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The Parable of the Wedding Banquet · The Grove Church

• 0:04
  Charlie Loften: The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big, deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Everyone, welcome to the Cultivate Podcast with The Grove Church.
• 0:38
  I'm Charlie Loften. I am the lead pastor there, and we are here with
• 0:43
  Abgail Boone: DJ Bagel. Love it.
• 0:45
  Charlie Loften: You're you're back. I would say that you are into a rhythm of the same two to three hats. Do you get like that, or is it just kind of a coincidence?
• 0:55
  Abgail Boone: I think it's whichever one happens to be in my bathroom at the time.
• 1:01
  Charlie Loften: So probably it's either that one or the Empower female
• 1:06
  Abgail Boone: Women coffee. Women coffee makers or whatever. Those seem to be the
• 1:10
  Charlie Loften: ones that I'm only seeing right now.
• 1:11
  Abgail Boone: That's fair. Yeah, it just happens to be what's in my bathroom. Also, since I moved, I know it's been quite a while now since I moved, but I wouldn't say that I have them all visible. And so, I probably have forgotten about some of the old
• 1:25
  Charlie Loften: classic start wearing a hat when we podcast.
• 1:27
  Abgail Boone: Yeah,
• 1:27
  Charlie Loften: man. But most people listen to it, so it wouldn't really matter as opposed to
• 1:31
  Abgail Boone: Some people see us. Okay. Worth it for the Do
• 1:34
  Charlie Loften: we know about Cassie, our our, like, our top two... One of our top two super fans? Sure. Do we know if she if she watches or listens?
• 1:41
  Abgail Boone: I actually don't know that.
• 1:43
  Charlie Loften: And by the way, turns out you're wrong. Hugh Jackman is a perfectly fine singer.
• 1:46
  Abgail Boone: No, he's not.
• 1:48
  Charlie Loften: She is the tie breaking vote. She's the tie breaking vote. Only other
• 1:52
  Abgail Boone: person Let me submit more.
• 1:53
  Charlie Loften: Well, if you want another vote, the only other person the only other person I'll accept at this point is our other super fan.
• 2:01
  Abgail Boone: My grandma.
• 2:01
  Charlie Loften: Your grandma.
• 2:02
  Abgail Boone: Well, she is a choir lady, so I'm sure she'll have a pretty Okay.
• 2:06
  Charlie Loften: Ask her. Talk to your grandma. Ask her what she thinks about Hugh Jackman as a singer, and then
• 2:13
  Abgail Boone: we'll figure who's right.
• 2:15
  Charlie Loften: Alright. So we are near the end here of the parables. Yes.
• 2:21
  Abgail Boone: We Long got waited. When we started this? Like, I don't know. But what would be your guess?
• 2:28
  Charlie Loften: Ten months? Wow.
• 2:29
  Abgail Boone: Maybe? I don't know. Okay. It's been a long time.
• 2:32
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Yep. But we got two more left.
• 2:35
  Abgail Boone: Okay.
• 2:35
  Charlie Loften: We're going to do a little wrap a sode
• 2:37
  Abgail Boone: A wrapisode? I don't know. I've never heard that
• 2:39
  Charlie Loften: before, All but I like right. And so, we are kind of in these, what we'll just kind of be the end times, apocalyptic isn't the right word, but these kind of eschatological end times, kind of life and death kind of parables. And this one right here, we're looking at the Parable of the Wedding Banquet, Matthew 22, is right after the one that we talked about with the bad tenants.
• 3:03
  Abgail Boone: That he sent his son.
• 3:04
  Charlie Loften: He just kept sending people, and they kept beating up his servants, and they finally killed the son. And then he comes in there as well. What owner's do you think going to do? He's going to come in hot. Right?
• 3:16
  And so this is right after that because, at least, you know, in the narrative, because in verse one twenty two, Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying.
• 3:26
  Abgail Boone: So it's in the same setting, seemingly.
• 3:28
  Charlie Loften: Well, yes, it's in the same the same sort of deal. Right? Okay? Jesus spoke to them again in parable, saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
• 3:45
  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. But they paid no attention and went off, one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.
• 4:04
  The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, the wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find. 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.
• 4:26
  But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, how did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend? The man was speechless. 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. For many are invited, but few are chosen.
• 4:49
  Abgail Boone: That was a whiplash story.
