One of the most stressful events that occur on earth...

At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled “The Kingdom of Heaven is…” During this series, we are spending our time together looking at a series of statements that Jesus made that are recorded for us in an account of His life that has been preserved in the New Testament of the Bible, called the gospel of Matthew. 

During this series, we are discovering how Jesus described the kingdom of Heaven. During this series, we are discovering how one enters into the Kingdom of Heaven. During this series we are discovering how one should live as part of the kingdom of Heaven. And as we go through this series, our hope and our prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit, in our heads, hearts, and hands in such a way that we would live lives that reveal and bring the light and love of the kingdom of Heaven into the areas of influence we have been given.  

This week I would like for us to spend our time together by talking about one of the most stressful events that occur on earth. And that stressful event is a wedding. Weddings can be incredibly stressful events. In a marriage, you are merging two separate lives together into one covenant relationship.

And if the changes and adjustments that happen during that process aren’t stressful enough, there is all of the planning and preparation that goes into a wedding. First, you have to find someone who is willing to marry you. Then you have to set the date. Then you have to figure out where you want to have the wedding. Then you have to decide what kind of reception you are going to have.

But even when you come to a place where you have agreed on all of those decisions, there are still two major decisions that are potentially explosive and yet cannot be avoided. The first decision involves how many people will be in the wedding party. How many bridesmaids and groomsmen will there be? Will it be just your closest friends, or just family, or a combination? What if there are too many bridesmaids and not enough groomsmen? Who are you going to leave out and end up offending?

And if the decision on your bridal party is not difficult enough, then there is the decision about who to invite to the wedding. Do you want a small wedding or a large wedding? Is the wedding just for close family or are you inviting the entire town? If you have been involved in this process, either as the bride and groom or as a friend helping with the process, you can relate to what I am talking about, especially if you are trying to have a small wedding.

As a couple, you sit down and begins to make the invitation list. And as you begin to put your list together, you watch the list grow and grow and grow. And the conversation usually starts to sound a lot like this; “well if you invite John, aren’t you going to have to invite everyone else from work?  If we are going to invite your great aunt from your mom’s second cousin, then we have to invite my sister’s cousin’s great uncle”. Sound familiar? So the couple, often with lots of feedback from many sources, makes out their list and the sends out the invitations.

But the stress is not over when it comes to the invitations, is it? No, because you still need to wait to see who RSVP’s. And inevitably, there are several people who do not respond. So you wait, and you wait. And what are the greatest fears and frustrations?

One potential fear and frustration is that you will not adequately prepare for the wedding and end up with more guests than you have room or food. On the other hand, there is the fear and frustration that you will plan for the wedding and the reception and have a large group of people who said that they were going to show up then fail to show up.

We know that can be the case because we have all been on the other end of the invitation, haven’t we? We all have been in that place where we receive a wedding invitation from that distant friend or relative that we have not seen or talked to in years. And then we have that discussion “Should we go, or should we just send a gift?” And as you ask that question, you are hoping that your spouse says no, because deep down you really don’t want to go.

You see, there are always decisions that need to be made when it comes to invitations. There are decisions that are made on who receive an invitation; and there are decisions that are made on how we respond to invitations. And when it comes to invitations, the decisions that are made can have a profound impact on future relationships.

We have all experienced the damage that is done to a relationship when someone is not invited to a wedding or other function. And we have all experienced that damage that is done to a relationship when someone rejects an invitation, especially after they had earlier committed to attend. And as we continue in this series, we see Jesus tell a parable about a wedding invitation that reveals for us a timeless truth about the kingdom of heaven. We find this parable in Matthew 22:1-3:

  

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, ² "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. ³ "And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come.

Matthew brings us into this section of his account of Jesus life as Jesus is in the middle of a conversation with the chief priests and the Pharisees. Conversation is probably too nice a word; confrontation is probably more accurate. The chief priests and the Pharisees were the religious people of Jesus day; these were the people who had their lists of what they thought you needed to for God in order to be right with God that had nothing to do with actually being in relationship with God.

Lists like you should only sing hymns, that the Old King James is the only accurate translation of the Bible, you need to wear a shirt and tie to church, especially if you are the pastor, and there should be no dancing or drinking, those kinds of lists. These are the people who will try to force you to follow their lists and if you did not follow their lists, then you were not as spiritual as they are.

You see, there have always been religious people, and it is the religious people that make it most difficult for people to actually enter into a relationship with God. And these religious people did not like Jesus, because Jesus broke all their rules. Jesus didn’t wear the right clothes; He didn’t use the right translation of the Bible; He actually had the nerve to heal hurting people on a church day. He actually cared more about bringing people into an encounter with God than He did about following their man-made rules.

And it is in the midst of this confrontation with religious people that Jesus told a parable that compared the kingdom of heaven to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. As we have talked about throughout this series, a parable is an earthly story that is designed to reveal a deeper spiritual truth.

Jesus explained that the king sent out slaves to call all of those who were invited to the wedding feast. Now in the Jewish culture of Jesus day, during a wedding, the bridegroom would come to pick up the bride at her parents’ house, where the wedding feast would begin with a meal.

So what would happen in Jesus day was that a wedding invitation would be sent to inform those invited of the impending wedding. Then as the bridegroom began his journey to pick up his bride, the family would send slaves to inform those who have already been invited and who had already accepted the invitation that the time for the wedding feast had come. In this particular case, however, Jesus continued by stating that those who were invited had changed their mind and were unwilling to come.

Tomorrow we will see Jesus continue the parable by revealing how the king responded to their change of mind…