God's invitation - a sermon on Matthew 22:1-14

We have moved on in our sermon series from the book of James to the parables Jesus told towards the end of Matthew's gospel.  We have been focusing this year on the theme of discipleship, and yet it seems to me that we often fail to put our discipleship within an eschatological framework. Jesus' simple yet powerful parables act as a necessary corrective, and force us to address an issue so often swept under the carpet - that of His return as judge and Lord. So here is a recent sermon on God's invitation which tries to take seriously both the need for faith and a converted lifestyle...

I'd like you to think for a moment about the most special invitation you ever received. Has anyone here ever been invited to Buckingham Palace? Or to attend the premiere of a film? Would anyone like to share the most special invitation they have ever received?

So how did you feel when you received that invitation? Honoured, proud, maybe a little bit nervous? Did anyone simply chuck it in the bin or say, "Sorry, it's on a Saturday and I really must catch up on Strictly"? Of course not. You cancelled dates in the diary, you made an appointment with the hairdresser, and most importantly of all you replied to those little letters RSVP. From that point on, you spent the next few months looking forward to that event, planning, preparing, even lying awake at night thinking what it was going to be like.

I want to think about this whole theme of invitation as we come to our reading from Matthew's gospel this morning. It is the story of a king who, as we read in verse 1, has prepared a wedding banquet for his son. Who is this king? On one level the king is the sort of political leader the crowds hearing this story would have been very familiar with – petty tyrants who get upset and are quite happy to burn down cities when their will is refused. That was what politicians were like in those days.

But on another level the king in the story stands for none other than God Himself. We know this because on many occasions Jesus talked about life in God's kingdom as a feast, a banquet, a party. Indeed Jesus Himself often spent time in people's home sharing food and drink, talking and laughing and telling those stories that would later be written down as great pearls of wisdom called parables. 

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