What’s its like? The Kingdom of Heaven is like the king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding banquet. The king’s guests refused to come I mean the king was furious. Can’t blame him if it’s like most of the weddings I’ve seen that have a lot invested in a caterer, reception, musicians, a priest, florist, invitations so he sent more servants to go out and invite more people. Look we’ve the best calf come on down and they still refused to come now they had their excuses, they had good ones. They had to plow their fields, one had to attend a business, finally the king sends his servants into the street corners to invite anybody they could find and invites everybody.
Now his son’s wedding hall is teaming with people of all kinds. The king enters the gala and he sees one person not wearing wedding clothes and he asked a startling question. How did you get here without a wedding garment? He doesn’t ask who invited him or who let him in. Rather, he focused on what the guy’s wearing and he has him thrown out into the darkness.
Question, is God a snob just because the poor guy didn’t have the right clothes to wear to the wedding? However, keep in mind what a person wears for the wedding banquet is the sum total of what we have done with our lives. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul says: “As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (3:12-15)
What Jesus is getting at in his parable is we wear the clothes of our acts and deeds for everyone to see. In other words, a cup of cold water means the difference between heaven and hell.
On Sunday afternoon, Maggie our neighbor called for help to install a new shower faucet. Once connected, I turned on the faucet and no water came out. Maggie had a vendor come twice to her home to check the water in her well. She paid $500 for two service calls and she has no water again.
The wedding garment we might be wearing may be quite stinky from helping our neighbor repair a dry well, or maybe ragged tagged caregiving a dementia mother, or a little shrunken letting the kids have extra money for a class trip, but remember as they finished mocking Jesus at the cross they took the robe off him and placed his own clothing back on him to lead him on the road to the cross probably so he wouldn’t get their robes stained with blood as he carries the cross.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we accept the invitation to your banquet that means we want Jesus blood on our clothes because when we give a cup of water to our neighbor, it’s like Jesus blood touching our sin stained earthly garments and they become whiter then snow and that means they are the perfect clothes to wear to His heavenly banquet table. Next Sunday, you have an invitation from Jesus to attend a banquet, you need to RSVP. What will you wear? What deeds will you perform this week that show Jesus you are most welcomed at his banquet.
