Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

After the par­able in Mat­thew 21:33–43, the chief priests and the scribes real­ized Jesus was refer­ring to them. Their plan to have him arres­ted was hal­ted by fear of the people, who retained Jesus to be a true proph­et of God (cf. Matt 21:45–46). In Mat­thew 22:1–14, priests, Phar­isees, scribes and eld­ers remain the recip­i­ents of the par­able of the wed­ding gar­ment. In order to under­stand the true nature of the king­dom of God, people must over­look the teach­ings of the Jew­ish author­ity, and con­cen­trate on Jesus’ par­ables, the king­dom par­ables as they are called. The king­dom of God must be com­pared with the par­able of the two sons; the par­able of the landown­er; and the par­able of the mar­riage feast.

Demystifying the parable

The image of a king who pre­pares a wed­ding ban­quet for his son, expresses the hap­pi­ness, love and care of the fath­er. As in the par­ables of the two sons and the landown­er, the king is also God. The ban­quet is the king­dom of God. Although some retain that the son is Jesus Christ, but it is prefer­able to under­stand the son as rep­res­ent­ing all men and women cre­ated in the image and like­ness of God (cf. Gen 1:26–27). The ser­vants sent to call those invited are the mes­sen­gers of God (the proph­ets, John the Baptist and the Apostles) who con­stantly reminded the people of their sin and urged them to repent of their mis­con­ducts. Again, the son could also be Jesus who was sent by Fath­er, and but was unjustly accused, con­demned and cru­ci­fied. Those invited to the mar­riage feast but who refused to come are the Jews, their lead­ers (Priests, Scribes, Phar­isees and the eld­ers), and who could not recog­nize Jesus as the mes­si­ah. The destruc­tion of the Temple in AD 70, implied the destruc­tion of Jer­u­s­alem. This is the city that was des­troyed by the king. And those who still think that way today, are equally wrong. Being a Priest or an eld­er means serving oth­ers oth­er­wise, it is com­pletely use­less and a bur­den to the people. 

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vol. I)!! The reflec­tion for the 28^th Sunday is found on pages 478–487. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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