• 4:51
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Like, I'm tracking with that thing the whole time
• 4:53
  Abgail Boone: Mhmm.
• 4:54
  Charlie Loften: All the way up until the end.
• 4:56
  Abgail Boone: Well, I... This is kinda like gonna cancel each other out. Typically, every time you read some of these, maybe mostly at the end, I'm like, oh my gosh. And I'm like, oh, wait. It's a parable.
• 5:08
  This didn't really happen, but he's telling them things that are familiar to them. So this probably something like this, like burning down a whole city. That's crazy. Right? Like that's that's a bit much.
• 5:23
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. And the idea that you would invite your friends to your son's wedding and none of them would come. Yeah. At that point, it's already, like, there's usually an element of bizarreness to a parable. It's like, it is a normal thing, a normal event happening in a normal way, and then something really extraordinary happens that would never happen in real life.
• 5:47
  The king was bringing his servants before him to settle their debts. Very normal thing. And one of his servants owed him $10,000,000,000 And you're like, Well, that's a man has two sons, a younger son and an older son. And the younger son came to him and said, I want my inheritance now so I can take my money and get out of here. What?
• 6:14
  Abgail Boone: It's like the elephant walking through the room casually, but it's not really casual.
• 6:18
  Charlie Loften: Right, it's like it's very normal. A guy's having a wedding for his son, normal. None of his friends say they're coming. And so what does he do? He invites them again.
• 6:30
  It's time now, and not only are his closest friends and companions not coming, some of them are mistreating the servants or killing the servants invited Forget the king. And again, this is not some dude, It's their Well,
• 6:50
  Abgail Boone: someone that they're seemingly friends with.
• 6:52
  Charlie Loften: The king. Mhmm.
• 6:54
  Abgail Boone: Kinda like an M. Night Shalomon movie, where continual chaos breaks out.
• 7:00
  Charlie Loften: They paid no attention and went off, one to his field, another to his business, the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. That's crazy. The king sends an invite to you to come to the prince's wedding, and you kill the servant of the king that invites you. That's insane. Only, really, I feel like the king was enraged and sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city, that actually is just the first part of the story that makes sense.
• 7:30
  Like, I killed the servant of the king because he dared invite me to his son's wedding. What do you think that king's going to do? A little bit like, again, very similar to the parable we looked at a couple weeks ago with the parable of the wicked tenants. He asked them rhetorically, What do you think this landowner's going to do? He was going to come and he's going to destroy them and put in different tenants.
• 7:58
  That was a very normal response to an abnormal problem. In this situation, this is only what a king would do. You killed my servant for no reason, you're dishonoring me by not coming to my son's wedding, now you and your whole town are going to die. It's not a good thing, but it is a normal thing.
• 8:20
  Abgail Boone: Right reaction to. Typical
• 8:25
  Charlie Loften: reaction for a Kia.
• 8:27
  Abgail Boone: That's fair. Then, well, we can walk through it step by step. But at one point, whenever you said that sending them out to the streets, it kind of reminded me of the bank or the getting workers for his field, basically said a long time ago.
• 8:42
  Charlie Loften: Yeah.
• 8:42
  Abgail Boone: That's not the result. He's not as nice as that guy he doesn't
• 8:46
  Charlie Loften: see. He is. I've got this huge banquet prepared, and I want people to experience it. And so now he's going to his C and D level list of people that he wants at his son's wedding, and I go get them, I want people here. So, go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.
• 9:12
  Abgail Boone: Then he Let's humiliates the guy that's not dressed keep
• 9:17
  Charlie Loften: it right here for right now. So, the servants went out in the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good. And so they just kind of went freestyling out there into the world, and the only qualification you needed was
• 9:35
  Abgail Boone: You're standing here. Human. You are a
• 9:38
  Charlie Loften: human and I saw you.
• 9:39
  Abgail Boone: You crossed paths with me today.
• 9:41
  Charlie Loften: Right. I happened to see you. You are now invited to the wedding of the king. So let's just keep that. So at this point, I'm still good.
• 9:50
  Abgail Boone: Why does he say the bad as well? Is it like there's bad, like culturally
• 9:56
  Charlie Loften: bad Let's take it back. In this scenario, who is the king? The parable.
• 10:04
  Abgail Boone: Well, I would have assumed God, but He's really vicious at some points.
• 10:10
  Charlie Loften: God is, He's a little strong at some point, but I've read enough Old Testament stories to know that He's got that in him.
