Some scripture for today

Matthew 22:1-14:

And again Jesus spoke to them [the chief priests and elders] in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, 'Tell those those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.' But they paid not attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ' The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.' And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

"But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless. Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are called, but few are chosen."

Quite honestly, this is one of those sections that gives me trouble, partially because it's easier to understand within the larger context of the preceding and succeeding chapters, and partially because there are some things that require a greater knowledge of the scriptures to know God's promises to His people, the Israelites. For example, the man who had no wedding garments--what the heck is that? The Bible holds a few possible answers, including Ezekiel 16:10-13:

I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty.

But what I think Jesus is referring to is the idea, repeated many times throughout the Scriptures, that righteousness does not come from our actions or from us in any way. It only comes from God, through His grace. The men Jesus was talking to were men who would have considered themselves very righteous--they had, after all, dedicated their lives to God's law, to interpreting it and following it, and exhorting the people of Israel to the same. Yet Jesus compared them both to murderous and insulting men invited to a feast, and then again to a man who comes to the feast but is cast out for being unworthy in manner of dress.

I've actually heard this used as an argument for why we're supposed to put on our Sunday finest every time we go to church, but to put it lightly, I think that's extremely short-sighted. Jesus says in the story that everyone found on the main roads "both bad and good" were brought in to the feast. This is neither a wholesale rejection of the Jewish people as God's own, nor is it a claim that you can still be an evil person yet be accepted into heaven. What it is, is Jesus saying that the elect, the few who are chosen, are not chosen because of how righteous they try to make themselves, but by how much they recognize their own unrighteousness and seek to be clothed in holiness through the grace of God. Through running after the law the Jewish people had found nothing but condemnation, but Jesus came to offer an invitation to God's great wedding feast. In the religious leaders, however, Jesus found men who would sooner reject God's great feast than give up any claim to the righteousness they believed they had achieved for themselves.