Parable of the Wedding Banquet | Matthew 22:1- 14

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

22 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so 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 a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

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The Parable of the Wedding Banquet (Or, Lessons in Party Planning)

At Pinecrest’s 2025 Summer Session – my second year on faculty – I stood in front of those gathered and shakily proclaimed, “Justice is rewriting some parts of the story.” 

Mind you, however illustrious I might or might not be, I have a long way to go on my journey toward understanding what justice is (and is not). I don’t know that I have the authority to rewrite anything. 

But I know how to throw a good party. 

June 26, 2015. My boyfriend at the time and I were making our bi-annual road trip from the northeast to my motherland, the great state of Tennessee. While he was driving us past Three Mile Island on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I scrolled onto news that necessitated us bringing our traditional sing-along of “Wagon Wheel” to a screeching halt: In a 5-4 landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. 

For my entire 26 years, a wedding had not been an option for me. Weddings were exclusive parties I could only hope to attend for other people – hetero-couples like my siblings and cousins and best friends – but a wedding was something I could never be the center of, until now. Our country’s reckoning with same-sex marriage is a justice story I’m proud to have had a hand in re-writing.

Chris and I decided we would get married the next year, in April of 2016, while each of our adoring grandmothers was still in good health and able to join in the celebration. We had no way to know who else amongst our friends and family would be interested in attending a gay wedding. (It would be our first gay wedding, too, after all.) We could have hemmed and hawed over the guest list. We could have weeded out uncles who we knew voted differently than we did or we could have selected only the friends who had marched alongside us in Pride Parades through the streets of New York City. Instead, we decided everyone gets an invitation. All who want to come and join are enthusiastically welcome. Who are we to keep anyone away from a good time?

We are still talking about stories like the Parable of the Wedding Banquet, not because their wisdom is unchanging. But rather, we return to the stories because our wisdom changes. We learn and we grow because we make mistakes. We let our feelings get hurt because the party didn’t go exactly as we planned. We lose sight of the truth that joy is not to be tightly gripped. Celebration is always bursting to be shared.

Maybe the point of this story – of our story – is not a call to scrutinize the invitation, but rather to co-conspire in revelry and buck traditions which no longer serve us. We can answer a different call, to celebrate who and where we’re from while exuding joyous pride in who we are already becoming.

Maybe we’re not rewriting anything at all. Maybe what we’re doing is charting a new path. Reinventing. Choosing to see the story from a different, dare I say, more inclusive perspective. Ten years later, my husband and I are still celebrating… now with our three-year-old daughter in tow. She sings and dances and revels alongside every beat she can find. Just ask anyone who got to hang with her at Winter Weekend 2026. She is the epitome of being down to clown. I wonder where she gets that from. 

Action: If the parable of the wedding banquet is any indication, manipulating those who are not ready to join in the good time results in a flop for everyone. So, let’s chart a different course shall we?

David’s 4-Step Guide to Party Planning:

1. Gather your core people (a critical step the king seems to have skipped for his banquet)

2. Spread the invitation far and wide

3. Relish the meal

4. Get that party started, and let yourself be astonished at the joy – no gnashing of teeth required.

Those who are ready to celebrate might just be waiting for a beat like yours to dance alongside.

Prayer: Dear Creator, Open our spirits, so our eyes light up for every soul who shows up in good faith. For theirs is the party too – may it be on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Illustrious David Hawkins

Hopewell, New Jersey | Living Waters Lutheran Church

Faculty / Faculty Advisor 2024-present