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The parable of the Wedding Feast found in Matthew 22:1-15, is a powerful metaphor which will conclude our course in darkness. The story Jesus tells reflects so perfectly the collision between the Kingdom of God (depicted as Divine Union/wedding feast) with life on our human plane. As such it reflects the effect of darkness in humanity, and ends with a representative figure who is condemned to outer darkness.

The evangelical interpretation that this is the relegation of a soul into an eternal Hell is not completely without merit here, but I do think seeing only that narrative distorts the intention of the text. Textually, the words are an idiom meaning “outer darkness” (tò skótos tò èzóteron) has more to do with being removed from the light and safety within the city walls to the unstable darkness outside, where presumably evil spirits existed. Within the context of a parable or metaphor describing God’s Kingdom, this idiom is telling us something about the fact that not all people want to dine with their King, and celebrate the nuptial union with his son. In fact, the story seems to be saying that few of us actually do.

There is a profound darkness in being busy.

Each stage of our lives has within it endeavors which require the majority of our time, attention, and calories. Things like establishing our career, our economic independence, or marriage, or starting a family, etc… all preoccupy our time and cast a shadow of distraction over us. As we prioritize such things, we inevitably make less room for our Maker, our Bridegroom, and the loving engagement that God desires with his people. We can’t be bothered when the King requests we come to a feast. God, is the Creator of all things, the Giver of our life and its benefits, seeks intimate union with us, and we can’t be bothered. Let that set in for a minute.

When we are hurt by a loved one, the hurt is worse. The angered King in this story destroys and burns the city of those who reject His largess. The city in this parable is religion, which convinced its constituents that they were the people of God, and that was good enough. The King put an end to it (destroyed it) because these citizens killed the servants who were sent to them (prophets, forerunners, etc…) yet He was not deterred from the desire in his heart for intimate union and so the feast is still on and sends and invites those outside of the city, essentially gentiles, who were living in the outer darkness of the highways and byways.

As the new invites go, each is benefitting from the King’s feast and loving offering, yet there is an archetype of a man who is not wearing his wedding attire. Historically, the wedding guests would be offered a wedding outfit to show their participation and honor the Host and bridegroom. To reject the garment, is to reject the generosity of the King and to dishonor the bridegroom. It’s the individual who appraises the world and insists that his own covering is sufficient for the occasion. Though invited as a friend, as close to the King, this man’s heart remains far and disconnected (it remains in the outer darkness). Like the first who were too busy, he is too preoccupied with himself to really care.

Self absorption is a form of outer darkness.

This man is then bound by his hands an feet, completely constricted and imprisoned by his unworthy disposition, and then he is thrown into Outer Darkness, away from the King and his guests. Instead of festival joy, he will find weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The darkness of busy and self-preoccupation means that most of us simply have no real love for God, nor true desire for divine union with him. This is to live in outer Darkness. This parable isn’t a threat, it’s a GPS coordinate that indicates our geolocation as either in our out of the city or Kingdom of God. God has invited all comers to this gathering, good and bad, those close and far. Even now, through this podcast or post, He’s coming to you with this same invitation, not unto religion because he burned that city, but to recline with Him and engage.

The wedding garment is offered which is the cleansing and removal of the filth of our sojourning.

“They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14)

The garment is our true self offered in exchange for the fiction we have worn out in the dark highways. It’s offered, but we must put it on. If we show contempt for this ultimate invitation, which is to show contempt for our life by rejecting who we are in God by insisting we are who we make ourselves out to be, then it’s not that darkness awaits, it’s that darkness remains. Darkness is the busy pseudonym who has no thirst for God. We live in a dark world.

We do not escape “outer darkness” through religion…this parable proves that. Outer darkness is the where our false self, all the delusions of who we think ourselves to be exists outside the light of God. Religion often produces the religious false self because it becomes so certain it knows God as defined by the religion. This parable reveals that those who thought they knew, actually didn’t know God at all. The purpose of the parables is to use stories to say of the unsayable. All of our pre-conceived ideas about God are at their best extremely incomplete, and at worst, completely wrong. Thus the way to know God is not through religion or ritual, but by the darkness of unknowing. By putting on the garment and sitting with the King at the feast. Thomas Merton put it this way:

“He Who is infinite light is so tremendous in His evidence that our minds only see Him as darkness. (The Light has shined in Darkness and the darkness has not understood it). If nothing can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness. Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter silence.”

If you would heed this invitation, simply make yourself available. Find an inner posture that doesn’t know, that isn’t certain, nor proud. The dissonance to resist sitting in silence is the false self dying, and then watch how inside you squirm, daydream, and distract, because the wedding garment is so unfamiliar (even to the devout). Sit and be in darkness. Sit and be in silence. Only then can we perceive the invitation coming. Anything beyond our getting to nothing, is the false self who is too busy with their business, their ritual, their life, to care enough for this inviting voice. We are each invited out of our darkness, and out of our falseness and the way to the Kingdom of light is through our darkness, not despite it. Consider this verse depicting what Heaven is like.

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (Revelation 21:22-27)

Outside this city, will be many who want to hold on to what they feel is important, particularly who they believe themselves to be. They will live in outer darkness because that is all they have ever known, and they resent the light which reveals their own self-delusions. Even then, this city has a river that goes out to offer healing. The doors never shut, and heaven isn’t locked from the inside, but from within each of us. Outer darkness is actually our state of darkness within. Since this timeless aspect is revealed in this parable and this depiction of Heaven, the only question that remains for each of us is:

Will we join the feast in a wedding garment, or remain in outer darkness? Do we love God enough to heed His invitation or are we too busy with our own stuff?