Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
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This parable is based on the social protocols practiced among elites.
Note that in verse 3, the slaves go to "those who had been invited." That is, when the King first set the date of his sons wedding banquet, he sent out a notice to all the right people; the A List people he needed to attend in order to make sure his son's wedding was THE social event he needed it to be in order to ensure the King's own social standing, his own honour status.
Sending out a first notice like this, allows the invited guests to check around and see who else has been invited. If the right people have been invited and will be attending, they will also attend. And if the "right" people are not attending?
Well, the flimsy excuses offered are exactly that, flimsy excuses that the King would easily see through and understand were meant as insults to him, his son, and their social standing.
The result, in verse 7, is an assertion by the King that he is not to be treated so scandalously.
Note: It is dead wrong, and a total mis-use of this parable, to interpret this as Jesus meaning "Jews" refused the invitation. The invited guests are the elites - the religious leaders and secular rulers - and not all Jews. It is precisely Jesus' non-elite Jewish followers who would understand that it is THEY who now get into the banquet.
The King now totally disrupts all social protocol and invites street people into the banquet - both good and bad.
And yet the invitation is not a free for all. The King would have supplied the guests with proper wedding attire. And the one found not wearing a wedding robe would be insulting the King by not accepting his hospitality. His fate is the same as the elites.
Let's face it, verse 14 is a non sequitur that makes no sense whatsoever as a conclusion to the story where many non-elites have been invited and only one has been rejected. Many have been invited and all but one have been chosen, would be a more fitting conclusion.
How is this a parable teaching about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like? What sort of behaviours and attitudes does it call for now? At a minimum it means: expect to have to hang out with non-elites - good and bad all together; take seriously the honour of the invitation and do it right.
David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca
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