Have you ever stood at the edge of a feast you didn’t earn and felt both stunned and unsure? The parable of the wedding banquet cuts straight to that ache in us—the longing to belong, and the fear that we might not measure up. Jesus tells this story not to shame but to wake us: the Kingdom is lavishly offered, but it calls for more than a casual RSVP. There is both wide welcome and a call to be rightly prepared.

In Matthew 22:1–14 and Luke 14:16–24 Jesus tells versions of a dinner invitation. In both, a host prepares a great banquet, invited guests refuse or make excuses, and the host then extends the invitation outward to others. Matthew’s account (22:1–14) includes harsher details—messengers are abused, the original guests are destroyed, and a man is thrown out for lacking a wedding garment, ending with “many are called, few chosen.” Luke’s version (14:16–24) omits the wedding garment and the violent imagery and emphasizes the host bringing in the poor, crippled, blind, and lame. The story appears in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark or John.

What is Jesus revealing? First: the Kingdom is generous and scandalously inclusive—God’s table reaches beyond the respectable to the marginalized. Second: invitation is not the same as transformation. The wedding garment symbolizes a disposition or clothes of righteousness—what we wear before God is not our social status or a verbal assent but a life changed. Matthew’s sharper judgment forces us to face the weight of response: an invitation received and ignored, or received without inner change, misses the point. And yet the grace is staggering—when the first would not come, the host kept inviting.

Today, live like someone who has been invited and put on the proper garment. Practically: begin your morning by asking God to clothe you—confess where you’ve held back, and name one concrete act of welcome or repentance to do: call a lonely neighbor, apologize to someone you’ve hurt, or give time to someone overlooked at work. Receive the feast with gratitude and let that gratitude reshape how you live and love.