The Invitation Goes Everywhere

Transcript

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[0:00] All right, so we're switching things around a little bit here. Victoria is going out to teach Sunday school, and so there's Sunday school today, don't forget. So kids can go on out to Sunday school. That actually started about six minutes ago, but that's okay. Just get on out there, kids. Get on to the Sunday school link. And our reading is, our first reading is Philippians chapter 4, verses 1 through 9. Philippians 4, 1 through 9. It's printed in your bulletin. Let's read.

[0:30] Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel. Together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the Bible, and the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

[1:26] Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

[1:56] Well, let's go to the sermon and our reading. Our reading today is from Matthew chapter 22 verses 1 through 14. It's known as the parable of the banquet or the parable of the feast. You could also call it the parable of the invited guests who didn't come. There's a lot of names for it. So that's our reading today. And so we have a parable. One thing that we want to do is we're going to look a little bit in our introduction before we even read, to sort of talk about parables, how they work, what they do.

[2:27] And so one important thing to remember when you're reading a parable is to ask yourself, what context is it in? Where does it occur in the Bible? At what point in Jesus's ministry is it taking place? And so for this particular parable that we're looking at today, it's in the tail end of Matthew, right? It's Matthew 22. So this is during the week of Holy Week, the week of the Passion. Just a few days before this, Jesus had entered into Jerusalem with sort of a parade. People were very expectant that he was going to come and do some really great things there. A lot of, you know, Palm Sunday, all that excitement was there. Then he goes to the temple. He overthrows some tables. That caused a bit of some waves, kind of went out from that event where people were like, that's, this is a challenge sort of to the religious leaders, the people who ran the temple. That was a source of income for them. If you want to make people mad, you mess with their religion or you mess with their source of income or you do both and you will, it's like stirring up a hornet's nest. They'll come flying out. So this is what Jesus has done and now he is preaching in the courtyard outside the temple.

[3:42] And so the religious leaders, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, some of the people higher up, are kind of saying to the self, what is going on here? Who is he? Should we be paying attention to this? What should our response be? Are we going to lose some power? Can we co-opt him onto our side? They go out, they try to kick the tires, figure out who is he? They ask him a lot of questions. They challenge him and he challenges back. And so Jesus is in a confrontational stage of his ministry where he's actually calling the people who are the religious leaders of their time to account for their corruption. And there was corruption. So that's the context is he's telling a parable in the midst of a contentious moment. And so as we'll see, it's a contentious parable. It's a pointed parable and it points directly at some people and it makes them very upset. Okay, so that's our context. The other thing we want to remember about parables, generally speaking, although it's less true of this parable, is that they tend to be subversive in a good way. Normally we think of subversiveness as being a bad thing, but Jesus uses subversiveness in a good way all the time. He plants seeds with things like parables and those seeds go under the surface and they kind of germinate

[4:58] within a parable. And then they get stuck in another person's heart and eventually they sprout up into this new living plant and this new life comes out of it. And so and the reason is because a parable, it's a little opaque. You don't know exactly what it means when it's being said, you don't know everything that's going on. And so people will go, oh, I wonder what that means.

[5:22] And then they'll go about their business and they'll do whatever else they need to. They'll stop at Costco on the way home, you know, and they'll do all their other chores. And then later that night at 11 p.m. as they're about to fall asleep, they'll go, I'm still wondering what that means. And then the next day they'll say, I wonder what that meant. And so there's this power that parables have of conveying a truth in a more slow fashion, but also a more effective fashion because you can't dismiss it out of hand right away. And also because the work you do on it is your own work. And you've invested some mental energy into it. And so when that truth does emerge, then it's a more powerful truth. So parables are great, right? And some of them, as we see in Scripture, are fairly opaque. We're not sure exactly what they mean. And those are great ones, really, because there's a little bit of mystery there. There's a little bit of anticipation, and you can let those sink in. There are other parables, and let's be honest, that are pretty clear what they mean. This is more on that end. Then there are some parables that Jesus himself interprets as kind of a sort of a master class in how parables work. So that you can go, oh, okay, that's what we're supposed to do with them.

