Sermon - Trinity II - Luke 14:15-24

Have you ever been invited to a party or event that you didn’t want to attend? It happens, I know it does. You get an invitation to someone’s house and you don’t think the food is going to be all that great or the company will be all that engaging. So you either ask them to excuse you or you just don’t go. Or maybe you remember that time when you were asked out on a date by that person you just didn’t want to date, so you gave them age-old excuse: I have to wash my hair. 

Today Jesus tells a parable, where “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.” This is a parable that teaches us that the Holy Spirit invites all the world to the great banquet feast in the kingdom of God. This is a banquet that you shouldn’t want to miss, not because of the food or the company, but because of who the host is. Even if the meal were made up of wormy old bread and the other guests were below you, you should still earnestly desire to come to this feast because the host is God Himself who graciously and generously welcomes you into His kingdom to eat of the feast that has been so carefully and meticulously prepared for you.

This is a banquet so spectacular that all the world has been invited to it. Not only a select few, but all have been invited to this party. You have been chosen to come to this great feast. God has elected you, has predestined you to go to heaven. It’s not only the great upon the earth who are invited, but even people like us are welcomed in. The Master of the heavenly mansion has told the Holy Spirit: “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.’” 

What generosity God has shown to us, that He even invites the poor, crippled, blind, and lame. “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Jesus has come not for the healthy, but for the sick. Jesus has come for us. The church is not a place for the perfect, this is a not a museum of sinless people, this is a hospital for the frail and dying. The church is where sinners come to be healed of their sin-sickness. 

The church is a place for sick people like me and you, people who struggle with temptations and all too frequently give in to these temptations and sin. If you struggle with pride or envy, pornography or drugs, stealing or vandalism, gossiping or greed, homosexuality or adultery, or any number of other embarrassing sins, then you belong here. Because here your sickness of soul is restored, your wicked heart is given opportunity to repent, and Christ announces to you that He forgives you. It’s done. You’re home.

  Not only does He welcome the sick, but He invites even outsiders, those from the highways and hedges. Christ calls all people to Himself, God the Father “has no wish that anyone should be destroyed, He wishes that all men should come to repentance.” “God wants everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the whole truth.” So while the church in America is shrinking, don’t be surprised if He raises up stones for Himself to fill His banquet hall. In fact, God is already busy at work calling Africans out of their pagan, ancestral worship to faith in the one true Triune God. Just because we Americans have grown stagnant doesn’t mean that God won’t raise up a people for His own possession from places we consider as uncivilized. 

Yes it’s true, we Americans have grown stagnant and complacent, so much so that we often reject God’s invitation because we assume to have a better invitation to a better party. We are like those invited and yet turn down the offer while making excuses. “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’”

All of the people in the parable had been invited before the party began. They had ample time to make their preparations and plan around this magnificent party so that they could attend. Yet they found other things that were more interesting and important to them. One just bought a field, another just bought some oxen, and a third just got married. 

Now in and of themselves those are not evil things in the least! In fact, those are good things and it’s necessary to do those things. These are things that I suspect many of you have done before. If you purchase some land, you’re going to want to go and look at it. You need to examine the slope, the type of soil, it’s crop history, and how it drains. If you buy some livestock, you need to make sure their healthy and have them inspected for potential health problems. You need to have them properly contained and examine them for signs of stress and behavioral problems after moving them to a new environment. Men, when you get married you want to take care of your wife, make sure that she’s comfortable and has all the things that she needs in her new home. You need to keep providing for her, which includes working in the home and being with her and working to earn money to purchase the things she needs. 

All of those are great, wonderful, necessary things. You have a job and you need to do it. You have a family and you need to care for them. We all have various stations in life, duties and jobs that are vital and necessary in order to live and function on earth. You have vocations such as husband and wife, parents, children, workers, employers. Managing your responsibilities is a holy and Godly calling. But your chief vocation is being a Christian.

All of your other vocations and stations in life are less important than being a Christian. The mistake that those in our parable made is that they considered their worldly duties and treasures as more valuable and pressing than that of being a Christian.  Jesus tells us that “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

This applies to us as well. If you would rather put before God your jobs, your sports, your restaurants, your rest, your children or grandchildren, or anything else, then God the Lord says “none of those who were invited shall taste my banquet.” If the pleasures of this earth are more enticing right now than the great heavenly feast, if you think you have a better invitation and more pressing matters, then you will not taste of God’s heavenly banquet. 

You are most certainly invited, you’re sitting here at church right now, you’re baptized children of God. God’s utmost desire is that you would come to heaven to be with Him. But if you reject His invitation because you place in your hearts other things above God, you will not taste of His banquet, you will not enter into heaven. He will say to you: ‘You claimed to have a better invitation, other things which you thought offered you more than what I could offer you, so return to your lands, oxen, and wives, let them have you. If you’ve cooked better things yourself, then go eat and be joyful, but you will not eat of my feast.’

Our Lord doesn’t jest. Those harsh terrible words should frighten us because they speak of a reality that will face us if we reject God’s invitation. So let us therefore place foremost in our lives God’s great banquet feast. It’s a feast unlike any earthly pleasure. “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” For this feast is Christ Himself, who is the bread of life. The Gospel of Jesus Christ who died in order to forgive our sins is the bread of life that we must cling to and place above all earthly breads, all earthly pleasures.

“By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us.” Christ laid down His life for you, forgiving your wicked sins, even your past sins of idolizing this world’s pleasures. That’s the Gospel bread of life. So with all of that in mind, listen to God’s invitation once more: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” Come, eat of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, leave your futile ways of earthly gain, and live, and walk in the the light of Christ’s love for you.