• 10:19
  Abgail Boone: Sure, that's
• 10:20
  Charlie Loften: And so, are the initially invited guests that turn him down and mistreat his servants?
• 10:29
  Abgail Boone: It's not really in the same category, but it makes me think of the parable that we talked a while ago, the people that are just unaware that they're, like, not... They're oblivious to what's right in front of them.
• 10:43
  Charlie Loften: Well, this is a little very similar again to the parable we just looked at a couple weeks ago, the people who were the first tenants of the garden. The people who God initially entrusted His vineyard to were the tenants, which would have been the Jews and the religious leaders. And that's who we are still talking about. So, you've got these people who were the initial, say it again?
• 11:09
  Abgail Boone: The chosen.
• 11:10
  Charlie Loften: The chosen ones, right? We've got these chosen ones. And when it came right down to it, hey, we're here now, and we're about to celebrate my son and his marriage. There's a lot of, Jesus uses this a lot, a lot of bride and groom metaphors to describe the relationship of Himself with the church. So we're now celebrating this wedding where my son is about to take on his bride, the church.
• 11:39
  Abgail Boone: So the first choice would have obviously been the chosen.
• 11:44
  Charlie Loften: Yeah, so that's who was come to first. And that who has for the last hundreds of years have been the ones who have gotten the first and primary invites. Hey, I'm this prophet. I'm going to send you this prophet. I'm going you this way.
• 12:04
  I'm going do this. And again, some of the prophets that God sent to the chosen ones were mistreated.
• 12:11
  Abgail Boone: Some
• 12:12
  Charlie Loften: of them were killed. And they, when the time to celebrate the son of the king came, when it came down to it, they rejected the king. We thought they were faithful servants to the king, but when it came down to this most significant event, a celebration of his son
• 12:34
  Abgail Boone: They weren't down for it.
• 12:35
  Charlie Loften: They were out. Yeah. Which I'm not sure that everyone there would have been 100% clocking him at this point. Maybe since he had just also told the tenant's story, maybe
• 12:50
  Abgail Boone: Oh, I thought you meant the king.
• 12:53
  Charlie Loften: No, following Jesus at this point. Sure. Understanding what he's saying. He's told this version of this parable enough times now that, oh, here it is again. We were the first ones, but then we rejected it, and now we gotta bring in Randars off the streets.
• 13:11
  Abgail Boone: We have the chosen pod. That's what I'm calling them.
• 13:14
  Charlie Loften: Chosen pod.
• 13:15
  Abgail Boone: The chosen pod. The people who seemingly weren't aware of what was right in front of them or didn't treat the messenger well. But the servants seemed slightly just his fault at fault because they they paid no attention went off to the field and or is that referring to the people they're going to invite? Verse five.
• 13:40
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Those are the invited, the people who were invited.
• 13:44
  Abgail Boone: Not that the servants went
• 13:46
  Charlie Loften: to another servants job. Did the right
• 13:47
  Abgail Boone: thing.
• 13:48
  Charlie Loften: Again, those were the prophets.
• 13:49
  Abgail Boone: Okay. That's what I
• 13:50
  Charlie Loften: was When the king is sending his servants to talk to the crowd, or the owner is sending people to the people who are the tenants of his vineyard, those are the prophets. So, I sent prophets to you. You mishandled them, you mistreated them, you killed some of them. And now the time to celebrate my son has come. And now you're just not there.
• 14:18
  So it is not that you were not invited. I've been trying to talk to you about this since Moses. I've been talking to you about this for a really, really long time, and you've not heard. You've been so caught up in your own thing that you've lost sight of this big picture idea of real heart worship of me and what I'm doing now through my son. You missed it.
• 14:42
  Jesus does this a lot. He does it in straightforward ways sometimes too, where He connects them to their ancestors who mistreated the prophets. You think of yourself as these great people, but look, these are your ancestors. And now here I am, and you're doing the exact same thing. Yeah.
• 15:03
  So it's not like you weren't invited, it's not like you didn't know, I've been talking to you for a while, and all you've ever done is reject the message, but in hindsight look back at it and say, No, no, no, we're on board, even though every time it has been right in front of your face, now is the time that I want this from you, you have rejected the message.
