Jesus was very concrete in his images and in today’s parable, the guest without the wedding garment, we have to see it Jesus’ way, concretely, or we will miss the point completely. To put God in the character of the king is wrong. The text even says there was a man who was a king. Jesus original audience would have heard this parable concretely.

So today I want to hold up some pictures for you to look at and consider and as always make up your own mind. The pictures that Jesus used will make the meaning of the parable clear.

First I want you to try to put a picture of the entire gospel of Mathew in your head. In Jesus day when you said King everyone immediately thought of the Herods. We are in Matthew’s gospel which opens with the story of the wise men and their meeting with Herod. The wise men realized that Herod wanted to kill Jesus, so they did not return to Herod but went back to their nations by a back road, they kept Jesus’ location a secret. King Herod was in such a rage that another man could be King of the Jews that he ordered all the male children under three in Bethlehem to be killed. This slaughter of the innocents was right in line with many other atrocities Herod committed in his lifetime.

Also, consider at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel all the John the Baptist railing at the sins of King Herod. For this speaking out he was beheaded and his head was displayed like a trophy on a plate in the King’s court. John spoke out against the King. The gospels show that John was fixated on the King’s behavior. By contrast Jesus had next to no interest in the King because Jesus considered the rulers of this world to be irrelevant.

Now get into your head the picture of Jesus standing silently before the Chief Priest and Pilate. Jesus unlike John would not address them because he considered them to be nothing.

Now on to today’s parable: Herod was never embraced by the religious leadership of the people of Jerusalem. He was not of the royal line and was only half Jewish. He built the temple and many other public works projects to curry the favor of the people but he was largely rejected and considered to be illegitimate. He was appointed King by Caesar on the recommendation of Marc Anthony.

The people of Jerusalem made light of Herod and his reign gave rise to the group we know as the Pharisees who were hyper followers of the law and critics of the temple of Herod. So Herod ruled by brute force. He had to compel the people of Jerusalem to follow him. He cared not about the good or the bad but about compliance to his rule. The King in our story is like this. The king has done violence to the first group who would not adopt him as their leader. Many aristocrats and those of the priestly line were simply murdered like John the Baptist. Now, the King is in the wedding hall and he has subdued all those who would oppose him. His men have forced the good and the bad into line. Finally the King is reigning except that the king becomes preoccupied with a single solitary man. He is so enraged that the unrobed man holds center stage and all his attention. He can’t see anything except the man without the wedding garment.

This solitary figure is the only one who would not under coercion give into the King, he dishonored the King and will not submit to the King’s illegitimate rule. So he is bound and thrown out. Now put in your head the arrest of Jesus, his trial, torture and crucifixion.

The image of Jesus as the solitary opposition to the status quo is celebrated in the 8^th chapter of Acts 8: vs 32-33 where it is written of Jesus: ‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.’ Which is a quote from Isaiah 53.

Notice the emphasis on the solitary figure’s silence. Unlike John the Baptist, Jesus knew that Herod and his Kingship was worthless. So he did not honor Herod by speaking a word about him. This unrobed guest standing silently before the King would have reminded everyone in Jesus audience of the suffering servant of Isaiah. This unrobed man in our parable distracts the King, takes the wrath of the King onto himself and by his sinless, silent virtue reveals the illegitimacy of the King’s reign.

“He was despised and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases, yet we accounted him stricken and struck down by God and afflicted.” We attributed the violence upon this servant as God’s will instead of attributing it to sinful people. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, upon him was the punishment that made us whole, we have turned to our own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

I think everyone, especially the disciples would have thought of this. Jesus in Matthew 11:12 said, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of God has suffered violence and the violent takes it by force.”

I think this fits exactly the lesson before us today. Seeing Jesus as the guest without the wedding garment is an exact fit.

In recent time our cash accounts have been depleted, the value of our homes has diminished, many are upside down in their mortgages. Hopes connected to those assets are gone. In the world power is expressed in money. It is of course frightening to see our civilization break down and our neighborhoods decline. We are all too close to and give way too much value to the things and institutions of this world. Job’s, families, institutions, national symbols, political powers, the economy, civic groups; all of these are the pillars that we had faith in to hold up a fallen humanity but they are crumbling.

Jesus has come to stick it to the King, to show us another way that he called the Kingdom of God. He has climbed into the pit with us, before us, to lead us and show us his new way. Jesus life is slowly declaring the gospel message to the world. Slowly this message is exposing the pillars of our fallen society, wealth, politics, religion and nationalism for what they are; sand castles that will one day be washed completely away.

Jesus came into the world as one of us, to show us his father. He wouldn’t play any of our games he wouldn’t wear the uniform; he wouldn’t go along to get along. And still, he is with us in the pit, with us in the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus lives with us as the solitary figure of resistance to the world’s sin. He will not abandon us, and where Jesus is there is everlasting life, and hope.

Why do we have the tendency to see Jesus’ father in the role of King every time one is mentioned in the New Testament?

Why do you think that Jesus refused to address the King in the Jewish part of his trial in Holy Week and what does the silence mean in the story before us today?

Is Jesus the ultimate anti-establishment figure?