Matthew 22:1-14

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

The verse at the end of today’s Gospel is a difficult one to understand.  Our Lord says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  What does that mean?  To begin with, it clearly means that a relatively small number, only a minority of people are saved and enter into eternal life.  Jesus says the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount: “Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

One of the most difficult questions in theology is this: why are some saved and not others?  We were just discussing this in Bible class last Sunday.  If God’s grace is for everyone (and it is), and we’re saved by His choosing and His grace alone as Scripture teaches, why is it that only few end up entering into eternal life?  Some try to resolve this problem by saying flat out that God predestines some to heaven and He predestines others to hell.  But that would make God the reason that people are damned and separated from Him.  That’s clearly not Scriptural.  Others say that the reason a person goes to heaven or to hell is because of their choices.  Those who are saved made a decision for Jesus.  But that’s not right either.  Jesus says in John 15, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.”  It’s His commitment to us that saves us, not the other way around.  The Bible teaches that if a person is saved, it’s entirely God’s working in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.  All glory and credit for the fact that you’re a Christian belongs to Him.  And if a person is condemned to hell, it’s entirely because of their working, their stubborn rebellion against God, their refusal to listen to His Word.  All the blame belongs to man.

Though this may be beyond our full comprehension, one thing is clear from Scripture: God has prepared salvation for all; “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him may not perish but have everlasting life.”  We see even in today’s Gospel that in the end the invitation basically goes out to everyone.  It is written, “those servants went out . . . and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good.”

Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who prepared a great feast in honor of the wedding of His Son.  Jesus Christ and His bride, the church, are to be joined in a holy and divine marriage, the only marriage that will last into eternity.  Earthly marriage vows are always made with the statement, “until death parts us.”  But not even death can separate Christ from His beloved church, His chosen people.

In fact it was by death that the “engagement” took place, you might say.  Only by the cross of Christ was this marriage made possible.  Jesus came to a world doomed to be destroyed; He came to people condemned to eternal death, and He rescued them.  He took the sins of all people on Himself, everything in us which causes hurt and lust and jealousy and death, and He overcame it all for us in His death and resurrection.  That act of limitless love is the reason for this wedding feast.  It is finished; it is done; it’s time to celebrate.  God says, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatted cattle are killed, and all things are now ready.”

The Lord offers salvation to all mankind.  “The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.  Go therefore to the highways and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.”  Those who were not worthy were the Jews who rejected Jesus as the Messiah.  Time and again our Lord and His disciples proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God.  Many were called but few gladly received the Word and believed it.  Now the Gospel invitation continues to go out to the ends of the earth, even to far away Gentile lands like the United States.  The Gospel is able to save all who hear it, as Saint Paul says in Romans chapter one: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

God’s call to salvation is a serious and urgent call.  The king in Jesus’ parable sent the first delegation to invite the guests to come. He sent a second delegation, and made the invitation even more pressing.  “But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them.”  The king became furious and sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city.  It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been warned.  It is written in Ezekiel, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from evil his way and live.”  2 Peter says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”  1 Timothy says, “God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

There is no way that God is the reason why those who refuse the call of grace are condemned. The reason lies in fallen human beings.  As it was in the Gospel, people still too often prefer the profits and pleasures and people of this world over the wedding feast.  Some even go so far as to show open hostility toward Christ and His servants.

There was one who showed an outward compliance to the call of grace, but he did not come to the feast rightly.  When the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.  And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.

These words, I think, are especially for us who are here at divine service today, and who might therefore be tempted to be proud of who we are spiritually.  The man without the wedding garment stands for all those who come before God not trusting in Christ but wearing the filthy rags of their own supposed righteousness.  Those who despise God and show their contempt for Him by clothing themselves in their own goodness will find themselves bounced into outer darkness forever, where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This is an entirely unnecessary outcome.  For God freely supplies the clothing.  He covers us with the perfection of His Son. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”  God clothes us with Christ in our baptism.  He wraps us up in His righteousness.  Christ is our white wedding garment, his seamless and spotless robe is our covering.  Jesus’ death is yours.  Jesus’ life is yours.  His perfect keeping of the Law is yours.  God gives it all to you for free in Holy Baptism.  Better than any expensive clothing, we have the apparel of Christ. And we dare not come to the Lord’s feast dressed in anything less than that.  To do otherwise is to reject His rich grace and His kingly love.

So if someone is cast into the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, it is their own fault, not God’s fault.  They have rejected the call of grace.  On the other hand, those who are saved take no credit for their salvation.  Those invited and chosen were no better than the others were.  They were unfit to dine at the king’s table and needed a wedding garment.  They did nothing to help plan the banquet, much less to prepare the feast.  They did not invite themselves or make some conscious choice.  They were simply drawn in by the power of the invitation and the joy of what had been prepared for them.  There is no merit or worthiness that these guests could boast of.  That’s how it is in the kingdom of heaven.  It’s solely the mercy of the host that gives us our place at the table.

Those who are saved are saved by God’s grace alone, unassisted and unmerited by man.  It is written that even before the creation of the earth, God had planned the salvation of man.  Saint Paul proclaims in Ephesians 1: “God chose us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

God is the prime mover who makes us alive in Christ, who gives hearts of faith by His Holy Spirit.  It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. That’s tremendously comforting news; for it means that our salvation is not founded on the shifting sands of our actions and our choices, but on the solid rock of His actions and His choosing of us, even before we could do anything.

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”  We are reminded by these words to be on guard that we do not resist God’s grace and frustrate His merciful designs.  Let us, rather, pay attention to the wedding feast by believing in and clinging to Christ and His Word, by heeding His invitation to come to the feast at the altar, the Supper of His body and blood.  The one who is worthy is the one who has faith in these words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”  By that Word of grace, we then go out into the world to live as His children, loving and serving our neighbor wherever God puts us.  “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  Thanks be to God that He has chosen you to be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit âœ