This sermon has a two-fold - to engage in a theological exercise and to determine the meaning of this parable for modern-day readers.  Is God the stern, unforgiving master in the story, or is the master incidental to the real message?

David Lose calls this parable "an ugly parable" for good reason.  It has wedding invitees that turn down the king's invitation to his son's wedding banquet, violence, distruction of a city, and kicking a poor man out of the banquet who actually accepted the invitation.  The sermon explores what is going on in another one of Jesus' parables.  This one was addressed to the Jewish religious leaders who had rejected Jesus.

This sermon comes from Jesus' parable about a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep, safely pastured, to go find one lost sheep.  Listeners would have seen the believed the shepherd in the story to be foolish for putting the 99 at risk.  Whch helped drive home Jesus' major point about the importance of a single person in the mind of Christ. The sermon explores the way Jesus regarded the "little one."

In Matthew 13:44-46 Matthew recounts the two parables that Jesus told about "treasure" that people found and spent their whole wealth in order to possess.  It's a stunning idea, and Jesus connects it to the value of the Kingdom of God.  Those who recognize the wealth of the kingdom go on to sell everything to possess it.  As a result we have the stories today of Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and a host of other people who went on to give their lives for the work of God.  That is this the concern of this week's sermon.