• 15:23
  Abgail Boone: I think I've asked you this before, but they were like, I'm pretty generally aware of America's history. They were the same way. Like, referring to, like, historical things like that of, like, being rejected by the prophets at different times being rejected. They would have, like, known that history.
• 15:43
  Charlie Loften: Oh, absolutely. The people that Jesus specifically is talking to and talking about right now would have known the Old Testament backwards and forwards. And they would acknowledge, yeah, our ancestors did not do right by them, but we're great. My granddad's granddad, granddad, yeah, sure, he wasn't good, but I am. And Jesus would be like, even by acknowledging that, you are connecting yourself through that line.
• 16:12
  And if you want to get into this new thing, you're going to have to disconnect yourself from all this. But you guys are still in that same mode. Because now the sun is here, And you're rejecting him, just like
• 16:29
  Abgail Boone: your
• 16:30
  Charlie Loften: ancestors did to the prophets. So now we're just going to open this up to everybody.
• 16:36
  Abgail Boone: You think some people thought Jesus was a prophet?
• 16:40
  Charlie Loften: Well, I mean, by the strictest definition of the word, Jesus was a prophet. It's a little bit
• 16:46
  Abgail Boone: like He's a little more than that.
• 16:47
  Charlie Loften: Right. It's a little bit... Sounds like, yeah, you know, LeBron's a basketball player. Right. Jordan was a basketball player.
• 16:54
  Kobe is a basketball player. Yeah, okay, yeah, but a little bit larger. He a prophet, but, you know, so much more than that.
• 17:03
  Abgail Boone: But yeah. Imagine his, like, speaking patterns and stuff like that would have felt familiar to that experience.
• 17:08
  Charlie Loften: Yeah, mean, there's a pretty common story where Jesus is talking to His disciples and said, So who, what's the word out there? Who do people say that I am?
• 17:17
  Abgail Boone: Oh yeah, and people say different names like that.
• 17:19
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Some people say you're a prophet. Some people might think that you're Elijah. Come back. Know?
• 17:24
  Abgail Boone: Every time I read that, I'm like, that's crazy. That people think you're... I'd... Obviously, Jesus does it not long after that. But they have zero examples of people raising from the dead before then, right?
• 17:37
  Well, they
• 17:37
  Charlie Loften: did have a belief that was supposed to come back before the Messiah came.
• 17:45
  Abgail Boone: That's interesting.
• 17:46
  Charlie Loften: And so, that's why there's a connection that's made in the New Testament between John the Baptist and Elijah. John the Baptist is asked if he's Elijah, and he's like, No, I'm not Elijah. My name's John. What do you want Jesus is asked, Who was John the Baptist? And He says, He's Elijah, if you're willing to see it from a different point of view.
• 18:07
  Not to get all Obi Wan Kenobi on you, but from a certain point of view, he is Elijah. He's not literally Elijah, but he is the fulfillment of that idea. The thing that you thought was going to be Elijah come back to life to teach you was, in fact, John the Baptist, who shares all of these historical similarities with Elijah, and was the one that was supposed to come right before the Messiah. And so, because Elijah hadn't technically come back yet, there were still some people that were waiting for like, We want the Messiah to come, but Elijah's got to come first. This guy's kind of a big deal.
• 18:45
  Maybe he's Elijah. Now, technically John the Baptist was Elijah, he's the next one.
• 18:49
  Abgail Boone: I know it's a very different culture, but I just imagine myself being the person in the back that would do a spit take at that moment, and someone suggested that you might be someone who's back from the dead. It would be like, that's a wild option for someone to throw out there. Right. But obviously, then Jesus
• 19:05
  Charlie Loften: said But in their religious culture, they were anticipating a prophet that was Okay. Going to be So it's a little bit like when, you know, the way that Christians will talk about Jesus coming back. We anticipate that is going to be the next big thing in the theological calendar. So that's kind of what we're waiting for. Or conversely, maybe it's the Antichrist.
• 19:29
  Is this person the Antichrist? Because that's the next big thing that's supposed to happen. And so for them, maybe he's just a run of the mill prophet, or maybe he's the next big thing on God's calendar, which is Elijah, who's then going to tell us about the Messiah, but they missed out that technically John the Baptist was Elijah and Jesus is the Messiah.
• 19:52
  Abgail Boone: That is complex.
• 19:54
  Charlie Loften: Alright. So, here's all the Jewish people over time. Hey, the feast is coming. The feast is coming. Then the sun's banquet, now it has come.
