32. Matthew 22
A Parable about a Wedding Banquet (Mt.22:1-14) The issue of Jesus’ authority, his political authority as Messiah of God’s heavenly kingdom continues to be at issue here. Ancient peoples, Jews among them, did not know the separation our modern world has erected between religion and political. For them everything had political significance and everything had religious significance. Jesus had occupied and announced the destruction of the temple, disputed with the Jewish leadership over his authority, and retold Israel’s sad history of default on their calling to be God’s Abrahamic people, which had finally led to this moment of final crisis with Jesus. It was him or the Jews as other than this Abrahamic people given over to bearing God’s blessing to the world. And Jesus’ authority as God’s agent in dealing with the Jews bookends this section (21:23-22:46). Within these “authority” bookends Matthew tells two sequences of three: three parables (the two sons, the vineyard and a ...