Sermon - Trinity II - Luke 14:15-24

 I like to eat. I like banquets and feasts and dinner parties. I suspect I’m not alone in my proclivities towards supper. It’s something of a human characteristic to take great joy in food and having suppers. Whenever we have big parties, be it a holiday gathering, a wedding, a birthday, or a reunion, the central event is a meal of some sort. 

A meal, the large Sabbath day supper, is the context for today’s Gospel. “One Sabbath, Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees...When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!””

From this earthly banquet, which the man is enjoying with Jesus, they turn to the heavenly banquet which takes place in the kingdom of God. Indeed, the scriptures themselves are filled with suppers, but not suppers which fill only our bellies, rather, the scriptures point us to the greater suppers beyond this life. 

So for a few minutes this morning, I beg you to take leave of thinking about what you’re going to eat today and the meals you’re planning, and rather set your mind on a different supper. Ponder for a moment the suppers of which the scriptures speak. So as we delve into the Bible, we find three different suppers by which our Lord feeds us a meal which lasts unto eternity.

The first stop on our safari supper is in Proverbs. Wisdom is the host, and “she has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table.” She calls out and invites all to her supper: ““Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks sense she says, “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.”” 

What does that insight consist of? “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” To be wise in the Lord is to have faith according to the knowledge God gives us. To be wise is to hear and know the Gospel! 

This supper isn’t composed of finely prepared meats, breads, and wines in the usual sense, but it’s a feast on the Word of God, the Gospel! While feasting upon the Word of God won’t necessarily fill our bellies, it does fill our hearts and minds, yea even our souls! The Word of God makes man wise unto salvation in Jesus Christ!

The second stop in our progressive supper is to the night on which Jesus was betrayed. Our first stop consisted of a meal which never touched our bellies, but nevertheless filled us right up. This supper, namely the Lord’s Supper, combines the Word of God with the flesh and blood of Christ. 

Jesus takes some unleavened bread and declares of it: This is my body. Jesus takes some wine, fermented from grapes, and says: This is my blood. He commands us, take, eat, and take, drink, this is for you for the forgiveness of your sins. The very body and blood of Christ, the same which hung upon the cross, was buried in the tomb, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven is here fed to Christians around the world. 

This all gives a new meaning to God’s Word which says: “taste and see that the Lord is good.” God’s word is not just a thought or a sound, but it’s flesh and blood in the person of Jesus! He gives us Himself to eat, not in a cannibalistic sense, but so that God Himself might enter into us and fill us with His grace and favor. 

Now we come to our third Supper, found at the end of the scriptures, foretold by Christ and described in the book of Revelation: the great wedding feast of the Lamb and His bride the church. Heaven itself is described as and given the title of a marriage supper! The angel declares: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” 

This is the supper of which Christ alludes to in His parable today. ““A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’”” Just as this life is filled with many suppers, so is Christ preparing us for the great marriage supper that we shall attend for all eternity in heaven! 

Now, when you hear about all three of those suppers, you would think I don’t really have to convince you that you should attend them, right? When large supper parties are prepared, and you’re invited to them, you don’t need much convincing to attend one! You just go because you know how great it’s going to be! And yet, even though you think people wouldn’t want to pass up these suppers, far too often we do.

“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.’”

The first point of this parable is to teach us that God is gracious and that He loves us. God prepares a feast for us, He sends His messenger to invite us personally to this feast, He compels us to come even when we delay, all this by God’s free grace and favor! The second point Jesus desires to teach us is a warning, namely a warning against refusing to go to the feast because we’re distracted with temporal goods. 

Like the three men in the parable, many in this life prefer our temporal goods, like land, oxen, and family, to the great heavenly feast. We’re tempted like Esau to trade away our birthright for a bowl of soup! Let us not be like Esau or the three men with excuses, for the master of house says: “None of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.” 

What Christ demands of us who wish to be His disciples, is as He says immediately after this parable: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Christ is not telling you to be a jerk to your family. He’s telling you that you must make Him your God and love Him more than even your own life! 

Christ’s supper is so much more valuable than any other worldly good, we must not put those things above God and His supper. Not our sports nor our schools, not our spouses nor our children, not our houses nor our food, not even our own lives may come before God and His precious Word. 

So let us lay aside our fields, oxen, and families, yea even our own lives, and become as the beggars invited to the master’s feast. Let us be the poor, cripplied, blind, and lame, instead of the rich with our eyes set on worldly goods. Let us see ourselves not as strong and healthy, but as weak and ill, without any pleasures in life except for Christ.

We are the poor and destitute, the castaways in the ocean of sin and death. We don’t deserve to sup at the master’s table and feast upon His Word, His flesh and blood, but by His grace He makes it so. In His love, He laid down His life for us, so that only by His mercy may we dine with Him in the everafter. 

May God always help us to see that we are poor, sick, and blind and not refuse His precious supper. We are all beggars. It is true.