• 20:05
  And now it's like, and no one comes. And then, apparently, God comes and exact some vengeance upon
• 20:14
  Abgail Boone: them. That too.
• 20:15
  Charlie Loften: Right? And you see, again, you have to be really careful with this because people can accuse you of being anti Semitic, right? But there's just, at least in the Old Testament by itself, there are plenty of examples of God exacting very harsh, war type punishments on the Jewish people when they rejected him. Babylonians conquering them being the most significant one. And so this is, you know, when he says he came and burned down their city, that is exactly what the Babylonians did.
• 20:49
  So this is a very normal, this is a common part of the story. Sometimes God came and judged His own people pretty harshly, you know, with conquering armies from other places. So, now we're just going to invite everybody, which is one of the things that Jesus was most controversially known for, is that offering invitations to people who were not worthy of the invitation, good and bad. Prostitutes, tax collectors, non Jewish people. He's throwing out...
• 21:21
  He seems to be throwing out invites to
• 21:26
  Abgail Boone: everybody. That's what kinda confuses me, because Jesus didn't, like, bring a new Bible down with him when he showed up on the scene.
• 21:35
  Charlie Loften: Correct.
• 21:36
  Abgail Boone: So he... It's not like it's a new idea, right, that he would be inviting more than just the Jewish people. They just, like, hadn't understood that yet.
• 21:46
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. That that that was the first part of the parable. You misunderstood what the whole thing was about. You thought it was about you and your prosperity living amongst the king, but really, it is about this bigger thing, and you're so selfish and self focused that you missed the big picture idea.
• 22:10
  Abgail Boone: And
• 22:11
  Charlie Loften: so when my servants came to be like, Hey, you need to get realigned with what God's doing, You ignored them, mistreated them, and killed them. And then the time to celebrate, My son came, and now you have rejected him completely. And so now, we're inviting everybody. And that is probably The most countercultural? Yeah, and it is the big picture idea of this parable with this little strange little footnote at the end that we haven't quite gotten to yet.
• 22:40
  But now the Gospel and access to God through celebrating His Son is now open and available to everyone. The good and the bad. It is not a requirement that you have to That's be such
• 22:54
  Abgail Boone: a funny way to
• 22:54
  Charlie Loften: describe You don't have to be good. You don't have to be a quote, good person. I think it's really important. You don't have to be a good person to get invited to celebrate the sun. What is the requirement to celebrate the sun?
• 23:10
  Abgail Boone: You were invited.
• 23:12
  Charlie Loften: Okay. That's how it ends. It kind of ends with him saying, many are invited
• 23:18
  Abgail Boone: But few.
• 23:18
  Charlie Loften: But few are chosen.
• 23:19
  Abgail Boone: Chosen.
• 23:20
  Charlie Loften: Okay? So there is a difference between inviting and being chosen.
• 23:24
  Abgail Boone: I feel like that's what... Well, chosen was not the... Or above board. But
• 23:30
  Charlie Loften: So what
• 23:31
  Abgail Boone: that's like you inherent that status once you show up.
• 23:34
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. So chosen is the idea that you made it all the way to celebrate the the son's wedding.
• 23:42
  Abgail Boone: Yeah.
• 23:43
  Charlie Loften: But one guy is invited, gets there, and is rejected, and does not get to celebrate. Because he's what? What did he do?
• 23:55
  Abgail Boone: He dressed wrong. Which I would put this on its head. Usually, probably that person at their whatever shade of society would be maybe the beggar. But in this sense, the servants invited him, and I would say, beggars can't be choosers. Get over the way he was dressed.
• 24:13
  You couldn't fill up the house enough, and now the one you invited is not appropriate. Yeah. So Like, that's crazy.
• 24:19
  Charlie Loften: We're we're filling we're filling up everybody. So the idea that it is one person versus, And a whole bunch of beggars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, he didn't specifically draw our attention to a group of people or a type of One dude. One particular person. So you would imagine, everybody that they came across today, there had to have been multiple beggars in the situation.
• 24:46
  Abgail Boone: Right?
• 24:47
  Charlie Loften: And so there is something. There's something that happened. Like, I've been invited to the wedding. I say yes. Maybe the only thing I own is this really dirty cloak I'm wearing right now.
• 25:05
  Abgail Boone: Everything in my mind is imagining the animated Cinderella story. So I am outside of bible times. Nice clothing.
