to the kingdom is for those only who are prepared to wear the uniform of the kingdom, to live in loyal obedience to the King’s will. The invitation is to the poor, maimed, blind and lame.
If we enter the kingdom in that spirit which alone entitles us to citizenship, our rags are transformed, our blindness forgotten; we stand erect on our feet and join the throng that enters God’s temple to give thanks.