The Wedding Banquet

Servants!”  The king yelled “The banquet is ready. My son is to be married. I need you to go to those that have been invited and let them know that the feast is nigh. The fattened cattle have been butchered and everything is ready. Please, bid them to come.”  

Malchion loved the king and loved being a servant for the king. Without the royal family Malchion would have stayed a street urchin, begging for food and money just to live. The day the prince laid eyes on Malchion and welcomed him into the castle was the day everything changed for Malchion. He was given new clothes, a warm place to sleep, food to eat and every once in a while a copper or two for good service. Those coins Malchion sent back to his family who were still very poor.

So, it was with great excitement that Malchion was allowed to proclaim the princes wedding to others. He left the castle and ran to bring the message to those he had been charged with. The first family he was to deliver the wonderful message to, was a wealthy merchant family. They made their living mostly on shipping goods to and from foreign and exotic countries that Malchion had never heard of. Reaching the front door to the country mansion, Malchion banged the knocker and waited.

After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened, and a tall thinning butler opened the door “yeees?”

“I have a message from the king” Malchion tried his hardest to not bounce from excitement, and almost succeeded. The butler, looking bored, ran his eyes slowly from the top of Malchions head to the bottoms of his feet and back up again.

“Wait here” the butler droned and closed the door. The seconds dragged into minutes until the door opened once more.

“Hello young man. What can I do for you? I’m told you have a message for me. From the king?”

“Yes!” blurted Malchion. “The prince is getting married. The wedding feast is ready. You must come and celebrate!” Malchion was bouncing in ernest now.

The merchant was quiet for a moment. Not sharing at all in Malchions excitement. “The thing is…” the merchant finally replied. “I have recently purchased some land and am on my way to go look at it. So please send my regards to the king, but tell him I cannot come”

The merchant closed the door before Malchion could try and convince him otherwise. He blinked at the door a few times in wonderment. “How could he not want to come to the banquet.” Malchion thought to himself as he turned away from the closed door and made his way to the second destination on his list. “The prince is so nice, and the rest of the family is so generous, wanting to share all that food and stuff”

Malchions second stop was the family of a very successful farmer. They looked after a lot of land within the kingdom and raised hundreds of sheep and cattle. As Malchion walked down the lane to the house he noticed that the wheat was as tall as his head on both sides of the lane. The crops were very good this year.

Approaching the house Malchion saw a boy on a swing in the yard. Instead of going to the house, he went to talk to the boy. “Hi” said Malchion. “Hi” replied the boy.

“Is your dad home? I have a message for him from the king” At the mention of the king the boy’s eyes went wide. He jumped off the swing and ran for the barn shouting “Pa! Pa!”

Malchion was renewed with hope. He was sure that this exchange would go much better than the first. The boy dashed inside the barn and just as quickly dashed out again running back towards Malchion, his father close behind.

“What is it boy?” the farmer said to Malchion. “Quickly now, I don’t have all day”.

Malchion quickly explained why he was there and why it was important for the farmer and his family to attend the event. The farmer replied as soon as Malchion had finished the final word on his presentation.

“I have no time to attend. Look over there.” The farmer pointed toward the barn and two large animals “See those? I just bought those oxen and I need to prove them before harvest. Let the king know I cannot come.”

The farmer hurried away, back toward the barn and his oxen and Malchion slowly started back down the lane from where he came and onto his third and final destination.

Malchion was no longer excited. He was sad for the prince that no one wanted to come to his wedding banquet. The third place that Malchion was to visit was a lesser noble family that had close ties to the king and his family. Malchion was not sure if they were related somehow or just liked each other, but maybe because they were also of noble birth that they might want to come to the banquet.

Malchion approached the estate with hope. Praying for the best but expecting the worst. Standing on the front porch mustering up the courage to get rejected a third time, he heard the sounds of many voices and music wafting from behind the house. Malchion slowly made his way to the side of the house and peaked around back. He was amazed to see that they were having a party. Malchion thought if they were having a party then they would probably want to come to the prince’s party as well.

Malchion ran to a large, lavishly decorated table where a finely dressed couple sat. Malchion assumed correctly that this is where nobility sat. “You’re having a party!” Malchion exclaimed excitedly. “The prince is having a party too! And your invited. The fatted cattle have been butchered and the table is ready. Please come.”

The nobleman smiled at Malchion. “Yes, we are having a party. It’s our wedding day and right after the party we are leaving on our honeymoon. We are honored by the invitation but alas we cannot come”

Malchion nodded in understanding and made his way toward home. Malchion was disappointed that no one wanted to come to the prince’s banquet. He was also a little scared at what the king might say. Would he be mad at Malchion that he could not convince a single person to come?

By the time Malchion had gotten back to the castle he was depleted, depressed and a little afraid. As he stood in the king’s court with the other servants who went out, he was surprised to hear that the other servants had reported much the same results. No one was coming to the banquet.

The king was enraged. He said to his servants “The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.”

So Malchion and the rest of the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find. The bad, as well as good. Anyone they could find so they could fill the wedding hall with guests.

But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, “how did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?” The man was speechless.

Then the king told the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are invited, but few are chosen”

Based on the parable of the wedding feast (Matthew 22: 1-14)