An Invitation for Whom?
16 Then he told him, “A man was giving a large banquet and invited many. 17 At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’
Luke 14:16-24 CSB
18 “But without exception they all began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. I ask you to excuse me.’
19 “Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m going to try them out. I ask you to excuse me.’
20 “And another said, ‘I just got married, and therefore I’m unable to come.’
21 “So the servant came back and reported these things to his master. Then in anger, the master of the house told his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in here the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.’
22 “‘Master,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, and there’s still room.’
23 “Then the master told the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and make them come in, so that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will enjoy my banquet.'”
An invitation to a banquet, to a great feast, is extended. What is the nature of this banquet or feast? That is answered in our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 25. There we are told the feast consists of the best of meals, including the most expensive and well-aged wine and the prime cut of choice meat. If ever I go out to eat at a fine restaurant, these are the two things I desire most: fine red wine and the most delicious, medium rare steak. But rarely do I order them because they are too expensive. If I ever do partake of them, it is normally because I have a gift card!
Isaiah 25 also explains this banquet includes not only a great meal, but a place where the burial shroud and death itself are swallowed up. Someone has swallowed them. That’s kind of a strange statement. Think of it this way: there’s a vile of poison in front of you and you are supposed to drink it. But all of sudden, your brother snatches the vile of poison and drinks it. So the poison meant for you is gone, it is swallowed up. You might be tempted to say, “Hey, that was supposed to be mine!” But then you realize, “Whoa, this is beyond amazing!” Someone has swallowed up your burial shroud and death (although today we might say that someone has swallowed up the coffin and death). Someone has swallowed them up. So for those who come to this banquet, there are no burial shrouds, no coffins, no funerals. That is because there is no death.
At this delicious banquet where there is no death, there is no talk of having to pay. This feast is prepared for by “Lord of Armies.” As Jesus said in our gospel lesson, “everything is now ready.” He said it this way on the cross, “It is finished.” All one has to do is say yes to the invitation. For there on the cross was the payment made. The payment – by which sins are forgiven, by which death is swallowed up, and by which eternal life is made accessible – the payment was the holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death of the Son of God himself. Heaven is paid for by Christ alone. It is a pure, 100% gift.
And then the invitation to partake of this gift, this banquet, goes out. And according to Jesus in our text, it goes out to three different groups.
Group 1:
“A man was giving a large banquet and invited many. At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’ “But without exception they all began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. I ask you to excuse me.’ “Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m going to try them out. I ask you to excuse me.’ “And another said, ‘I just got married, and therefore I’m unable to come.’ “So the servant came back and reported these things to his master.
And then the master gets angry. And understandably so. Who in their right mind would say no to such an invitation? What kind of valid excuses could there be? There are none.
Jesus is referring not only to the Jews of his day, but there is clear application for us and all people of every age. The excuses given, then and now, for saying no to the gift of heaven, for saying no to the best of feasts where there is no death and no tears – saying no to Christ and his work – are silly at best. “You don’t know if this land you purchased can produce crops, and you are just going out there now to find out? You just spent all this money on oxen to plow your fields and you don’t even know if they can do the job? Okay, you got married. What does that have to do with this invitation?”
Again, the excuses people come up with to say no to eternal life in Christ Jesus are silly at best. But more accurately they are hollow, empty, insincere, dishonest, and reveal a heart that simply rejects what they need most, rejects Christ and his work, and rejects the most amazing free gift ever. Their excuses are an appeal to temporary things, to things that may be new and exciting, to things that may even be important for this life, but are actually used to reject the invitation of the gracious and merciful Master.
Jesus is warning us here. We say yes to the invitation through repentance and faith in Christ. We nurture that faith in Christ by coming to church (or by having church come to you if you cannot make it here) for it is here we receive grace in word and sacrament. It is that grace that sustains and strengthens true faith in Christ by which we say yes to the invitation.
So, if our rest, our leisure, our car, our property, our home, our job, our sports, our hobbies, or even our marriages and families, begin to supplant or replace giving attention to and receiving God’s mercy in word and sacrament, this is not good. It is frightening. “No, I can’t come to church. I have to do this or that. These other things need my time and attention.”
