Strange parable. Great beginning; catastrophic ending. Yet I find myself drawn to the hapless wedding guest because nobody else is. The first sermon I ever heard in a Nazarene Church was when I was in high school. Pastor Roy Hoover preached on this wretched wedding guest. It so chilled me out that I didn’t go back for a year. I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve never heard one on it since! When preachers come to this miserable fellow, like the Jews of old meeting a leper on the road, they give him a wide berth. Luke, in relating this same parable, doesn’t even mention him. Passes over him in silence. I guess that is why I’m drawn to him, as I am to lost puppies and stray cats.

I am also drawn to this poor man because of the monumental embarrassment he suffered. Look at it: he hears the incredible…