The king is a king. He is on top of an intricate system of honor and shame, patronage, property, and privilege. He is rich. He is powerful. He hosts a banquet. His invite is turned down. He is shamed. He gets back at those who shamed him. He has them killed and burns down their city.
Then he gathers the dregs of society to his banquet. He finds one of the dregs not wearing the wedding robe, which the King obviously provided--where do you expect the dregs of society to get clothes for a royal wedding?
The King is a King. He is rich. He is powerful. He is benevolent, but he has been shamed--again! He has his minions bind the man, hand and foot, and thrown out to where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
This is how many among us, who proudly call ourselves God's People and God's Chosen, tragically imagine God and God's Kingdom. This is why so many among us support the "burnings and the killings" in Gaza because God's People and God's Chosen have been shamed.
P.S. My friends, there is no war in the Holy Land. The State of Israel has an army, a navy, an air force, 90 nuclear warheads, and the US Government! Palestinians have none of these. There is no war in the Holy Land. What is there is Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian Territories and the largest open-air prison on earth, Gaza.
*art, "The Marriage Feast" by (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).
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