Bible Text: Matthew 22:1-14 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Trinity 2023 | When Jesus says that the king will destroy those murderers and burn their city, he’s very literally talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Jesus talks about this a lot – about half of his parables in the few days leading up to His crucifixion are on this topic. So just before our Gospel today, Jesus says very plainly, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” And the chief priests and Pharisees plot against Jesus because He says this, they want to arrest Him, they make plans to kill Him, all because He says the Kingdom will be taken from them and their city is going be destroyed. People wonder how they could get so mad at Jesus, how after seeing all His miracles, they still wouldn’t believe. Well, here you have it, He’s telling them He’s going to take away their city and all their power and if that’s not bad enough, He’s taking away their status as God’s people.
Their city was destroyed in 70 AD. And the Kingdom was taken from them. The Kingdom of God had been located in Jerusalem, located with the Jews until then. This is what St. Paul says in Romans 3, “What then is the advantage of the Jew? Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.” The Kingdom of God was entrusted to this particular people. They had the Temple, the Ark of the Covenant, and the sacrifices pointing to Christ, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. They had the Word that told about Jesus. They were the chosen people precisely because they had the Word of God. And Jesus came to them. He didn’t show up in Greece or Italy or Babylon or London or Missouri. He showed up in Jewish lands. This is how John starts His Gospel, “He came to His own and His own did not receive Him.” He came to the Jews. This is why Saint Paul describes His Gospel as first for the Jew and then for the Greek. Because Jesus came to the Jews, was born in Judea, lived in their country, worshipped in their city. They had the Kingdom of God.
So this is epoch-changing, that the Kingdom passes from the Jews and goes to others. First, let’s understand what this means. To be the Kingdom of God is to have the Word of God. That’s it. It’s not to have some political state, some theocratic government. It’s to have the oracles of God. With this Word comes everything else. In this Kingdom, God names you His chosen people. He calls you His children. He vows to protect you and guard you and forgive you and teach you and comfort you and make you to live with Him forever and ever. The Kingdom of God is like a man sowing seed, and the seed is the Word of God, and when that Word of God falls in good soil, it produces the most beautiful and abundant fruit, a life at peace with God, a conscience clean, washed of all guilt by the blood of Jesus, joy that cannot be taken away by any of the pains and miseries of this world, because no matter what is going on in your life, Jesus is still risen, God Himself has still become your brother, His blood has still been shed, He has lived and died for you and loves you and hears your prayers and He will be with you always and you will live with Him forever. That’s the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is the Holy Christian Church. And it has always been the Holy Christian Church. When the Jews had the Word of God, when the Word of God was preached almost exclusively in Jewish lands, the Bible called the Jews the chosen people and Israel the chosen nation. But it was never because of their race. It was because to them were entrusted the oracles of God, because they had the word of God. The Bible is very clear about this. God is no respecter of persons. He’s no racist. Even in the Old Testament, whoever believed God’s Word was counted part of His holy people, no matter the race. Moses married an Ethiopian woman, because she believed the Word of God. Boaz married Ruth, a Moabitess, because she believed the Word of God. Salmon married Rahab, a Canaanitess, because she confessed the Word of God, and the list goes on. And those who didn’t believe the Word and rejected it, God rejected them even if they had Jewish blood. The one and only narration of a guy in hell is that of the rich man, who claims Abraham as his father, trusts in his Jewishness. The Kingdom of God has never been about being a member of a certain ethnicity; it has always been the preaching and believing of God’s Word and that Word has always talked about Jesus Christ, our Savior.
A lot of people, a lot of Christians, a lot of churches in our city and throughout our state and country, say that the modern Jews and the modern state of Israel, are God’s chosen people, are God’s Kingdom, even though they reject Jesus and His Word. We’re hearing this a lot now, because of the war in Israel, “We have to defend Israel because they’re God’s chosen people.” No, they’re not. That’s as unbiblical a statement as you could make. A good summary of the New Testament, the main point of Jesus and all His apostles, is that the nation of Israel is NOT the chosen people. The chosen people are those who hear the Word of God and keep it, who receive Jesus as their Savior, who are born not of men, but of God through Holy Baptism.
