The second passage of the Sefer Yeshua is based on Mt 22:2-10, Lk 14:16-24, and Th 64:1-12.
2. 1Yeshua` said, ‘To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It’s like a great wedding feast a certain king ordered to be prepared. And when it was ready, he sent his servants to call the wedding guests to the feast. But they didn’t wish to come.
2So he sent his servants back, saying, “Tell those who’ve been invited that I’ve prepared my table for them; my oxen and fattened livestock have been butchered, and everything’s ready. Come to the feast.”
3‘So his servants went and did as the king had commanded them. They went to the first and said, “Come, my master invites you.” 4But this one said, “I’ve got claims against some merchants. They’re coming to me this evening, and I must go to give them my orders. I ask to be excused from the feast.”
5‘So the servants went to a second, and said to him, “Come, my master’s invited you.” 6But this one said, “I’ve just bought a house, and I’m required for the day. I won’t have any spare time.”
7‘So the servants went to a third, and said to him, “Come, my master invites you.” 8But this one said, “I’ve leased out a farm, and I’m on my way to collect the rent. I won’t be able to come. I ask to be excused.” And so it was with all the others.
9‘So the servants returned to their lord the king, and said, “Those whom you invited asked to be excused.” 10And the king said to them, “Go then to the street corners, and invite anyone you find, so that they might come instead.”
11‘So the servants went to the street corners, and called to all to come – the poor and the lowly, the blind and the lame – and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
12‘Believe me I tell you, the rich and the wealthy are too busy for the kingdom of God!’
The Cultural Relevance of the Great Wedding Feast
The second passage in the S.Y. concerns the ‘Great Banquet’. Only in Matthew is it explicitly called a ‘wedding feast’ – it’s likely that the reason why it wasn’t called that in Luke and Thomas, was because their mostly Gentile audiences might not have understood the cultural reference.
It was part of Jewish folklore at that time (that is, not official theology), that when we died, the righteous and the good would be called to sit at God’s table in heaven, where we would feast from God’s goodness forever. The calls of religious teachers were therefore seen as invitations to come and sit at this final Great Banquet.
This great banquet was seen as the Wedding Feast for God and Israel. At Sinai, Israel was betrothed to God. At the end of time, however, the wedding would finally be celebrated, and the righteous of all the Nations would be invited to the heavenly feast, not just those of Israel. In ancient Jewish culture, there were two stages to marriage: the betrothal, when the partners would legally become husband and wife, and the wedding, which would complete the marriage ceremonies.
Another cultural detail is that when there is a wedding feast, there is an initial set of invites sent out, so we assume that all these rich people are aware of the banquet, and initially told the king’s servants they would come. When it actually came time to attend the feast, they turned down the call. This would have been considered the height of rudeness, especially when the inviter was a king; it would have implied disrespect for the king. By allegory, with the King as God, it would imply a disrespect for or the despising of God’s ways. The initial refusal without an excuse would actually have been the most despicable of the two refusals.
In the Matthew version of the story, the guests refuse their invitation twice (Mt 22:2-4). So they would have initially been sent invitations months in advance, which we assume they must have accepted. However, when it came time for the actual banquet, they refused first without giving a reason. Then, when the king sends back his servants, they give their excuses. In the Thomas version, these turn out to be for reasons of money and business.
The difference between a Parable and an Allegory
This is not a parable in its strictest sense; a parable is a stand-alone story, where the events and characters are not supposed to represent anything or stand for anyone else – it is the outcome of the story we are meant to concentrate on. A parable is supposed to be taken at face value.
This is instead an allegory. The king represents God, and the servants are God’s prophets. The servants are sent out to invite the rich and powerful to sit at God’s banquet, but they give excuses, the nature of which are very illustrative of the life of the wealthy and privileged in Galilee and Judea in those days. The rich represent not only the wealthy and powerul, but also those religious people who think that they have a God-given right to be in heaven.
Typically, the story gives three invitations (a literary device which makes the story easier to remember in the telling). The specific details of the refusals in the Sefer Yeshua are taken from the more detailed version of the story in Thomas; Matthew gives the scantiest of details (one has a farm and the other a business to see to), and Luke has slightly more details (Lk 14:18-20, one has bought a field, the second has bought oxen, and the third has just got married), which are all different to Thomas. In Mt and Lk, it is only relevant that the rich people refused to come. However, in Thomas, the reasons for their refusal become more important – that money and profit are more important to them than God.
