Trinity 2
Lk
14:15-24
6/10/18
R.S.V.P. You have seen it many times on
invitations. Perhaps you have written it
yourself. But do you know what it means?
And do you know what it means?
R.S.V.P. is an abbreviation for a
phrase from a foreign language. It’s a little unusual because many of the
examples we use are from Latin. So, “A.D.” stands for the phrase “Anno Domini”
– “in the year of the Lord,” and “i.e.” stands for “id est” – “that is.” However R.S.V.P. stands for the French phrase that means “respond if you
please,” or, “please reply.”
There was a time among the European
elite when the French language was seen as being more refined. The use of a French phrase was a sign of
class. Eventually the abbreviation of
the phrase entered into more common usage among English language speakers. In the middle of the nineteenth century it
showed up in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Now you may have received
invitations that say, “R.S.V.P. please.” This reflects the fact that R.S.V.P.
has sometimes come to be understood as a request to respond if you are going to
come to an event. But in fact, “R.S.V.P.
please” is like saying, “Please reply, please.”
In truth, R.S.V.P. is a request to reply to the invitation no matter
whether the intention is to attend or not.
In our Gospel lesson today we hear
about a man who is giving a great banquet.
When the meal was ready and the time for the banquet arrived, he sent a
servant to announce this fact to people who had been invited. We hear about how they make excuses as to why
they won’t be able to come. Yet as we
consider the parable, we need to recognize that in its first century setting,
these people had already responded to an R.S.V.P., and they had indicated that
they were coming to the banquet.
Our text occurs on a Sabbath when
Jesus went to eat at the home of ruler of the Pharisees. Now at this point in Luke’s Gospel, we know
that when Jesus eats with Pharisees on the Sabbath there are going to be
problems. And sure enough, Luke tells us that the Pharisees were watching Jesus
closely.
First Jesus healed a man in their
midst and silenced the Pharisees with a question about whether it was lawful to
heal on the Sabbath or not. Then when
Jesus noticed how everyone at the meal was seeking to get the best place at the
table, he told the guests that in fact they should take the lowest place so that then they would
have the honor of being told to move up.
Jesus said to them, “For everyone who exalts
himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Finally, our Lord said to the
Pharisee who had invited them, “When
you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or
your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you
be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame,
the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will
be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
The meal
was a tense one as Jesus corrected everyone there. But here was something that could be affirmed. So we learn in our text that when one of
those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to Jesus, “Blessed
is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Of course, the man who said this assumed that
he was included in that group who would enjoy God’s end time salvation. So
Jesus told a parable.
It’s a
parable you know well. It may even call
to mind the song “I cannot come to the banquet.” A man hosts a great banquet and when it is
prepared he sends out his servant to announce to those who had been invited:
“Come, for everything is now ready.” Yet
one by one, people say they aren’t coming: one has bought a field and needs to
go see it; another bought oxen and needs to examine them; another has married a
wife and so is unavailable.
To us these
may sound like reasonable excuses. Yet
there are two things to recognize.
First, this is not the initial invitation. These people have been invited in the past
and they have accepted. They have
said they are going to come. This is the
announcement that now is the time when the meal is ready. And
second, all of the excuses are all obviously bogus. No one bought land or farm animals sight
unseen in the first century, just as no one would do so today. A wedding would not be happening at the same
time because everyone would be going to only one event, and being recently
married didn’t prevent a person from attending a banquet.
The excuses
are in fact nothing more than a rejection of the one hosting the banquet. Jesus tells the parable to the leader of the
Pharisees and his friends because this is what they are doing. They are rejecting Jesus, and so they are rejecting
God’s salvation in their midst. They are Jews, God’s covenant people. More than that, they claim to be pious and
faithful Jews. And yet they are refusing to believe in Jesus, the One who
brings the kingdom of God – the reign of God – into their midst.
