Matthew 11-14 says that a king came into a room to greet guests, but he saw a man not dressed in a wedding garment. The king asked why he came without a wedding garment, but the man didn’t answer. After his silence, the king told his attendants to bind his hands and feet and to throw him outside into the darkness, where there would be teeth grinding and wailing. Many are invited, but few are chosen.
According to a South Carolina-based priest, the story in these verses exemplifies God’s constant offering of love and the need for humanity to reciprocate this love. Fr. Jeffrey Kirby said the story in these verses is known as the “parable of the wedding banquet.” Kirby is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace Parish in Indian Land, South Carolina, and hosts the daily devotional, “The Morning Offering with Father Kirby.”
He told Fox News Digital, “We are invited to God’s banquet, which is the biblical symbol of His love. In the parable, a wedding banquet is prepared, and the original guests choose not to come. In response, the host tells his servants: ‘Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’” Kirby said the door to the banquet is “opened wide, and everyone is encouraged to come in.”
While many accepted the invitation and filled the hall, some refused to wear the wedding garment. This idea may seem confusing to modern readers of the verse, but simultaneously, the host offered these garments as gifts, and it was an insult and offense not to wear them. Kirby added that the king was upset that so many guests weren’t wearing the wedding garments and threw the guests out of the hall into the darkness outside. The parable ends with Jesus saying, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Kirby explained to Fox News Digital that the story told in the parable is about love, saying, “In our lives, we don’t have to follow the way of God to convince Him to love us. We cannot even earn His love by our own efforts and design. God’s love is a gift. It is constant and unconditional. It cannot be lost.” For humanity, our job is to accept God’s love, die to our own fallenness, and seek to reciprocate His love. Kirby said, “We’re called to welcome all people, but such a welcome is not without virtue or a summons to goodness.”
He continued, “There is something called from within us when we receive love. If no response is given, we allow the gift of love to fade and become eclipsed within us. On the contrary, when a person responds and seeks to love in return, “the love within us grows in zeal and sincerity.” He noted, “In the parable, the banquet hall is a symbol of the kingdom of God. The wedding garment is the grace of God, which is God’s love and presence within us, and is nourished within us by our response to His love.”
Kirby said by refusing to love, a person refuses the garment and rejects the gift of God. We are called to cover ourselves in the wedding garment of grace-filled love. He said, “Love creates a culture, and the culture of love is a culture of truth, life, justice and peace. It is a culture offered to everyone who is willing to accept and wear the wedding garment with its mantle of love.”
When people neglect the call to love and refuse to wear the wedding garment, they “will not fit in the banquet and will not understand the culture of love.”