Other differences in the gospels
In Mt, the emphasis of the story as it progresses is entirely different, with implied anti-Jewish undertones (because in the previous verses, Mt 21:45-46, Yeshua had just been speaking to the Sadducees and Pharisees, and the Matthean thrust of the story is therefore against them).
In Matthew, the banquet is not God’s banquet but a banquet for ‘Christ’ (‘God’s Son’), and all the servants are killed. The ones who refuse to come are traditionally interpreted as being the Jewish religious leaders, who all rejected ‘Christ’. The king then kills those who killed his servants (the leaders of the Jews, and by ominous extension, the Jewish people, Mt 22:7).
Matthew’s version has further overlaid meaning which suggests that Gentiles will replace Israel (Mt 22:8-10). All these are likely to be Matthew’s own personal additions to the story (subtly anti-Jewish with replacement theology), since they are entirely absent from Luke and Thomas’s versions of the story. Lk and Th are more basic, and therefore likely to be closer to the original. The S.Y. version is therefore based on what scholars have deemed to be the original version, without Matthew’s Christian, anti-Jewish additions.
What the elements of the Allegory stand for
Traditionally, religious stories make God the Judge, who will sit over us and decide who will enter the highest heaven and who will be kept out. However, this story makes our actions and our own decisions judge ourselves – in a sense, we become our own judge. God makes the invitation, but it is entirely up to us whether we accept or refuse.
The invited ones are those who would normally be expected to attend a royal banquet – the rich, the privileged and the powerful – but when the time comes to attend, they refuse. These are the people who think that their status or power gives them special privileges, but in the presence of God, such privileged status is irrelevant.
Yeshua’s teaching implies that those who consider themselves more than worthy (the rich, the influential and the powerful) will in fact be set aside, by dint of their very refusal to attend God’s banquet, in favour of those whom they have cast off to the wayside. Those who were initially invited, when the time came, chose not to come.
How God heals those who try their best
There is an interesting passage in 2Chronicles 30:18-21. It describes how a number of people celebrated Passover but were not actually ritually fit to do so (and therefore, it is implied, according to the rules they should not have observed Passover).
However, King Hezekiah prays to God to forgive them these imperfections, and the text says that “God healed them” – not “forgave them”, but healed them, made them whole. This healing and restoration are the entire point of expiation in the Israelite faith, because forgiveness is given by God at repentance.
Someone who is perfectly able, with all their resources, to fulfil a commandment and yet refuses to do so, is frowned upon; but someone who at least makes the effort, even though imperfectly, is “healed” and made acceptable before God.
The ones who accept the call are the Poor and the Outcasts of Society
In all versions of the parable, the crowning point of the tale focusses on those who accept God’s call to the Kingdom in the end. In a society where the needs of the rich few are paramount, and society is structured to meet only their needs, the needs of the rest of human society (the majority) become irrelevant. The least able in society often get treated like disposable trash. Yet these were the very people to whom Yeshua directed his ministry – those forgotten, mistreated and exploited people who had no place in a profit-driven society.
Those who heeded the call to the banquet were the poor and the lowly, the blind and the lame – the forgotten of society – and thus the wedding hall was filled with guests. Although Yeshua spoke and preached to both the rich and poor, it was the poor who eagerly listened to him, because he showed them that they mattered to God.
From Yeshua’s teaching elsewhere (eg the parable of the Rich Young Ruler, Mk 10:17-22), it is obvious that Yeshua does not condemn the rich simply because they are rich, but rather because of their attitude to wealth and power. If a rich person is charitable and uses part of their wealth to help others – if they do not exploit people, but actually help improve the society of which they are a part – then God blesses such people. But if a rich person considers that money and profit alone are their gods, that they do not owe society anything, and that the ethics of God are ultimately irrelevant in the conduct of their lives, then they condemn themselves.
The main lessons
The rich, whose primary concern was for their business interests, excluded themselves from God’s Kingdom by their very refusal to come. Those who eagerly accepted God’s call were those whom the rich normally exploited and deemed less important. Whereas poor people are merely tools in the eyes of the rich, there to be used to make more profit, the poor and the outcasts of society matter to God, because God champions their cause.