Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

The Wedding Invitation Sunday "Applying the Gospel of the Day"

From the Old Testament of the Day: Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good and delight yourself in rich food. [Isaiah 55.2b]

From the Epistle: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. [Ephesians 5.15-16]

From the Holy Gospel: And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.  [Matthew 22. 10]

            What does this mean? The most repeated clause in Dr. Luther’s Small Catechism is this one. After each quotation from God’s Word, Luther asks, “What does this mean?” And then he answers it. He teaches us what God’s Word “means” for us at this point of Christian doctrine.

Today, on this 20^th Sunday after Trinity – and also the 2^nd Sunday after the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, at which time the long Trinity Season begins to approach the season’s culmination – the lessons appointed to be read present you the opportunity to consider the relationship between what God’s Word says and what God’s Word means. Or, to put it another, popular way of speaking, today you ponder the true meaning of the phrase “Applying God’s Word” to me, to us, to our culture, to our age, and so forth.

I.

The Holy Gospel begins with these words, “Again Jesus spoke to them in parables….” You are often and regularly reminded by your pastors that Jesus uses parables for a reason, and that reason is NOT as a teaching device to make His point more clear. Rather, as He Himself says, the form of the parable is used to that “seeing they might NOT see, and hearing that they might not understand.”

Why on earth would He do this? He does this because His hearers in the text have come to the conclusion, in one way or another – that they are able to make of God’s Word what they choose to make. They have thereby resisted and rejected what God really is saying to them, masking it to suit themselves and their own understanding.

So, this parable comes from the mouth of Jesus to the ears of His hearers as judgment upon them, with the Holy Spirit as the only key to unlock the one and only “meaning” of the text. There minds, their cleverness, and even their piety will no succeed in getting the meaning apart from the Spirit’s one, intended meaning and purpose in the text.

In this parable, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a king who gave a wedding feast for His son. He describes a most puzzling response for those invited to the feast. While some just disregard the invite, others “seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.” There is more going on here than actually makes sense to what we might call, “ordinary people.”

But, Jesus’ meaning is clear under the eye-opening guidance of the Holy Spirit. He is describing the rejection of God’s true Messiah and God’s intended promises in the Old Testament period. The king is God Himself – that wasn’t hard! The servants are His called and ordained prophets, sent to warn and to bring to repentance the wayward people of God. And kill them they did! It wasn’t enough to simply ignore them. The Word of God is not that conveniently dismissed. It has a pesky, gnawing quality to it, causing resistance where it does not cause repentance.

But to those who given ears by the Holy Ghost, the meaning of Jesus parable becomes clear. The king IS God. The son IS the our Lord Jesus Christ. The invitation is the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. And the feast is the fellowship with God that culminates in the banquet celebration that follows Jesus’ return on the Last day, the same banquet now being given in the Lord’s Supper.

Okay, you might say – Got it! Understand it! Do you? Let’s test it! Who are the servants that go out into the highways and gather all that they find? In other words, how do we “apply” this parable to ourselves?

II.

That indeed is the question of the day; indeed it is the question of the entire New Testament age. Continually in the history of the Church – and truly in the Church today – the matter of “applying” Scripture has been a problem! By Luther’s day, it became popular to say that there is a four-fold way of applying any text to the hearer, and the text is not fully understood until all four ways are used. There is the literal meaning, determined by analyzing the text. Then there is there is the spiritual meaning, determined by the use of allegory. Then there is meaning concerning great day of the return of Christ and the new heavens and new earth, and this is meaning is determined by the use of analogy. Lastly, there is the axiological meaning, determined by applying axioms, or principles for Christian living, out of the text.

This four-fold use of Scripture brought about the Lutheran Reformation in this important way: its popularity brought Dr. Luther to become the champion of a return to the understanding that the text of Scripture has one and only one intended use! And that intended use of Scripture in the lives of God’s people is to see themselves before God in the nakedness of the Law’s light, and to know that that nakedness is covered by the righteousness of Christ, making those so covered to be sons and daughters of God and privileged to live under Him in His kingdom, now and forever.

This one, intended use of the Scriptures is as rare to today as it was at the time of the Reformation. But the use of this one intended meaning/one application is a blessing from God that you don’t want to lose! It is your spiritual life-line. Let’s see it working in the texts you have heard today.

III.

The application of the one intended use of the Scriptures begins with this question: In the Holy Gospel, who are the servants sent out to the highways and byways? The common answer, the axiological answer is this: YOU are those servants, and God is sending you out. But this meaning is foreign to the text! The servants are first seen going to those who rejected and killed them, those for the banquet was first intended. This is the Old Testament era. The servants are the prophets sent by God with His message specifically given to relay to the hearers.

That gives you the one, true key to understand the servants in the second half of the parable, which also now becomes clear – it is the New Testament era. And the servants are those called and ordained by God to speak the same, unaltered message to anyone and everyone, by which to draw the hearers – good and evil, rich and poor – to Christ. So, there you are, in the text after all: “And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.”

There you are! There we all are! Called by the Gospel! Knowing who you are impacts how you live! That is the Gospel way. Others, in every age, want to change life in Christ’s Church from the Gospel way to the Law way. That’s what how the whole four-fold use of Scripture theory got its start.

“But what about daily living, Pastor?” What about it? Daily living is going to happen! Either you are going to live in it under the Law or under the Gospel. Either you are going to live in it by constant checking of what to do or not to do – how often, how much, who’s turn now, glorying in what you do, etc. – And that IS one way to use God’s Word. OR, you are going to live in this life by knowing and remembering who you are in Christ! That is the one, intended use of God’s Word, that lets you glory in who you are! You pick! But, know this: God’s Word is given to you live under the Gospel!