Called and Chosen (22:1–14)
Jesus tells a story about a king who gives a wedding feast for his son and sends servants to summon those already invited. They will not come. A second summons adds a detail: the meal is ready to be served.
“I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready” (22:4).
The verb behind “I have prepared,” ἡτοίμακα (hētoimaka), is in the perfect tense; the preparation is complete, its effect reaching into the present moment of the invitation.
That same verb, and the word for the invited guests beside it, appear together in one other place in Israel’s scriptures. Zephaniah announces that the day of the LORD is near and adds, “the LORD has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests” (Zeph 1:7). The Greek behind that verse uses ἡτοίμακεν (hētoimaken), the identical perfect tense on the king’s lips in Matthew, and κλητούς (klētous), built from the same root as κεκλημένους, Matthew’s word for “those invited” throughout the parable (22:3, 4, 8). Zephaniah’s day of judgment falls on officials and on “all who array themselves in foreign attire” (Zeph 1:8). Matthew’s feast borrows that structure: the meal is ready, and the refusal will not be overlooked.
The guests do not merely decline. Some go back to the farm and to business, and the rest seize the king’s servants and kill them (22:5–6). The king answers in kind, destroying the murderers and burning their city (22:7). The verdict is the same as that in the parable of the wicked tenants where the vineyard is let out to others (21:41, 43). The burning city is Jerusalem’s future. The invitation widens rather than closing: servants go into the roads and gather “both bad and good,” until the hall is full (22:9–10).
But the width of the invitation is not the last word. The king finds a guest not dressed for the wedding, οὐκ ἐνδεδυμένον ἔνδυμα γάμου (22:11). Zephaniah singled out for the same day of judgment those “clothed in foreign garments,” ἐνδεδυμένους ἐνδύματα ἀλλότρια (Zeph 1:8), the same word for “clothed” and the same word for “garment” in both texts. Being gathered into the hall and being dressed for what happens inside it are not the same thing. The man has nothing to say and is cast out (22:12–13).
The closing line gives the parable its shape: “For many are called, but few are chosen” (22:14). The two are not the same thing. Some will try to enter the kingdom trusting in their own righteousness (as the prayer of humble access says). But those who are chosen will enter the great feast covered in the divine mercy of God. That is the garment that we all must wear.
The Things That Are God’s (22:15–22)
Genesis begins with a statement that sets Israel apart from all surrounding cultures: human beings are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27). The Hebrew word is tselem (“image, likeness”), and the LXX translates it as εἰκών (eikōn). In the ancient Near East, images of gods and kings were not just decoration; they symbolized the presence and authority of deities and rulers. Egypt and Mesopotamia viewed the king as the image of the deity, carrying divine authority in the world. Israel’s scriptures democratize this idea: not just the king, but every human being bears that image.
That tradition stands behind one of the questions Jesus asks in the Temple.
The Pharisees and Herodians, enemies united by their goal of trapping him, pose what seems to be an unanswerable question: is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? If he answers yes, he risks alienating Jewish nationalists; if he answers no, he risks arrest. Jesus calls them hypocrites (ὑποκριταί) before giving any answer, which is Matthew’s unique touch. Then he asks them to produce the coin used for the tax. They bring a denarius, the Roman tribute coin bearing Caesar’s image.
Jesus asks a question of his own:
“Whose image and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (22:20–21).
The Greek word for “image” is εἰκών, the same term used in Genesis 1:26–27 in the LXX. The coin bears Caesar’s εἰκών and belongs to Caesar. Human beings bear God’s εἰκών. This logic goes beyond the coin: give Caesar what bears his image, and give God what bears his, which is the total human being.
Jesus completely reframes the question. The Pharisees asked about tribute, but he responds with a more probing question: to whom do you belong?
We often pay close attention to the first half of Jesus’s reply while giving the second half much less thought. We understand what to render to Caesar. The more important question is whether we are offering our full selves to God as his image bearers. It’s possible to structure your entire life around earthly responsibilities, ambitions, and approval, and call it responsible living. But the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears Caesar’s image. Everything that bears God’s image rightfully and completely belongs to God.
David’s Lord (22:41–46)
Matthew carefully arranges the final days of Jesus’s Jerusalem ministry as a series of confrontations. The religious authorities try to trap him with questions about taxes, resurrection, and the law. Jesus answers each challenge skillfully. Then he asks his own question, leaving them completely silent.
The question involves Psalm 110. This detail is more important than most people realize. Psalm 110 is the most quoted or alluded to Old Testament chapter in the entire New Testament. The early church repeatedly turned to this psalm to understand who Jesus is and what he is doing now.
Jesus quotes the opening verse:
The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” (Matt. 22:44).
Then he asks:
“If David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” (Matt. 22:45).
The riddle compels its listeners to understand what the psalm reveals. Yahweh speaks to someone whom David addresses as “my Lord.” If this psalm is messianic, and Jesus and his contemporaries interpreted it as such, then David acknowledges the Messiah as his Lord. A king does not call his descendant Lord. The opposite happens: sons honor their fathers, and descendants honor their ancestors. Yet here is David, the greatest king in Israel’s history, calling the Messiah his Lord.
The riddle shows that the Messiah goes beyond human lineage. Yes, he is from David’s line. Matthew has carefully traced that genealogy in his opening chapter. But David’s son is also David’s Lord. He has an authority and status that surpasses royal inheritance.
The image from Psalm 110 depicts enthronement. Yahweh invites this Lord to sit at his right hand, the position of ultimate authority. He waits while God defeats his enemies. He rules from the heavenly throne.
Matthew returns to this image at the very end of his Gospel. The crucified and risen Jesus declares:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18).
The person who posed the riddle now says it has been fulfilled. He sits enthroned at God’s right hand.
The answer to the riddle changes how we interpret everything that follows in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus does not go to the cross as a defeated prophet. He goes as the enthroned Lord whose enemies will be put under his feet. The passion is not the end of his authority but the journey through which that authority is revealed and exercised.
No one could answer the riddle (Matt. 22:46). The answer stood before them. David’s Lord had come.
I find myself quite convicted this morning about the amount of time and energy I expend on the “things belonging to Caesar;” that is, politically and cultural news, trying to keep informed about the goings on of this current administration. Instead, I have felt for some time, I need to limit my intake and use my time and focus better on those bearing God’s image. I don’t think I would have quite framed it that way before today’s devotional. Thanks Father Michael for challenging us to love the cruciform life!
Psalm 110 must have been one of the key passages that Jesus depended upon as he “read scripture backward” to fully grasp his own mission and to give himself freely and fully to the rejection and suffering his crucifixion/enthronement would entail.
After successfully countering the “ snake debate questions” of the Pharisees and Sadducees, He silenced them by modeling his backward reading of scripture for the religious elite, before he ever did it for the two on the road to Emmaus.
Even though I think I would’ve been one of the “foolish disciples” who needed to ask another question because I didn’t understand what Jesus was saying, Matthew seems to imply in verse 46 that the “Scripture specialists” clearly understood because “no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”
It’s not hard to see the battle lines drawn, and feel the hardness of their heart.
Oh Lord, convict me of the hardness of my heart when Your Living Word confronts me with the lies I am believing.