[6:30] So there's all varieties of parables. And this one, as I said, is one that's a bit more what I would call on the nose. It's a little more clear what's going on, but still there's some symbolism in there that can be unpacked a day later, a week later, a month later. They're powerful things.

[6:46] Okay, so one thing to remember about parables is just give them space in your brain to work. And so I'm going to ask you even when, you know, I'm not going to ask, you know, I'm not going to ask you about it in the future, but even a week from now, I'm going to ask you to reflect back on this and go, what else can I glean from that? What else is the parable? You know, a couple weeks ago, we talked about the power of God's word. It keeps, it's like the rain that waters the earth, and it kind of always returns, and it does what God wants. Parables are like that in a very kind of real sense. They keep working even after they've been spoken. So it's really great.

[7:20] One thing you're going to hear, and you know what? I'm going to ask you, Nathan, to go over there and bring up the very next scene, because actually we're going to do something interactive today. And as I read this text, you're going to see it. So there it is. And it's super small. So, you know, if you're watching on your cell phone, you're out of luck. But if you're watching on your 96-inch HD TV with 8K resolution, you're in great shape. So you should give that a try. Otherwise, just look, you know, look at your bulletin or look in your own Bible. You might even have a Bible in your house somewhere that you could kind of pull out right now. Go for it, you know. So, but we're going to read that together in just a minute. And we're also going to interact together with the chat log. I'm going to be asking you a question. I'm going to ask you to type in your answers. And we're going to work on this parable together. That's kind of fun, sort of interactive, you know, cool thing that we can do. Since you're not here, otherwise I would just ask you directly, okay?

[8:11] There's some people that I'm going to ask you to unpack with me. Some people in this parable, there's a king, there's a son, there are servants that are messengers. There are people who are invited first. There are people who are invited later. And then there's a person who's not wearing the right clothing. So we're going to ask ourselves, who are these people? So be, sort of keep that in your mind, be paying attention.

[8:33] And then ask yourself who those people are and what this means. And what is this feast? What is this banquet? What is the town? What is the place where people are looked for? Those are a lot of questions I know. Just kind of keep them in the back of your mind as we read. And I want to make a special note right now. And just so you know, our text today is from the NRSV, the New Revised Standard Version. And it has the word slave in it. Now, other translations would render that word servant. So like the NIV might use that, do that as servant. And that's a choice that the translators make. It's not arbitrary, but there's some really important reasons why they might do slave or servant. Underneath it is the same Greek word. That word is doulos. And it has actually a sort of a spectrum of meanings, a wide range of meanings. On one end, it really does mean slave. Like somebody, you go to a market and you buy that person. They're your property. And we're going to talk about that. We abhor this idea, absolutely. But it did exist in the time of Jesus. And so they use words to describe people who are slaves. On the other end, here you might have somebody who's actually just a servant. And you pay them money and they don't live in your house.

[9:39] They live in somebody else's house. It's just your servant. And somewhere in the middle is in the actuality, as we know in the history of the world, and probably still happening today, there's an indentured servant, which is somebody who owes you or somebody else a debt. And they're working it off for a set amount of time. And are they a servant or are they a slave? Well, they're a little bit of both. But so there's a wide range, even in Greek, when you see the word doulos. And this is often the case with Greek words in the New Testament, is they carry a lot of freight.

[10:11] English has 300,000 or 500,000 words in it, or maybe a million words in it, depending on how you count. Greek, Koine Greek, the language that the New Testament was written in, has fewer than 100,000 words in it altogether. Maybe fewer than 50,000. And so one word has to carry the freight of meaning for several concepts. And how do you figure out which one to translate? Well, you look at the context that it was in. You look at who's speaking it, those kinds of things. So that's a side note. So when we read this, I may read slave, I may read servant. The point, though, the important meaning here is that these are people who faithfully and reliably do what their master asks them to do. So that's how we would kind of maybe think of that. And not get caught up on whether it's a slave or a servant. But they're a faithful person who does what they're asked to do, which is kind of a good idea for all of us. So with that, let's go to our reading. It's Matthew 22. You can follow along on the screen. And here's how it goes. Chapter 22, verse 1.