• 25:14
  Charlie Loften: He asked, how did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend? The man was speechless.
• 25:22
  Abgail Boone: Well, it almost makes me think that it's, like, regardless of what caused you to be invited, whether it be your friends with the king or not, they had some dress code regardless.
• 25:38
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. But if the guy was a poor beggar
• 25:41
  Abgail Boone: That seems like
• 25:42
  Charlie Loften: they don't owned one cloak, and you said, how'd you get in here without wedding clothes? I wouldn't be speechless. Nope. Like, bro, I got no money. This is all I own in the world.
• 25:53
  It's this one smock. And you're sitting here getting on to me. What do you want me to say?
• 25:58
  Abgail Boone: You're the one that invited me. Right?
• 26:04
  Charlie Loften: So there is a pause element here. There is clearly something that is happening off book in this story that is not fully explained, which as we've talked about now for what seems like four years, but really only just maybe nine or ten months, there's almost always an element of What? Now we stopped and paused here. So there are obviously, if we're thinking about this story, and we're thinking about it deeply, and again, this is the way you're supposed to react to Jewish story parable teaching like this. We're not making stuff up here.
• 26:46
  We are slowing down to try to fill in the blanks of something that doesn't make sense. And that's how you're supposed to process one of these stories. If he he wanted everything to be explicit, he would have made it explicit. So we're supposed to do this. Okay.
• 26:58
  So, obviously, there are more than one people that would not have had the means by which to have fancy wedding clothes. And they all seem to make it in. So that means they're wearing wedding clothes. Somehow. Somehow.
• 27:12
  So somehow people who don't have wedding clothes are being invited to the wedding, are getting wedding clothes and coming in and celebrating. So there is some means by which the king here, God in our scenario, is taking people who are not worthy of the wedding feast, making them worthy and bringing them into the feast.
• 27:43
  Abgail Boone: I don't think I like where this is going.
• 27:45
  Charlie Loften: You don't have clothes. I give you clothes. Now you have clothes.
• 27:49
  Abgail Boone: And then there's one he just didn't get clothes to?
• 27:51
  Charlie Loften: Well, now the king is confused. How'd you get in here without the clothes? There's clearly a process by which people are getting clothes and giving away clothes so that you can be now a part of my feast. This is what I need. I need you to put on these clothes.
• 28:08
  And somehow you sidestep that? Try to sneak in? Did you decide you weren't going to put on my clothes? Did you decide that the clothes that I said you needed were not what you wanted? You wanted to wear your own clothes?
• 28:25
  That's not how this works. Get out. And so, there's a sense in which the thing that makes you worthy to be a part of the celebration is the invitation one, and whatever the king gives you is the thing that makes you worthy. What you bring with you. You bring What with the king gives you.
• 28:51
  Abgail Boone: That was a twist I didn't see coming.
• 28:54
  Charlie Loften: There you go. So so there's there is a
• 28:59
  Abgail Boone: So he's not just kinda generous. He's over generous.
• 29:02
  Charlie Loften: There's a foreshadowing here of of a grace works salvation approach here. He has been generous inviting everybody and providing them with everything that they need to be a full participant in the wedding ceremony. But if you try to get in here on your own A note.
• 29:22
  Abgail Boone: Okay. Yeah.
• 29:26
  Charlie Loften: You get him out of here. And so, these people up here, the original ones, they thought they were good and worthy all on their own, and I'm not even coming to your stupid thing. They've gotten judged. Now God is inviting everybody, and the only people who don't make it in is the one guy who seemed to somehow willingly choose to try to get in on his own. Because then Jesus says, many are invited, few are chosen.
• 29:57
  Abgail Boone: Mhmm.
• 29:58
  Charlie Loften: Well, that doesn't really make sense with the parable. Because actually, many are invited and only one guy didn't get to come. That actually doesn't Or make
• 30:07
  Abgail Boone: got kicked out.
• 30:08
  Charlie Loften: Doesn't make sense, right? Because if only one got kicked out, why are you saying many are invited if you were chosen? Because I think there's some things that he's making sure we draw our attention to. If he said there was an entire group of people that didn't get wedding clothes, then your interpretation of it would have made sense. It is people who couldn't afford it.
• 30:30
  So, only way you can get in is you can afford it. But that's not what he wants to say. So, by singling it into one person
• 30:38
  Abgail Boone: You didn't accept what could have been.