Again, consider the enormity, the amazement, and the absolute mercy of this banquet: the best of feasts, the place where there is no death and no tears. No excuses for saying no.
Group 2:
“So the servant came back and reported these things to his master. Then in anger, the master of the house told his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in here the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.’ ‘Master,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, and there’s still room.'”
Jesus mentions this group for our comfort. Those invited to typical banquets would normally be the more important and prestigious and wealthy, those who could impress and even payback the host somehow. But that is not the case with the eternal banquet. The invitation goes out to the poor, maimed, blind, and lame – spiritually. To those who would naturally say, when thinking about eternal life, “The pleasures, the riches, the joys, the rewards, the eternity of the heavenly banquet are beyond my grasp, I do not belong there, and neither in my wildest imagine could I now think I deserve them. For I am sinner. I am way too spiritually poor, maimed, blind, and lame.”
And yet, these are the very ones to whom the invitation is extended. It is why Jesus said earlier, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners [to repentance].” The Christian church, both here and in heaven, is not made up of self-righteous and well-deserved people. It is made up of real sinners, forgiven sinners because of the finished work of Christ, who say, “I am spiritually poor, I do not deserve forgiveness, let alone heaven,” but sinners who see Christ who on the cross swallowed up death for them, and sinners who say yes to the invitation and the feast that follows. There is always room for sinners. In fact we could say, there is only room for sinners.
Group 3:
“Then the master told the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and make them come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will enjoy my banquet.'”
The message here is one of mission. Since there is still room and since the master of the banquet, who is Christ himself, wants his house to be filled, the directive to the servant – the Christian church on earth – is to get the invitation out to the highways and hedges. In other words, get out of town with invitation to repent and believe and be saved. Go beyond your borders, leave your comfort zone, and do not quit until the invitation is extended every where and to every person.
This is why we sponsor mission work at home and abroad. This is why we always need to work at evangelism. It is all too easy to stay within our comfort zone, to be afraid, to forget that our neighbor may be on the path to hell, to fear we might say something wrong, or whatever.
Notice the master in the parable says, “make them come in,” or “urge them,” or “compel them to come in.” Here I am reminded of the work of the early Christian church. In the book of Acts there are many attempts by Paul and others to convince and persuade others to become Christians. At one point King Agrippa said to Paul who was being held as a prisoner, “Are you going to persuade me to become a Christian so easily?” And Paul basically said, “Yes, I hope I can, and everyone else I speak to.” He talked to them as if their eternal life depended on whether they believed in Christ, accepted the invitation. And Paul was right.
And this should be our mindset as well. This needs to be how we view our neighbors, those overseas and those next door, those we might meet only once and those who are close family.
Our neighbor needs to be lovingly told that he, like us, is spiritually poor, lame, blind, and maimed. He needs to have explained to him the finished work of Christ. He needs to have the invitation extended to him by someone. Maybe you.
In the book of Revelation, it is recorded, “Worthy are you [O Lamb] … for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom” (Rev. 5), an everlasting kingdom.
This is the banquet; everything is now ready. Who is this banquet for? For you. It is yours; it is a gift, it doesn’t cost you a penny, but it cost the Son of God everything. Who is this banquet for? It is for our neighbor. Let us pray we always say yes to this invitation. Let us pray that our neighbor would say yes. And let us pray that God gives us the needed love and boldness to extend to our neighbor the invitation.
Amen.
6 On this mountain,
Isaiah 25:6-9 CSB
the Lord of Armies will prepare for all the peoples a feast of choice meat,
a feast with aged wine, prime cuts of choice meat, fine vintage wine.
7 On this mountain
he will swallow up the burial shroud,
the shroud over all the peoples,
the sheet covering all the nations.
8 When he has swallowed up death once and for all,
the Lord God will wipe away the tears
from every face
and remove his people’s disgrace
from the whole earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
9 On that day it will be said,
“Look, this is our God;
we have waited for him, and he has saved us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him.
Let’s rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
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