[11:14] Once more, Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves. Or servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again, he sent other slaves, saying, Tell those who have been invited, look, I've prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered. Everything is ready.

[11:43] Come to the wedding banquet. But they made light of it and went away. One to his farm, another to his business. While the rest seized. The slaves mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves or servants, the wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet. Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found both good and bad.

[12:28] So the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe. And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. Let's pray.

[13:02] Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. And we ask that you add your blessing to it. In Jesus name. Amen. All right, now for the fun exercise and get your keyboards ready to type some things in here. I'm going to walk over here and get my tablet that I can follow along the chat log. I'll be right back.

[13:29] Okay, Victoria was using this for prayer time. So, all right. Yes, thank you, Natalie. See, Natalie was able to type Greek letters into the chat log. That's very impressive. Well done. Okay, so yeah, doulos.

[13:48] Here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I want us to work on this together, to start unwrapping this package. It's like a gift. It's a gift for us, right? And I'm going to ask you to put in the chat log who you think, you know, this various people are in this story that is comparable to the kingdom. Jesus says this is comparable to the kingdom or the kingdom of God is like, and we're going to start easy. So even the, you know, the kids, if you're listening and you're not in Sunday school, start doing this. So what you want to do is put in the log, who is the king and just type king equal, whatever your answer is. Who is the king? Put that in the log.

[14:27] Oh, wow. Look at this. I'm going to read this. This is very nice from Georgia. In the Greek Orthodox wedding ceremony, the bridegroom and bride are referred to as slaves of the Lord, i.e. the slave of the Lord. Georgia is betrothed to the slave of the Lord, John. And that's how the apostle Paul speaks to. He says we are slaves of Christ or servants of Christ. And it just depends. But even slave kind of means, could mean more in that context. Like we belong to him in this really beautiful sense. Okay. So we have a few. King is God. So cool. Good. Daniel. Good. The king of God is the king equals God. Very good. Okay. That was easier. Now.

[15:04] Good. Jenny. King is God. Good. Now, little, it's getting more challenging. Who are the messengers or the servants or the slaves? Who are these people? It's just right. Servants equal. Servants equal your answer. Type that in there and we'll give you a second to do that because there's a bit of a delay. There's nine seconds as far as we know. So who are the messengers? Who are the servants? Who are the slaves? Who are the slaves? Who are the slaves? Who are the slaves? Who are the slaves? Who are the slaves? Who are the slaves? Who are the slaves? figured out a parable 100 percent okay because that's that's the work of the Spirit working in your heart okay but from all that we can tell yes these servants are probably the Old Testament prophets who made the invitation long ago calling God's people to righteousness to justice to enter into God's presence with holiness and the response was not you know not so servants equals apostles and prophets good yes servants equals evangelists yes because they're making the invitations prophets and evangelists has been good King is symbolic for God says Brian great okay good you guys are on this I love this interactive thing if you like it you know we'll keep doing it but well

[16:36] not every day not every Sunday but you know just for fun so who are the people invited first that's the next question who are the people invited first all right now we can go back to our text to say that you just write first equals whatever or are people don't like the equal key I haven't seen a single oh there's one equal key okay good job all right all right so what does it say in our parable right it just says call those who have been invited to the wedding banquet who are they servants are missionaries good messengers those extending invitations to the feast or to the salvation yes messengers might also be those who carry the invitation of the Lord prophets apostles and evangelists excellent good so Michael sent something in to the Lord and he said to the Lord I want you to remember for some end end end end end end end end and then being faithful and losing faith. And so in one way, it's possible that this parable is a way of Jesus saying, you know, if you reject this sort of gift that I'm giving you of being my chosen people, I'm going to give it to somebody else, and thus it would be to the Gentiles, right? So Jenny wrote, first equals God's chosen people. The Jewish people, says Christa, very good. The descendants of Abraham, Brian, Ben, says first equals Jewish leaders.

[18:14] And I'm going to tip my hand here. I'm going to give Ben sort of like one extra star on that one because he's paying attention to the context that we're in. Remember, you've got to pay attention to the context. So it could be about the Jews, but it could also be about the leaders of the Jews who they'd be the first to be invited to a banquet anyways because they're sort of the most important people in town. But they don't want to get on Jesus' bandwagon, right? They don't want to join this. And so. It could be the leaders, the religious leaders.

