GOSPEL MEDITATION # 12
Parable of the Two Sons and the Wedding Feast
Matthew 21:28-31 & Matthew 22:1-14
- Find a quiet place without distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- From memory, determine the central points.
- The audience for the Two Sons parable are the religious leaders who rejected John the Baptist, who did not cater to their ideals. However, the worst of the worst, the tax collectors and prostitutes, did.
- So the parable of the Two Sons: one said he would not go to the work but did, the other said he would but did not. The ‘losers’ embraced John’s testimony about Jesus while the chief priests and elders did not. Jesus is not scolding as much as reaching out to these leaders.
- Then a king gave a wedding feast for his son. Is Jesus making a comparison with a king of that era and His being a Son of the King?
- The king sends his servants out to invite people to the feast but none of these would come. So the king sent others out who let it be known how wonderful the feast would be.Yet again, no one came to the feast. They even treated these servants badly, killing some of them. But the king did not give up.
- Now the king gives fresh orders to his servants. He has them go out broadly, not to the usual places, but to the roads and invited everyone, both good and bad. Soon the wedding hall was filled.
- The king came into the wedding hall to see the guests. Doing so he found one of these who did not have on a wedding garment. It was common for the host of the wedding, in this case the king, to supply wedding garments for the guests as these would be costly and few if any would have such.
- The king now asks the improperly dressed person how he got into the wedding feast in the first place. This person was “speechless.”
- The king’s servants were then ordered to cast the person out, and into the “outer darkness” where here would be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This two phrases meant the casting into hell and away from the presence of God to people of that era.
- Jesus concludes the parable with, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Though the religious leaders were called, not all of them, few of them, were chosen, thus reflecting on their rejection of John.