by Jean Allen –
It has been customary to assume the king in the parable of the wedding banquet is God but many scholars question this assumption. While the king does demonstrate some lovely Godlike actions (inviting the poor and downtrodden after the rude rejection by the well-to-do), the parable also demonstrates some actions that are definitely not Godlike. Enraged, he orders that the citizens who murdered his servants be killed and their city burned. He orders an improperly clothed guest to be bound hand and foot and thrown out helpless into the outer darkness. The whole parable reeks of retaliation and violence. Is this Jesus’s God? I think not.
Context here is important. Jesus has been challenged by the temple authorities to say where he gets his authority. Jesus then tells three parables: the two sons asked to work in the vineyard, the tenants who killed the landowner’s son and then this parable, the wedding banquet. After one parable, it even says that the Pharisees realized he was talking about them.
“The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king…” Sure sounds like he’s saying the king is God until you realize that comparing something to something else doesn’t always find that the two things are exactly the same. Quite often a comparison shows up radical differences. The king in this parable practices anger, violence, retaliation and exclusion, the way the world does – and the way the temple authorities will do very soon when they will bind the ‘improperly clothed’ Jesus, hand and foot, and attempt to cast him into the outer darkness. Jesus is not equating the king with God; he is exposing how humanity, particularly the temple authorities, have deviated from the true heart of God and have been swept along into the despicable practice of scapegoating the innocent who have no voice.
Believe it or not, God is NOT a violent tyrant.
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