We will pray for the country of Israel today, and we have in the past, but not because they are God’s chosen people. We pray for them because two weeks ago they suffered a horrific attack from murderous terrorists. We pray for peace and stabilization in that region because we believe in the fifth commandment, we confess that human life is precious made in the image of God, and innocent men, women, and children should not be slaughtered like animals. And we believe in the fourth commandment, that God sets up good government to protect innocent life. We pray for good government there, especially because Christians live there, and Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ, are suffering there, especially Christians in Palestine, who have done nothing wrong, who have not supported Hamas, who only want to live in peace and worship the true God, and who now are suffering the loss of home and peace and church and the threat of death because of this war. Lord have mercy on them for Jesus’ sake.
The parable says that the city of Jerusalem was destroyed and the Kingdom of God taken from the Jewish leaders because they rejected Jesus. That happened. The Jewish leaders up to this day reject Jesus and persecute His Church. In the state of Israel today, it is illegal to tell young men and women about Jesus without their parents’ permission. That is literally the opposite of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is where the Word of God has free rein, where it rings loud and clear, where we teach it openly to our children, and people trust it and love their Lord Jesus who loves them. The Kingdom of God is Christ’s Church, it is here at Mount Hope, at our congregation and at our school, and soon at our college, it is in your homes when you read God’s Word and call upon Him in every trouble, pray to Him, and live for Him.
So Jesus’ parable continues and He says that the invitation to the wedding feast goes out into the highways and byways, that means, everywhere, to the good and to the bad, that means even to sinners like us, who have things to be ashamed of, to the Jew and to the Greek, to all nations. That means it doesn’t matter what your last name is; it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what color your skin is; it doesn’t matter how much money you make; it doesn’t matter what is in your past, what horrible things you have done or thought or said, what the sins of your youth have been or what the sins of your age have been, Jesus invites you into His Kingdom, invites you to hear His Word, to repent of your selfishness and your greed and your lust and your discontent, and to receive from Him the robe of His righteousness that covers every stain and every shame and makes you worthy to be called a child of God.
In this Kingdom everyone is clothed with the wedding garment. This is what unites everyone. Not their nation, not their so-called race, not their wealth or status, only this, the wedding garment, which is the righteousness of Jesus, His innocence, the beauty of His blood that washes away all guilt. St. Paul talks about this wedding garment when he says that Christ has cleansed His Bride the Church and left her pure and clean, without wrinkle or blemish.
There is one who is not wearing the wedding garment. Jesus doesn’t tell us what this guy is trusting in. Maybe He’s a Jew and thinks that’s he’s chosen because of his genes, as if God can’t raise up sons of Abraham from the stones. Maybe he’s rich and thinks that since he’s given enough away, God must owe him. Maybe he’s just a total hypocrite, who claims he believes in Jesus, but really just shows up to church because his wife or parents tell him to. It doesn’t matter, there are a million ways not to believe. And Jesus, and this is important, Jesus, the King of this Kingdom, the Host of the Supper, He’s the one who finds this man who doesn’t have a wedding garment and personally orders him out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. His servants do the casting out, but Jesus orders it. So when we remove people from the Christian congregation because of their unbelief and their unrepentant sin, we are doing Jesus’ bidding, not our own. He insists on it. And when we don’t remove, because we can’t see the open sin or the unbelief in the heart, He still sees, and the end is the same, the outer darkness. There is no room in Jesus’ Kingdom for those who won’t hear the Word of God and keep it.
Because this is what it means to be in the Kingdom of God, what it means to be the chosen nation, to be a child of God, this and this alone, that you hear and love the Word of Jesus Christ your Savior, that you trust in the righteousness He won for you by His bitter suffering and death, the innocence that He gives to you in your Baptism, the forgiveness He speaks to you in His Church, with which He feeds you in His body and His blood. Without Jesus and His righteousness, there is no status and no good; but with Him and His righteousness, you claim everything from God, everything good, the highest status, a place at His table, or better, Jesus claims it all for you.
Because this is the claim of the Lord Jesus, this is what He died and rose to give. To establish the Kingdom that does not end and where we reign as royalty, as sons and daughters of the King, as the chosen nation, the true spiritual Israel, the people of God. And this is our boast before men and before heaven, this is our confidence, this is our joy, this is our blessedness, that we have Jesus and His righteousness, that we hear the Word of our Savior and keep it by the power of His Spirit and to the glory of His Father, One God, our God, forever and ever, Amen.