I have often pointed out that Jesus’ answer to the question about taxes suggests four options that are useful in grasping the nature of the states authority and the rightful limits of a Christians compliance with it. These options are: 1) God alone as an authority with the authority of Caesar denied, 2) Caesar alone as an authority with the authority of God denied, 3) the authority of both God and Caesar but with Caesar in the dominant position, and 4) the authority of God and Caesar but with God in the dominant position.
The die is cast. Jesus has broken with Judaism, and the authorities are seeking for a way to get rid of him. They can't just kill him, however; that would be murder. They have to catch him in a teaching they can construe as blasphemy, which was a capital offense. Or, at the very least, they have to discredit him before the people. This is what lies behind the three attempts to trap Jesus that we find in Matthew 22. They are expressed as questions: 1) Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?; 2) How can rational persons believe in a physical resurrection?; and 3) What is the greatest commandment?
At this point the parable seems to be over. But it is not, and I am glad, because the Lord goes on to give a much needed warning in the account of the man who came to the feast without a wedding garment. I say it is needed because there is sometimes a kind of inverse pride found in the disadvantaged which imagines that, because they are not rich or famous or powerful but poor and unknown and weak, therefore, they deserve the king’s bounty and can come before him in their own character and on the basis of their own “good” works. Jesus exposed that error by showing how the man who came to the feast without a wedding garment was immediately confronted by the king and then thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (v.13).
Half the parable (Matthew 22:1-7) is about those who despised the king and would not come to the banquet. But there is a second half (vv. 8-14), which tells of those who did come. The king said, “Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find (v.9). In Luke that is elaborated to show how these persons were drawn from the lower ranks of life. Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame… Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full (Luke 14:21-23).
Today we continue our discussion of the parable of the wedding banquet. We are looking first at the responses of those who were invited. Some who are invited to the gospel banquet do not openly express their hatred of the one who gives it, but they make excuses. The first said that he had just bought a field, and had to inspect it. The second said that he had just bought five yoke of oxen and was on his way to try them out. The third had perhaps the most perplexing excuse: “I just got married, so I can't come” (Luke 14:18-20).
