Do you see what I mean about a sting in the tail? Not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' To get the point, we must ask ourselves: 'Who were these original invited guests? Who did they represent?' The answer, of course, is the Jews, the religious people, the Bible-believing people, those who saw themselves en route to heaven, like Jesus' smug colleague at the Pharisee's dinner party. Yet, in this scorching punch-line, Jesus concludes: 'Not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'
Can he be serious? He's implying that the religiously privileged will be excluded from the kingdom of God. Who then is to be included? 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.' Here were the very same outcast and destitute beggars, the poor and the disadvantaged, whom Jesus advised the Pharisees to invite to their dinner party, but who were conspicuous by their absence at that particular table. Such people will be there at God's banquet, affirmed Jesus. And, as if their admission to the kingdom were not offensive enough to Jesus' respectable audience, he adds: 'But there is still room.' Then, says the master, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in.'
It is possible, of course, that this second sending out of the servant just reinforces the first, thus intensifying the humiliation for Jesus' audience. Most commentators agree, however, that Jesus is doing a little more than that. He's anticipating the incorporation of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God. The gospels certainly teach that Jesus did foresee such a development. 'The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit,' he told some chief priests and Pharisees a little later (Matthew 21:43). Though admittedly it's not absolutely clear from this parable, it does seem likely that those in the roads and country lanes represent non-Jewish outsiders whom Jesus would soon
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