Today we have come to the first part of Jesus giving us the Readers Digest version of the faith-walk God wants from each of us. It took the Pharisees 613 commands to summarize God’s law (the Decalogue); it took Jesus two commands, with a total of five parts, to spell out our purpose as Christians.  This passage in Matt 22 is called the Great Commandment. (Matt 28 is the Great Commission.)  Jesus took one piece of his Great Commandment from Deut 6:4-5, to love God.  The other part is from Lev 19:18b, to love our neighbor. 

I love the irony in the Isaiah passage. God anointed Cyrus, empowered him to defeat his enemies, calls him by name. Cyrus was the king of Persia. He defeated the Babylonian empire, and allowed the exiled Israelites to return to their homeland. God was the source of the power that enabled Cyrus to defeat Babylon. Our God is the god of all creation; not just of Israel; speaking today, not just the god of the people who worship Him. Cyrus didn’t know God, but God called him by name, and used him to accomplish God’s purpose.

“Being ready” is what Jesus was telling the church leaders was necessary, through his story of the king inviting everyone to the wedding banquet. The point of his parable was to wear the right garment; to be ready to respond to God’s invitation, whenever it happens.

So what is this garment we should be wearing?

When I started work as an electrical engineer I was teamed up with a senior engineer, working as his assistant. As we began working on projects together, it didn’t take long to learn what it meant to be a ‘go-fer’. But pretty quickly I caught onto the job of project engineering; and I began making suggestions, and taking initiative. It wasn’t received well. I was the young boy in the department, and I had to earn my way into a position of responsibility. I had to earn my credentials for the authority I wanted so badly.

Jesus was teaching a lesson in authority and responsibility.

Jonah resents that God would forgive Nineveh. Laborers in the vineyard resent that last-minute workers would get a full day’s wage for an hour’s work; the first is last and the last is first.

Of course the point Jesus was making is that how hard we work, or how long we have been at it, does not ‘earn’ us the keys to God’s Kingdom. There is NO WAY we ‘earn’ eternal life; that is just not how it works. It is only by God’s grace that we are invited to live with God, in this life and in the next life.

The parable of the unforgiving debtor sounds harsh and cruel; but within this story is a life lesson we all need to study. All of our lessons today have to do with handling forgiveness, and not judging others. That’s a hard assignment. I was not brought up to forgive. My father was more the model that if someone wrongs you, they no longer exist. So this has been a hard lesson for me.

Our decision to be People of God raises us higher than only holding the faith that God exists, or that God cares about us, or even that God loves us so much that He forgives us when we goof up.

In Peter’s denial of Jesus telling them about his coming passion, death and resurrection – an outcome very inconsistent with being a Messiah – it is very clear that Peter had not figured out yet how God works. He was trying to ‘be there’ for Jesus, but by the rules of the world, rather than accepting that God could work by a whole different set of rules.

Jesus defined himself by using many names; bread of life, light of the world, the gate, the good shepherd, the vine, the way, the truth and the life. In the eighth chapter of Matthew (8.20), Jesus took upon himself the name given before him to the prophet Ezekiel, “Son of Man”. Jesus asked his disciples “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  And they answered; John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or maybe one of the prophets.”  So to this point they hadn’t figured out who he was. Then Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” It is important to notice that Jesus did not tell his disciples who he was, but he asked them what they had figured out for themselves, based on what they had seen him do and heard him teach. Even of his first followers, just as it is true for you and me, Jesus requires that we freely, on our own, recognize who he is.

Jesus met a non-Jewish woman who pleaded with him to heal her daughter.  This is one of the most intriguing stories in the Gospels.  The woman changed Jesus’ mind about healing her daughter.