The Second Sunday after Michaelmas – Pr. Anderson sermon
St. Matthew 22:1-14 “Come to the Wedding Feast”
October 12, 2025 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
+ + +
Lord God, heavenly Father: We thank You, that of Your great mercy You have called us by Your holy Word to the blessed marriage feast of Your Son, and through Him forgive us all our sins; but, being daily assaulted by temptation, offense, and danger, and being weak in ourselves and given to sin, we beseech You graciously to protect us by Your Holy Spirit, that we might not fall into sin; and if we fall and defile our wedding garment, with which Your Son has clothed us, graciously help us again and lead us to repentance, that we fall not forever; preserve in us a constant faith in Your grace; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, by Veit Dietrich, p. 163)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Rom. 1:7, etc.)
The sermon text for today is taken from the 22nd chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. We read selected verses in Jesus’ name:
“Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell 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 no 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.
These are Your words, heavenly Father. Sanctify us by Your truth, Your Word is truth. Amen. (Joh. 17:17)
In Christ Jesus, who is the guest of honor at the Father’s Heavenly feast, where you will dine with Him forever, dear fellow redeemed:
How do we decide if we are going to attend a gathering or an event? Maybe we are going to go and listen to our favorite singer or band. We know this is something we love to do, so we will budget our money to buy tickets, we will take days off work so we can travel to it, and it will be a pleasant experience. If we rate our events and gatherings, there will be some that are high on the list like this example, and I’m sure there will be some that will be farther down. Maybe it is a work trip. It sits right in the middle of if we want to go to it or not. Lastly, maybe we have a family gathering coming up. This one could be hit or miss. Are we in the mood to love our family and want to spend time with them or not? How good will our excuse be to get out of it? Jesus teaches us what happens if we give God our excuses, and it does not work out. While we can stress over our excuses, our God stresses His invitation He gives to us. He sends it many times over, revealing His love with His persistence. And even though His persistence has an end date, our hope is found not in the stress of knowing when that day might be, but it is found in the greatest invitation to the greatest event. He truly wants you there, so He continues to say, “Come to the wedding feast!”
This invitation is a very old invitation. Jesus uses this parable to explain this His enemies who don’t realize the invitation is also sitting there for them to receive. They realize that He is talking about them in His parables, but when it comes to the overall message, the gracious invitation, they are constantly rejecting it. This rejection isn’t a new rejection. The leaders are following a long history of getting the gracious invitation and turning it away. This parable of the kingdom of heaven reveals the history of the invitation and significance of it now. Jesus begins, “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.” Now the parables of the kingdom of heaven point out a few themes. The first is the divine sonship. We hear of the King and His Son, and we know exactly which King and Son we are learning about. The King wants to celebrate His Son and there is a hitch about what the people think of this Son.
Well, maybe the first rejection is just because they forgot. Maybe if they are told again about how great this marriage feast will be, they will change their minds. “Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell 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 no 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. This is history. Jesus divine sonship is there in the salvation of God to take care of His people and then His messengers, the prophets, who bring this good news are rejected. The stark warning from Jesus, reminds the people about history. God’s patience, or rather, His time of grace ends and He exacts just, divine punishment on His enemies.
This divine judgment will continue all the way to the last day. The one coming for the religious leaders, who know Jesus is speaking against them, is the destruction of the temple. So, many ask, why is this how it will end? The King is supposed to love His people, but He even says that He sent out His army to kill them. If destruction will come in the end, is this a God of love? He tells us about the great feast for His Son but He brings destruction? Well, as we see in the text, Jesus points out the problem that has taken place since the fall. The King invites with love and the people go on and reject Him. St. Paul quotes, But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people” (Romans 10:21). This is what our God of love sees. This is what our sin does to us.
As our sin makes us corrupt and disobedient, Jesus teaches besides our sinfulness, in our perseverance in this life and its struggles, we can make excuses which end up rejecting our gracious invitation. We will struggle with this life, but like the people who were invited, maybe we just don’t want to make the time anymore. Maybe the invitation has been taking so long to bear any good fruit, and we need to get back to work, where we see physical results. This is how we can view God’s Word when it doesn’t tell us what we want to hear. We know of course, we always need to hear things we don’t want to hear. As difficult it is to hear that we must separate ourselves from the world around us, hearing this is hearing the very Words of our salvation. Our text tells us the outcome of refusal. In this harsh reality the devil wants to say it’s God’s fault and not yours, and when we realize it is our fault, it feels like the invitation will be pulled away and we deserve the army to come. How do we persevere? To persevere, we realize it is not on our own, and if we do cling to the invitation and the world tries to smother us, it is the invitation that brings us to the feast and puts on the white robe as we hear, Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been (Revelation 6:11).
While the servants were rejected and killed, there would be more servants called, and they would take the invitation to those who looked like they shouldn’t even come close to hearing it. “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.'” Here is the love of the King. He had called a people to be His own. He loved them and He invited them to a great feast. A feast that would last for a long while. Now the marriage feast came, the Son had arrived, and the final invitations went out and His people said they were too busy. Now He goes to everyone and says, here is your invitation, come to the wedding feast. The people came, and many ate the Words from the feast, being fed by the Son of the King. The people were experiencing the kingdom of heaven, hearing how God was keeping His promise to save them.
Knowing what we know about parables, we know the bridegroom is Christ, feeding His people. Jesus told His enemies earlier in His ministry, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast” (Matthew 9:15). As Jesus is teaching against His enemies that the feast had arrived and their destruction would come, His enemies plotted to kill the bridegroom. However, they did not know their plans to take out the bridegroom was the very will of the King. With the death of the bridegroom on the cross, the feast now comes to the forefront as the glorious marriage feast is opened to all who believe in the bridegroom. And in remembrance of His death on the cross, a taste of the feast is given for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The servants continue to go out and share the invitation to the marriage feast. They call out, knowing they also would face death, and as their physical death would be imminent, the death of the bridegroom, the King’s Son, would save them from eternal death, giving them a white robe to eat at the great marriage feast.
They would go out with joy, and this is the joy for you to hear, “the wedding hall was filled with guests.” It is a joy for you to hear because you hear the invitation has come to you, you truly have it. There are times where it is easy to run and yet God in His mercy says, “come to the marriage feast.” He has prepared it for you. He knows that you have been against Him. He says come to me in repentance, and you receive absolution. He says come to me for rest, and you receive it in His Word. He says come to me for strength and medicine, and you receive it in his Supper. A foretaste of the marriage feast and an eternal reward you have through the cross. And, if you believe you don’t deserve the invite, you hear from St. Paul, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:4-6).
As the invite goes out to all and He knows you personally, there will be those who won’t receive the garment. “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.” Jesus reveals the attire to the feast is His white garment. There is no way around the white garment even though it will surprise many. While the world will try to say this is unfair, the King comes back and says the invitation is there. While the world tries to get in by any means, you know for certain you wear the white garment. You have heard the message from the servants. You know you are in the presence of the bridegroom right now. And as He comes to you, you continue to hear how much He cares for you. You hear the invite, come to the marriage feast, and He brings you in with the promise you will dine with Him forever. Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
+ + +