Sitting
here today, you are like the ones in the parable who have been invited. You have been baptized. You have become part of Christ’s Body, the
Church. The Spirit has given you rebirth and through his work you now believe. You’ve accepted the invitation and said that
you’ll be there.
The excuses
in the parable may be bogus, but they do point us to things that can prevent us
from attending the banquet; things that can prevent us from sharing in God’s
end time salvation because they are sin.
The man says he needs to look at the land he has bought. The possessions and things of this world become
a snare – they compete with God for our attention and usurp Him as they become
the source of our security and well being.
The man says he needs to examine the oxen he has bought for his
farm. Our work – our career – becomes
the thing we focus upon; the thing to which we look for our sense self-worth
and value.
And then
there is the man who says he has married.
In the very next verse after our text we read: “Now great crowds
accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ‘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.’” Truly, there are few things that make people
more willing to ignore God’s Word and will than their family, as they attempt
to excuse or justify the behavior of loved ones.
In the
parable the servant reported to the master what had happened. Angered he said,
“Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and
crippled and blind and lame.” Now if you
have been listening closely, you’ll notice that the “poor and crippled and
blind and lame” are the same people Jesus had just told the host of the meal
that he should invite – the kind of people who can’t do anything in
return. Jesus is saying that the
salvation he brings may be rejected by people like he Pharisees, but God’s
grace is not limited by this. Instead it
is a salvation this is offered to all who
descend from Israel – even those who seem like they have no worth.
Then the
servant reported: “Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is
room.” And so 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. For I tell
you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.” There was
still room, so the master sent the servant outside
the city to seek others for the banquet.
And that’s
why you are here. Those outside the city
are the Gentiles – the people first century Jews found to be the most
unexpected guests at God’s end time feast of salvation. Though a sinner; though a Gentile, God chose
to save you. It’s unmerited. It’s undeserved. It’s not something that was possible for
you. And this is why it is so precious
and amazing.
Obedient to
the Father’s will, Jesus Christ offered himself as the sacrifice for sin in
your place. He received the punishment
you deserved, so that you can now be righteous in God’s eyes through him. You have been justified. You are righteous now, and through faith in
Christ you know that will have this status on the Last Day.
Because you
have this status; in order keep you in this status, Jesus invites you now to
his banquet. He invites you to the
foretaste of the feast to come where he uses bread and wine to give you his
true body and blood, given and shed for you.
Here he gives you forgiveness.
Here he nourishes faith, so that you may continue to live as a justified
Christian, ready for the Last Day.
He does
this for you and your salvation. And he does this for you for the sake of others.
Jesus humbled himself in death on the cross and served you, so that you
can now be exalted as the forgiven child of God. He did it so that you can now
be his instrument in serving others.
You don’t
have to look around to find where you are to serve. You don’t have to wonder about what your
purpose is. God has already given it to
you. He did it when he made you a father
or mother; a son or daughter; a member of this congregation; an employer or an
employee. In those vocations – those
callings – God uses you to care and provide for others. Christ’s sacrificial
love for you now sets you in motion to act in love towards those God has placed
around you.
Jesus
Christ has invited you to his banquet.
He has invited you to receive the foretaste of the feast to come in the
Sacrament of the Altar. He has invited
you to the marriage feast of the lamb that will have no end on the Last
Day. And it is in those same vocations
that Christ uses you to invite others.
In the
coming months we will have opportunity to reflect upon how those vocations are
the settings where you already know people who do not believe in Jesus Christ
as Savior or no longer are connected to his Church. There will be opportunities to reflect
intentionally on relationships that exist in those settings – people we know –
and how we can engage them in conversation that leads to talking about Jesus
and inviting them to church.
In our
text, Jesus speaks with those who had been invited, but now refused to come to
the banquet. They refused to believe in
Jesus and the saving reign of God was present in him. Though you were like those outside the city,
you have now been invited. More than
that, you already take your place at the foretaste of the feast to come. You have already received forgiveness and
salvation as you look for Jesus’ return.
Because of this you are able to say in truth, “Blessed is everyone who
will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”
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