Trusting Jesus' Dreams

On we go to the Parable of the Wedding Feast in Matthew 22:1-14.

It is one thing to say that the Kingdom interrupts business as usual (see verse 5).  But in the next verse we have a city (perhaps Jerusalem?) burned to the ground by the angry and rebuffed king.  A king does not really invite guests to a party.  The king summons his subjects to honor the nuptials of the crown prince.  If people come, they acknowledge that they are subjects.  If they do not come, they indicate that they are not.  The "invitees" were not willing to acknowledge the king as their rightful ruler.  They would not come.

We don't, in our political culture, know all that much about command performances.  But if I were invited to dine with the president of the United States, I would think long and hard about declining such an invitation, regardless of who occupied the office.  Wouldn't you?

So why would anyone turn down such an invitation?  They would turn it down because the invitation threatens to turn our world upside down.  We may have some problems.  But we tend to have things about the way we want them in our lives.  We don't need God interrupting and disrupting our farms and businesses.  We don't want God re-arranging our schedules and priorities.  We desire a god who is convenient, compliant and comforting.  We demand a god who consults our calendar and approves our agenda.

In his book, Simply Jesus, N. T. Wright puts it this way.  "We have reduced the kingdom of God to private piety, the victory of the cross to comfort for the conscience, and Easter itself to a happy escapist ending after a sad, dark tale" (page 5).

We get the mail and see a fancy, thick envelope.  Inside is an invitation to a wedding.  We look at the date on our calendar and groan.  We will have to rearrange our whole schedule to accommodate the event.  Who wants to do that?  Is it really that important?  Maybe we can just send a really nice gift along with our regrets.

The Jerusalem authorities expected a different sort of king.  And so do we.  Wright continues, "We want a 'religious' leader, not a king!  We want someone to save our souls, not rule the world.  Or, if we want a king, someone to take charge of our world, what we want is someone to implement the policies we already embrace, just as Jesus' contemporaries did" (page 5).

The invitees had not heard from the king in a very long time.  They were so accustomed to running things on their own that they lost the ability to listen.  They were so used to being in charge that they could no longer tolerate the idea of having a king.  So the wedding feast was a threat, not a celebration. Jesus "commands his hearers to give up their other dreams and to trust his instead.  This, at its simplest, is what Jesus is all about" (Wright, page 56).

As long as our dreams seem to work, this is perhaps all just too much.  But every human dream dies in disappointment.  Every human hope collapses in catastrophe.  I had hopes and dreams, plans and schemes for the future, for example.  They evaporated in the death of a loved one.  None of the old stuff would work.

At that moment, Jesus' dreams became the only dreams possible.  I could embrace them or live in delusion.  Here is the challenge that faces the invitees in the parable.