Many Called, Few Chosen
Matthew 22:1-14
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Matthew 22:14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… These words of our Lord at the end of today’s Gospel are difficult one to understand. What does it mean when Jesus says that “Many are called, but few are chosen?” To begin with, it clearly means that a relatively small number, only a minority of people – compared to the total number of people ever – are saved and enter into eternal life. Jesus basically said the same thing in Matthew 7: “Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Mt 7:13-14)
One of the most difficult questions in theology is this: Why are some saved and not others? Since God’s grace is offered to everyone, and we are saved by His choosing and His grace alone as Scripture teaches, why is it that only a few end up entering into eternal life?
Some people try to resolve this problem by saying flat out that God predestines some people to heaven and others to hell. If that were true, it would mean that God is the reason that people are damned and separated from Him. That is clearly not a Scriptural teaching. Others say that the reason a person goes to heaven or to hell is because of their own choices. Those who are saved “made a decision” for Jesus. But that explanation faulty as well, and it is easily debunked by Jesus Himself in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” It is our Lord’s commitment to us that saves us, not the other way around.
God’s Holy Word teaches that if a person is saved, it is entirely God’s working in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. All glory and credit for the fact that you are a Christian belongs solely to Him. And if a person is condemned to hell, it is entirely because of his own stubborn rebellion against and rejection of God; it is his refusal to listen to His Word. The entire blame for that eternal disaster belongs solely and completely to man.
Though this theological understanding may be beyond our full comprehension, one thing is clear from Scripture: God has most certainly prepared and offered salvation for all. This is beautifully taught in what is probably the most popular Scripture known to man in John 3:16: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him may not perish but have everlasting life.” We see even in today’s Gospel that in the end the invitation basically goes out to everyone. As St. Matthew writes, “those servants went out . . . and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good.”
Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who prepared a great feast in honor of His Son’s wedding. Jesus Christ and His bride, the church, are to be joined in a holy and divine marriage, the only marriage that will last into eternity. Earthly marriage ceremonies, rightly done, are pictures of this very idea as St. Paul says in Ephesians 5. And wedding vows are always made with the statement, “until death parts us.” But not even death can separate Christ from His beloved church, His chosen people.
In fact, it was by death that the “engagement” took place, we might say. Only by Christ’s death on the cross was this marriage made possible. Jesus came to a world doomed to be destroyed; He came to people condemned to eternal death, and He offered them a way out. He took the sins of all people into Himself. He took to Himself everything in you which causes hurt and lust and jealousy and death, and He overcame it all in His death and resurrection. That act of limitless love is the reason for that eternal wedding feast to come. It is finished; it is done; it’s time to celebrate. God says, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatted cattle are killed, and all things are now ready.”
Jesus offers salvation to all mankind. “The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the highways and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.” Those who were not worthy were the Jews who rejected Jesus as the Messiah. Time and time again Jesus and His disciples proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God. Many were called, many were invited, but only a few gladly received the Word and believed it. Now the Gospel invitation continues to go out to the ends of the earth, even to far away Gentile lands like the United States. The Gospel is able to save all who hear and believe it, as Saint Paul says in Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
God’s call to salvation is serious and it is urgent. The king in Jesus’ parable sent the first delegation to invite the guests to come. Then he sent a second delegation and made the invitation even more pressing. “But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them.” Finally, the king became furious and sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been warned. It is written in Ezekiel 33:11, “As I live, declares Yahweh God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from evil his way and live.” And 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” And 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
God Himself is never the reason why those who refuse His gracious invitation to believe in His Son are condemned. The ultimate fault lies squarely in the lap of sinful man. As it was in Matthew 22, people still too often prefer the profits and pleasures and people of this world over the wedding feast. And all too many even go so far as to show open hostility toward Christ and His servants.
In the gospel text, there was one person who showed an outward compliance to the call of grace; but he did not come to the feast rightly. When the king came in and saw the guests, he noticed that there was a man who had no wedding garment, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.
These words, I think, are especially for us who are here at the divine service today, and who might therefore be tempted to be proud of who we are spiritually. The man without the wedding garment stands for all those who come before God not trusting in Christ but wearing the filthy rags of their own self-righteousness. Those who despise God and show their contempt for Him by clothing themselves in their own works and their own goodness will find themselves bounced into outer darkness forever, where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Of course, this is an entirely unnecessary outcome because God Himself freely supplies the clothing. He covers us with the perfection of His Son. St. Paul writes in Gal 3:27, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” God clothes you with Christ in your baptism where He wraps you up in His righteousness. Christ is your white wedding garment; His seamless and spotless robe is your covering. Jesus’ death to sin is your death to sin. Jesus’ resurrection to life is your resurrection to life. His perfect keeping of the Law is credited to you by faith. God gives it all to you for free in Holy Baptism. Better than any Armani suit, you, by God-given faith, have the very best suit of all, the robe of Christ’s righteousness. And you dare not come to the Lord’s feast dressed in anything less than that. To do otherwise is to reject His rich grace and His kingly love.
So, if someone is cast into the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, it is their own fault, not God’s fault. They have rejected the call of grace; they have stubbornly chosen not to believe that Christ died for their sins.
On the other hand, those who are saved take no credit for their salvation. Those invited and chosen were no better than the others were. They were as unfit to dine at the king’s table as anyone. They did nothing to help plan the banquet, they did nothing to prepare the feast, and they did not invite themselves or make any conscious choice. They were simply drawn in by the power of the invitation and the joy of what had been prepared for them. It is as Jesus says in Jn 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” There is no merit or worthiness that these guests could boast of. That is how it is in the kingdom of heaven. It is solely the mercy and grace of the host that gives you our place at His table.
Those who are saved are saved by God’s grace alone, totally unassisted and unmerited by man. It is written that even before the creation of the earth, God had planned the salvation of man. Saint Paul proclaims in Ephesians 1:4-5, God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” And again, these words of our Lord in Jn 15:16 – “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.”
God, therefore, is the One who makes you alive in Christ; He gives you hearts of faith by His Holy Spirit. It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And that is tremendously comforting news; for it means that your salvation is not founded on the shifting sands of your actions and your choices, but on the solid rock of His actions and His choosing of you, even before you could do anything.
So, back to where we started: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” With these words we are reminded to be on guard that we do not resist God’s grace and frustrate His merciful designs. Instead, we pay attention to the wedding feast by believing in and clinging to Christ by the marvelous gift of faith that He gives by His Spirit through His Word, by heeding His invitation to come to the feast at the altar, the Supper of His body and blood.
The one who is worthy is the one who has faith in these words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” By that Word of grace, we then go out into the world to live as His children, loving and serving our neighbor wherever God puts us.
“Many are called, but few are chosen.” Thanks be to God that He has chosen you to be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