[18:47] Oh, let's see. Maybe also by extension, all of us who believe we have a place in God's kingdom but are not listening to his call. Pam, we're going to have you come preach next week because that is exactly, exactly it because you also have to put yourself into every parable. That's the interesting challenge of a parable is you could say, well, where am I in this parable? Am I the one that's been invited but I'm not faithful to respond? And so, yes, absolutely. It transcends its context and it comes forward into the present time. And so this parable, and you can imagine God saying to us, I'm asking you to come.

[19:25] But if you won't come, I'm going to ask somebody else. Like I'm not going to wait around all day every, you know, forever for you, but I will wait a long time. Good. Okay. Now, the fun part. There's two more fun parts and I'm going to say them now together so that you can kind of work on these. Who are the people invited last? I've kind of been hinting at that. So, right, last equals. And then who is the person wearing the wrong clothes? That's the ultra bonus question, right? Who is that person that was wearing the wrong clothes? Okay. Think about that. So, right, wrong equals the person who is that person and last equals, who are the invited people invited last?

[20:02] I'm loving all this interaction. Thank you for the Hebrew memorization thing was a flop, but I feel like this is already a huge success. So, I'm really happy. Okay. Let's see. Okay. Good. So, by extension, Danielle is totally on top of this. The last, if the first are invited are the Jews and the last people invited are the Gentiles, right? Exactly.

[20:31] Yeah. Yep. I think that's the other power of these parables is that several possible meanings make sense in the framework of the parable and to contemplate all of them is amazing. It's a valuable process. So, that's good. Let's see. I know a few more are coming in.

[20:52] The last people invited, Krista says all of those who hear God's invitation and turn to God. Right. So, the invitation is to everyone. So, the last ones invited are the ones who actually respond. The wrong person, Michael says, is the self-proclaimed Christians who do not actually believe or follow Jesus deep down inside. I like that answer. I like that. I think that's close. Yeah. I mean, no, it's good. It's good. He's sitting right here. So, he could have just called it out. Like, he's actually here. But, Jenny, last equals everybody else, people who the Jewish leaders think don't deserve it. Very good. Jenny, that's super good. These are great.

[21:29] And only one person thought, ventured to guess who the wrong, the person in the wrong clothes are. Michael knows where his equal sign is. Yes. Good. Good. It's on your keyboard. It's on there. All right. So. All right. So, person not wearing the robe, Pharisees. Maybe. Maybe. We're going to get into it. It's an interesting question because this is a person who came to the feast, but they're not wearing the right clothes. And we'll get into that. It's kind of a challenge. This is, like I said, the ultra bonus question. And I'm not going to say that I have the exact right answer. I have an idea as to what it is. Okay. Last equals all those who have been treated as other good by those who see themselves as included. That was Pam again. She's going to come back next week and preach for us. Then wrong clothes equals a spectator. That's really, that's good, Ben. Ben is super insightful today. Very good. Christopher. Why are there good and bad people brought in? We're going to talk about that. Christopher. Very good. Super good. You notice that I was hoping people would notice that this is an interesting parable, which brings up questions. Yes. Yes.

[22:36] Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to sit here all day watching for this to come in. So I'm going to start preaching now. Actually. But I want us to maybe take, but keep by all means, keep sending in things if you have to say them and I will, I will read them out. So I want us to maybe acknowledge that this is a tough parable because of some of the language inside of it. Did you catch some of that? So there's some judgment going on.

[23:03] Um, the people who didn't come, who were first invited, they suffer a pretty bad fate. I mean, there's some pretty militaristic language in here. Destruction. The king is going to send. His army is going to go to their town. He's going to destroy it. That's very uncomfortable. So let's be honest that this doesn't feel great. Okay. Um, then there's this person who was wearing the wrong clothes and they they're thrown out. Of the feast, which is an interesting concept. And what do we do with that? Because I thought maybe once you're in the feast, aren't you always in the feast? So what's the deal with that person? Why is he thrown out to a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth? It sounds bad. Right. And then the final word of this, uh, parable, which I hear quoted a lot. And I've heard quoted a lot all growing up in evangelical circles, which is many are called, but few are chosen. Right. And I'm going to, we're going to challenge that one today. We're going to revisit it. But I think that over the years, some Christians have taken that and sort of justified their idea that Christianity is this very small, exclusive club. Many are called. But few are chosen. Pat, pat, pat. And, and so then we have this nice small club and it was always going to be small.