• 30:40
  Charlie Loften: You recognize, well, it's not a question of did you have enough money because a whole lot of them wouldn't have had enough money. What singles him out from everybody else? Well, him determining his own worthiness and bypassing the granting of these clothes. Now, if that's the thing that's going to keep you out of the wedding feast, if that's the principle, then Jesus' summary then makes sense because there's going to be a lot of people like that. And so again, he reverses it like everybody can come except this one guy, what the?
• 31:14
  And then he reverses it even further by saying, actually, a lot more people are going to get invited. And a very small percentage of people are going to get chosen.
• 31:24
  Abgail Boone: Yeah. Why did you say this apocalyptic or however you say
• 31:28
  Charlie Loften: it? Well, it's an end times kind
• 31:29
  Abgail Boone: of thing. That's fair. Okay. I always associate that word with gnashing of teeth, and that wasn't said.
• 31:36
  Charlie Loften: It was said, tie him in hand and foot and throw him outside into the darkness without Okay. Even being gnashing of
• 31:43
  Abgail Boone: I I was very careful gnashing about the gnashing.
• 31:46
  Charlie Loften: Right there. Yeah. I got to the dentist in a couple of Mondays. I gotta make sure I
• 31:51
  Abgail Boone: Nash.
• 31:52
  Charlie Loften: I can't gnash. Yeah. And so, we're about to wrap it up here one more, but it's like, again, think it's really important. We talked about this so many times, that Jesus is kind of this theological bridge. This old Jewish way of approaching is not working, and in fact, historically hasn't been working.
• 32:13
  And now we're replacing it with this new thing where everyone is invited. But just because everyone is invited doesn't mean that everyone's going to make it. In fact, very few will, because way too many people are trying to get in with their own clothes.
• 32:29
  Abgail Boone: See, it's funny because I feel like the common thread through talking about the prophets of the Old Testament and their rejection of those people, the current rejection of Jesus, of them not accepting that, so much of it is about humility. Mhmm. And even the guy in the parable not being humble enough to accept the clothes that would have been provided for him. Right. Assuming that's what happened, but like, so much of it comes back to like, humility to accept what's before you and not thinking that you get whatever your own understanding is right.
• 33:01
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. And so I'm thinking that this parable did not make sense to anyone until we fully fleshed out this idea of This is just a gift that you have to accept. The gift imagery is developing. Because we're so far over here in the workspace that it's going to take a lot of processing to kind of get to the point. But again, you see it right here.
• 33:28
  He doesn't come out and say it. He's not Ephesians two:eight:nine, Therefore, it is only by grace that you are saved through faith, and this is not of yourself, not of soul to work. He doesn't say that. But in a parable, is bridging the gap there from a works based approach, a works based elitist approach to a fully grace based approach that still does exclude was at a minimum you have to accept the grace. You cannot get in on your own.
• 34:01
  We've gone from people who try to get on their own, they don't get it, everybody's invited, Asterisk, you still can't get on your own.
• 34:12
  Abgail Boone: You're going
• 34:13
  Charlie Loften: need to close. All right, so we got one more left. You ready?
• 34:17
  Abgail Boone: Yes, I am.
• 34:18
  Charlie Loften: You're only ready because I promised you church history. I dropped some church history at
• 34:26
  Abgail Boone: a church You on did. Did. How'd you feel about that? Well, I wasn't in the actual service. I was back in Grove Kids.
• 34:32
  So then when I was editing the podcast, I was like, hold up.
• 34:35
  Charlie Loften: That brother's Sid Zwingli.
• 34:37
  Abgail Boone: Yeah. And
• 34:37
  Charlie Loften: he made a theological
• 34:38
  Abgail Boone: church denominations and stuff, and I was like, then shh. We have a podcast coming up.
• 34:45
  Charlie Loften: No. We're gonna get into the teaser, little teasers there on Sunday. Crumbs. So as always, thank you. Of course.
• 34:51
  Thank you for joining us, and we'll
• 34:52
  Abgail Boone: see you next time.
• 34:56
  Charlie Loften: Thank you for listening to the Cultivate podcast. Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith, that you are asking big questions, and you're looking for answers. We hope that we can be a resource for you through our podcast and any other way that we can help you. You can find all our episodes anywhere that you can find podcasts, including YouTube. And, again, thank you so much for joining us.