<p>22:5&nbsp;<em>But they made light of it</em>- The note of tragedy in &quot;But...&quot; mustn't be missed. This is the tragedy of human rejection of the Gospel of the Kingdom- the greatest things are prepared, but they are 'made light of' because the things of this life seem heavier. Israel's making light of the invitation is our warning, for Heb. 2:9 uses the same word here translated &quot;made light&quot;: &quot;How shall we escape, if we&nbsp;<em>neglect</em>&nbsp;such a great salvation&quot;. Paul uses the same word in urging Timothy not to &quot;neglect&quot; the gifts of potential service which he had been given (1 Tim. 4:14).&nbsp;</p><p><em>And went their ways</em>- Albeit masked in translation, this one Greek word&nbsp;<em>aperchomai&nbsp;</em>is related to the word&nbsp;<em>erchomai</em>&nbsp;used in :3- &quot;They would not&nbsp;<em>come</em>&quot;. Instead of going to the banquet, they went... to their various concerns. Two ways were therefore placed before them- to go the way to the banquet of the Kingdom, or go the ways of worldly cares. Although again concealed in most translations, this is the connection of thought with the unusual word&nbsp;<em>diexodos</em>&nbsp;translated &quot;highways&quot;, literally 'the parting of the two ways', in :9. It was there, at the fork between two ways, that the appeal was to be made by the later servants.&nbsp;</p><p><em>One to his farm</em>- Literally 'this one to his farm, this one to his trading'. We are thus invited to imagine these characters. Maybe the Lord was nodding His head towards passers by as He spoke these words. Banquets began in the evening hence the man thrown out of it was thrown out into darkness, :13, and so this apparent element of unreality makes us interpret the Lord as meaning that&nbsp;<em>in their minds</em>&nbsp;they went off to their various secular concerns. For they would hardly be going off to those things in the evening. The farmer was presumably living at his farm when the servant came to take him to the banquet, so this going to his farm must be interpreted psychologically. Time and again we must remember that John's message, which had been primarily about the Lord and the need for repentance (Acts 19:4) had enjoyed amazing response. But it was all surface level response- even the baptisms. In their hearts, people made light of it and went off in their secular worries and concerns. This has biting relevance to us, who can be fully and positively engaged with the call to the Kingdom as we consider it in reading about it or listening to it preached in church. But that enthusiastic agreement with the message can so quickly and easily be displaced by the cares of this world. The Lord's parable of the sower was initially His commentary upon how the people had responded to John's message about Him and the Kingdom, but the cares of the world and other factors soon choked the growth of that seed.</p><p><em>Another to his business</em>- Again, trading isn't done in the evening, which was when the banquet would have begun. The only other time the Lord uses this idea of trading or 'merchant-ing' in the Gospels is in speaking of the merchant man who sold up all he had in order to buy the pearl of great price, and thus quit his trading (13:45). The parable is alluding to the way in which invitations were sent out, accepted, and then a servant came to escort the invited person to the banquet. This generation had accepted the invitation in that they had accepted John's preaching. But when it came to actually entering the Kingdom, they were instead dominated by the cares of secular life. And it is exactly this, rather than any logical or intellectual difficulty in accepting the message, which is the real reason people turn down the invitation. &quot;They made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise&quot; would imply that there was a period of crazy addiction to materialism among Jewry between the crucifixion and A.D. 70.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is confirmed by the epistles to the Jewish believers, notably James and Peter; it also finds a counterpart in our present 'last days'.</p>