[24:18] So we're not going to, you know, you really have to prove it to show that you want to join it. And that can get a little messed up. And even though this is translated correctly, I'm going to suggest, and this is not my thinking, but from the interpreters I've read that there's an alternate translation of that, that actually makes better sense of this parable and the context that we're in. Okay. So. I see a few more notes coming in here. Brian.

[24:44] It was customary for Kings to offer ropes to those attending a wedding feast. If we refuse to be clothed with Christ's righteousness, but rather depend on our own surface image, we will get kicked out. Brian, you're on top of it. That's good. Okay. So we're going to unpack this a little bit. Who are the people? And I think we don't need to, you know, we figure this out. The King is God, the Son, probably Jesus. But do you notice the Son didn't have a big role in this particular one? There's a parable right before this where the Son had a big role. The Son has a slightly larger role. The people who are invited first, but who reject the invitation could be the Jews. It could be the religious rulers that Jesus is disputing with in this context, because he's trying to really, in one way, he's trying to get himself killed because this is how, this is the final week of his life and he knows he needs to go to the cross. He's not trying to get himself killed, but he's there to be obedient to God and he's there to call people to account. And the religious leaders of his day had some real problems. And so this is maybe pointed directly at the religious leaders. In the parable just before this, it talks about how the religious leaders realized that he was telling that previous parable about them and it made them extremely angry.

[25:54] And so it's possible that this one's very similar to it. It was directed at the religious leaders of the time. I like also that those who are invited first but don't come is anyone, even in the current times. Who has seen this wonderful invitation from God and decided they had something better to do. Something more important to tend to. My business, my oxen, my, you know, whatever it is. My, you know, my Facebook Yahtzee club. You know, I just can't make time for all this other stuff. So that's also, there's a word to us is that we may be the ones that are invited. We've definitely been invited, but we treat it as not a big deal. And the invitation goes to somebody else. The people who are invited. Invited second or last are now strongly encouraged to come in. And who are they people? Well, for one question, I asked, where are they? There's a great word here in the Greek and it's missing in this translation. It's missing in almost all translations. It's the exodus. And that is a special road that exits the town. The NRSV puts it as a main road or a busy road, right? And that makes sense because the road that exits the town is a busy road. It's the one way out of town. But that's also the way out. It's also where beggars would sort of congregate.

[27:10] It's at the city gates, right? That's the place where the city meets the countryside. That's the place where the established wealth is versus the really poor rural areas, okay? And so the sense about where these people are who are being asked to come in is these are people with less privilege. These are people with less wealth. These are people with less honor in their day. They're outside the city or they're right between the edge of the country and the city. And this meeting place of two worlds, two cultures, two economic strata is right there at the de exodus. And that's so powerful that Jesus put that word in this parable. Go to the de exodus and invite those people because the first people I invited don't want to come.

[28:00] Now, one question is, so then the people who are invited second are people who live at the city gates. They're not the de exodus. The people who are found there, they're the people who have less. They are less in their culture. They are less.

[28:14] Now, the toughie, right? The super bonus question. Who is the one not in the proper clothes? I like Brian's answer. You know, we're clothed in righteousness by Jesus. But if we reject even that clothing and sort of sneak into heaven somehow or to the banquet, then there's no room for us there. I think there's also even a demonic side to this, right? There's this sort of sneakiness. There's this sense that we see the devil engage in. And you can't push parables too hard. But the sense is that this is an imposter. Somebody who's parading is somebody whom they're not. So it's almost like a thief. And when in the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about the good shepherd, the sheep know him and he knows the sheep. But the thief sneaks in, not by the door, but he climbs over the wall. And so I get this sense that Jesus, in this final feast, there's this sense that evil on a grand scale will be dealt with. And that the father of lies, the father of impostors will be cast out of this final feast. Are you nodding? Please nod so I feel good about myself. Yeah, good, yeah, all right, good. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. That's my interpretation. But I like the other interpretations too that were all good. And so let this one sort of sit with you.

