A Very Hard Story - Reflections on Matthew 22:1-14, Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A

by John C. Holbert on Friday, July 10, 2026

         Today we confront another parable, continuing Matthew’s concern to address those religious leaders who simply cannot accept that Jesus of Nazareth is the long-expected Jewish Messiah. And their refusal has led them to overt hatred and active attacks on his beliefs and practices, all of which will lead to the terrible end to his earthly story on a Roman cross. The tale for today, I readily admit, is one I have a very hard time understanding and even accepting that it is a part of Matthew’s Gospel. I find it nothing less than a horrifying example of a narrative that, in my mind, goes too far as an exemplification of the early Christian/Jewish community’s fraught relationship with the religious Jewish leaders of the day.

         The hearers of this parable remain the same as those of the parables of the preceding chapters, the chief priest and elders, “them” in Mt.22:1. The story begins as usual: the “kingdom of heaven (or the "realm of heaven” or “the rule of God”) may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son” (Mt.22:2). The story we now hear is another one that attempts to illustrate what the rule/reign of God is like. It is in this case like a king’s son’s wedding feast, where the servants “summon those who had been invited, but they were not willing to come” (Mt.22:3). This opening seems frankly absurd; who would not want to attend the wedding of the heir to the throne? It is bound to be lavish, filled with great food and fine wine, along with the best music and dancing. But no reason is given for these idiots who will not attend, even though invited.

         But the king is not deterred, and sends out other servants to be more explicit in the preparations made. “Look! I have prepared my meal; my oxen and fatted calves have been slaughtered, and all are ready. Come to the feast!” (Mt.22:4). But the invitees hardly listened to the summons, “but went off, one to his own farm, one to his own business” (Mt.22:5). Like they could not delay farm work or business meetings for one day! Ridiculous! However, other invitees, instead of pleading lack of time, “seized the servants, insulted them, and killed them” (Mt.22:6). What?! The messengers who bring the summons of the king are not only avoided, but are even grabbed, insulted, and murdered! What are we to think of these invitees to the wedding? 

         Now, I get the allegorical game afoot here, I think. The king, I am to assume is God, the messengers/servants are the prophets, the son is Jesus, the insulting invitees are the religious authorities of the day. But the tale is hyperbolic in the extreme. The earlier Jewish prophets, often indeed abused and killed by the people to whom they are sent, portray the Jewish people as nothing less than evil monsters, ever ready to kill anyone who calls them, even the king’s son, though Matthew’s rendition of the story does not include that nasty bit. 

         But in the story, the king grows furious at the actions of “these murderers,” and sends his army to “destroy them and to burn down their city” (Mt.22:7). This is often considered to be a reference to the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70CE, suggesting that Matthew lays at the feet of the city’s own religious leaders the ultimate cause for the Roman victory. It is hardly unusual to say in the nation’s history that foreign nations can become agents of God’s retribution for Israel’s actions; the Hebrew Bible is rife with such stories, perhaps culminating in Isaiah’s amazing claim that Cyrus of Persia is nothing less than God’s messiah, due to his defeat of the empire of Babylon in 539BCE (Is.45). Yet, this reality hardly makes the tale any less gruesome, as the murderers of the servants are themselves murdered, and their city burnt to the ground, at the express wish of the king.

         But there remains the wedding feast, though by now the food must be cold, the wine soured, and the musicians packed up and gone home. Still, the king will have his feast! He again calls the servants, “The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Therefore go to the thoroughfares, and invite to the wedding feast whomever you find” (Mt.22:9). So this time the servants “gather all they find, evil and good alike. And the wedding hall was filled with guests” (Mt.22:10). The first invitees may have been found unworthy, but this motley crew, both evil and good, now fill the hall. The portrait that springs to mind is of food fights, drunken brawls, and raucous behaviors too terrible to name. It is surely a wedding feast like no other! 

         Just what are we to make of all that? All are plainly welcome in this feast, and I mean all! Are the former invitees, who refused to come, now welcome, too? Or have their invitations been revoked? Are the evil and good folk filling the hall all we need for the feast of God’s rule? I admit to being quite confused about this story!

         And to top it off, we have the final tale, perhaps an originally separate story, about a wedding guest, who is discovered by the king to be inappropriately dressed for a wedding. “Friend, how did you come in here, not having a wedding garment?” (Mt.22:12). Well, good grief! Why should he be dressed correctly when he has just been ushered in at the last moment to fill the hall with the evil and the good? Are we to take this tale as part of the earlier one, or is it another idea entirely?

         It has been said that if the two stories are read together, as Matthew apparently wanted them to be, it means that all are invited to the feast, but a simple invitation is no guarantee of being allowed to stay at the feast; one must be appropriately dressed to remain at the feast. It is necessary to respond to the invitation in the correct manner. If so, I remain confused. Just what is the correct response that allows me to stay at the banquet? And if some are to be excluded, while both evil and good are included, why would I wish to stay at such an exclusive banquet? Despite my confusions at this decidedly peculiar parable, and its equally strange companion story, it is still important to emphasize what the tales do not say. These stories are once again hardly indictments of the whole Jewish people, condemning them to wander the earth because they killed their own Messiah (note the Roman Catholic Church did not change their belief in this calumny against the Jews until 1965!). The target of the parable is certainly only “some chief priests and Pharisees” (Mt.22:45). I continue to find this parable hardly worthy of Matthew’s Gospel, however much I can at least vaguely see what its general intent may have been.