¹ Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

⁴ “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

⁵ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹ So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

¹¹ “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ¹² He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

¹³ “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

¹⁴ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Dear God, this is such a peculiar parable. Frankly, it is clicking along nicely, lining up with the previous parable about the tenants pretty well, until we get to verse 11. Every time I have ever read this parable I have wondered where the man in verse 11 would have gotten wedding clothes. If you invite everyone, then the odds are that some are not going to have the right thing to wear. But you are making a point here—the New Covenant is radical, but it still has standards. One must at least make an attempt to do the right thing. I think the last words of verse 12 are the key: “The man was speechless.” He was either too scared to speak or he didn’t have an answer. Since this is a parable and not a real story, I’m going to assume Jesus was making the point that he didn’t have a good answer.

The irony of this story told by Jesus this particular week is that none of us have wedding clothes for this feast. We are all dressed in clothes provided by Jesus’ actions the very week he told this story. I am sitting and typing this on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter. When I woke up this morning I thought about the darkness of this day. I am about to go on a bike ride with my dad down one of the prettiest county roads in Texas, fully alive in wildflowers. But the thought still haunts me that this is a dark day because of the wedding clothes that I now wear.

Father, thank you for providing for my participation in the banquet. Thank you for letting me join the feast. I knew I wasn’t dressed and accepted your gift of fine clothes. I pray that you will help me to help others do the same. I don’t know how far your grace extends (who on this planet could possibly understand your grace?), but I know that there is a peace that comes with your clothes that everyone needs. Use me how you will to invite more people in.