[29:31] Who is this person that gets thrown out? Now, one thing, so I guess, you know, the sort of the good news is that heaven is a safe place. That the mistakes of the Garden of Eden can't be reproduced in heaven because there will be nobody there to trick or lie to any of us. We'll just be with God. So I said that this feels like a kind of a bad news parable. There's some language in here that is difficult, right? There's some people getting destroyed, towns getting destroyed, people getting thrown out, people getting killed. Losing their invitation is tough, right?

[30:09] And so let's acknowledge that. But I also want to give you a few reasons why I think this is actually a good news parable. There's some really good news in this parable. The first good news is that everyone's invited. Did you catch that? Like everyone is invited. Some people, yes, are invited first. But after that, everyone else is invited. And so the invitation is for everyone. And the kingdom of God, if we were to say the kingdom of God is like this, that everyone is invited to a feast, I would call that good news. I'm sure you would too.

[30:47] The other thing that I mentioned before is that at the very end it says many are called but few are chosen. And that feels a bit exclusive. It feels like we could create this tiny club just with us in it. But there's another way to translate, especially given the context. And if we look at it. In actuality, everyone is called. In this story and the way this parable works with its own internal logic, all are called. Everyone is called, right? Not all at the same time, but everyone is called. So that means nobody is outside the reach of God and nobody is outside of God's grace. So that's good news. And since all are called but not all respond, there's a better translation here. That I want us to hold on to. And it's a way to translate it that actually balances the sentence both sort of poetically but also I think theologically. And that would be to say that all are called but not all are chosen. Does that sound different to you than many are called but few are chosen? Because when you say many, it means that not, sounds like not everyone was called. But that's not true. All were called. Not all were chosen. And to me, that's more open. That's more kind of more correct. And like I said, this isn't my own idea.

[32:11] If you want to see the interpreters I've read who choose this way of translating it, come. I'll show them to you in my books. It's great. I don't claim that this was my own knowledge, but it makes sense because it makes sense to the parable. And it is true to the parable. Everyone was called but not all came in.

[32:29] And so one question we say is, is it not all are chosen? Is it few? Is it many? We don't know. And you could push the parable too hard if you tried to come up with a percentage. But the parable points to a huge feast, a generous king, one who invites the least. And it says the banquet is full with all the people who came. So it's a big, important feast that the king gives and it fills up with the people who respond. So all are called but not all are chosen because, and they're not chosen because of their own selection. They're chosen because they choose not to attend despite a wonderful invitation.

[33:08] So here's another reason why it's good news. I have all these reasons why it's a good news parable. Because it deals with the reality that some people don't want to be at the feast. All right. For whatever their reasons and that the messengers of this invitation have been mistreated over the years. So if you read the Old Testament, you see that the prophets absolutely were mistreated by people. They were. There's a whole list of all the ways they were killed. It's very sad. Right. So the messengers were mistreated. And the good news then is that despite the fact that this town got burned down, there's justice.

[33:43] In the face of injustice. God is ultimately somebody who cares about his servants and will in his own justice take care of them. And so that's good news. It's justice for the brokenness of the world, which is a sort of. I would call it a sort of good news. It's good news if you've received injustice. It's bad news if you've perpetrated injustice.

[34:07] Now, again, I'll say this. The location of the people who were invited second is a word of hope. The place where the road exits the town, the D-Exodus, is the place where beggars congregate, is the place where the marginalized live. So the banquet isn't just for all. But there's this special invitation to the least. And that's good news. Because in actuality, at some point in our lives, we are the least. And in actuality, at some points in our life, we might be the greatest. The goal for us then is to always be responding to the invitation. But it's good news when the least are invited. Because it's good news for everybody. Now, look at verse 10. Look at verse 10 on there. And Greg got all over it. And, or Christopher, sorry. Why are there good and bad people brought in? So look at verse 10. It reads this way. Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad. Wow. Okay.

[35:11] You noticed that. Christopher noticed that. I think some of you, the rest of you noticed it. The good and the bad are invited. Not just the good. This is grace. Okay. This is what grace looks like. It's not, you don't get into heaven because you're great. You get into heaven because you accept the invitation. And as Brian wrote, super good. As you enter that feast, you're given a new clothing of righteousness. You're given your wedding clothes. And it's beautiful. And so, you know, it doesn't say that they're still bad when they get into the feast. It says that the bad responded to the invitation and came to the banquet. And that's good news. That's good news. I mean, because if we're, if we're in heaven, we're going to be in heaven. If we're going to put ourselves in, in this parable, we're the bad. I don't know who these good people are. There's, I haven't met one of them. Maybe Christa's grandpa. I mean, he's, he's a saint, right? Beyond that, I'm not sure. And even we know that he's a sinner. So that Christ came into this world to save sinners of whom I am the worst, says the Apostle Paul. The good, there's a few of them. I'm not sure who they are, but the bad, that's all the rest of us. The door to this feast is open to the bad.

[36:24] And at the door, we receive this new life, this new hope, this new clothing. And it really doesn't depend on how good or bad we are as we come. It depends everything in this parable, at least on how we respond to the invitation. Okay. Finally, why is this? And two more reasons why this is a good news parable. The feast is a safe place, right? The one who sneaks in with the wrong clothes is sent out. Right? And so in my mind, this is the devil. It's the thief who climbs over the wall and does not come in by the gate. He's there on false pretenses. He's at the feast, but he's not there to celebrate the feast. He's not the right one to be there. And that person is sent out. And it makes the most sense if that's the devil, but it could be any, it could be, you know, somebody else who snuck in. Right? But it means that the feast is a safe place. Heaven says, you wouldn't have, you don't normally hear this, but heaven's a safe place. Great. Good. You know, in case you were wondering, it's a safe place. Now, the last reason this is good news is that the parable who this, the people who this parable are directed at, and I think it's the religious leaders who challenged Jesus, they needed a shakeup. Right? And on the face of that, that's good news that somebody did it to them.

[37:48] Right? And I think there'd be good news in our country now. If our religious leaders got appointed shakeup from some source, I think that would be great news. And if they came and spoke to me and pointed out all the ways I was a hypocrite, I would want, I would, I would, it would hurt like crazy, but I would want to hear it. And I think we need our prophets and we need our savior to come and point the finger just like Nathan does to David and say, you are the man, you are the one. This is good news that God cares about his people enough to confront them. And so it's good news that Jesus is confronting religious leaders who live in hypocrisy about all their greed because they're running the tables at the temple, their complicity with the Roman rulers, their self-righteousness, the Pharisees. It's difficult, right? Their legalism. So that somebody would come into our lives and give us a shakeup. That's good news. That's a good thing.

[38:44] So we're just about done. But hear this. All this is well and good. I hope you've understood. This parable a little bit better. I hope in a week, little pieces of it will keep working in your heart as it was designed to do. But I want to end on this note, the D Exodus. I've mentioned it twice already. I'm super excited about it. The place where the city street exits to the countryside, that intersection between two worlds, two cultures. That's where we need to be. That's where we. So if you really want to put yourself into this parable now, put yourself into the role of the servant or the slave as a slave of Christ. Like I said, the Apostle Paul says that you go out as an inviter to invite to the feast. And you don't just go to the people like you. You go to the D Exodus. You go to the place where the city meets the country. You go to the place where the beggars congregate and beg. This is where we need to be. We need to be with the poor. We need to be with the hurting. We need to be with the ones that the religious leaders of our time have discounted. And that's a huge swath of people, especially in our country. We need to implore them to come to the feast. We need to tell them how great the feast is. We need to walk outside the city and into the world and connect with brokenness there.

[40:01] Connect with brokenness and say, welcome to the feast that King is inviting you. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Make us your servants. Make us your slaves to go out into this world where the city meets the country. Where the hurting are congregated. And make your invitation to them. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.