Trinity
2
Lk
14:15-24
6/9/24
In Isaiah chapter twenty five the Lord
says through the prophet, “On
this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food,
a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well
refined.” He goes on to say how he will
swallow up death forever and wipe away tears from all faces. Then we are told, “It will be said on that
day, ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save
us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice
in his salvation.’”
In this text, the final salvation
provided by God is described as a feast. It became common in Judaism to
describe God’s salvation as a meal.
Jesus said, “I tell
you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”
Meals were an occasion of joy and fellowship, and so it is not
surprising that this became an image to describe God’s salvation.
Our text begins by saying, “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!’” The man was expressing the confidence that he
would enjoy God’s salvation.
We learn that he made this statement
after he “heard these things.” This statement points us back to what has been
happening thus far in the chapter. We
find that it has been a setting of tension in which Jesus has been challenging
his opponents.
The
chapter begins by saying, “One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house
of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.” The Sabbath and meals have been settings in
which Jesus has come into conflict with the Pharisees. So when Jesus has a meal
with the Pharisees on the Sabbath, there are going to be problems.
Sure enough, first Jesus challenged
the Pharisees about whether it was permitted to heal a man in their midst on
the Sabbath. Our Lord healed the man as
the Pharisees were unable to provide an answer.
Then he critiqued those present for the way that were all seeking the
best seat at the table as they sought to get as much honor as they could. Jesus said, “But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest
place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up
higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with
you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles
himself will be exalted.”
Next, Jesus
critiqued the host who invited the guests.
He said the man should not invite his friends and people of influence
who would be able to return the favor.
Instead, our Lord told him, “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.”
In response to all this talk about meals, one of the guests
said, “Blessed is everyone who will eat
bread in the kingdom of God!” He
expressed the confidence that he and those who were gathered with him – the
ones who were opposed to Jesus – would enjoy God’s salvation.
So Jesus told a parable. He spoke of how a man gave
a great banquet and invited many people. When the banquet was ready he sent out
his servant to say to the invited, “Come, for everything is now ready.”
However, those who had been invited all began to make excuses. One said that he had bought a field, and needed
to go see it. Another said he had bought
five yoke of oxen, and needed to go examine them. Another said that he was getting married.
They all said they needed to be excused.
Now we need to recognize that this was not the first they
had heard about the banquet. In the practice of that time, all had already been
invited and had accepted. What we hear
about in our text was instead the announcement that the meal was ready and that
it was time to come.
We
also need to understand that the excuses are obviously bogus. No one purchased land without already having
seen it. No one made the investment of
buying that many oxen without already examining the animals. No one scheduled a wedding for a day when a
great banquet was already planned.
Instead, all those who had been invited were flat out rejecting the
host.
The master was angered and so he said to his servant, “Go
out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor
and crippled and blind and lame.” He
sent the servant out into the city to bring in all those who were undesirable
in society.
The servant reported that this had been done, and that
there was still room. 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.” The
master sent the servant outside the city to bring to bring in others to the
banquet. And he announced that those who had originally been invited would
never share in the meal.
The man in our text says, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in
the kingdom of God!” However, he is part
of the group that is rejecting Jesus, and so our Lord says that he and those
like him will have no part in the feast of salvation. The only way this is possible is through
faith in Christ.
The Pharisees reject Jesus. You certainly aren’t like them. But in the parable, our Lord also teaches us
about threats to faith. While the three excuses that are made are just that, we
also want to note the subject matter they involve.
The first man says he can’t come to
the banquet because he has purchased some land. The second one says he can’t
because he has purchased oxen. Both men
were saying that these possessions were more important than the host and his
banquet.
These
words warn us about the role that wealth and possessions play in our life. These
things compete with God. They become a
false god that chokes out faith as we become more focused on the things of the
world than on the gift of God in Christ.
In explaining the parable of the sower Jesus said, “And as for what fell
among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way
they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their
fruit does not mature.”
The third man said that he could not
come because was getting married. He
placed a relationship ahead of the host and his banquet. We learn from this that Jesus Christ must
come before even our own family members.
We cannot allow their unbelief to
become something that draws us away from Christ as we seek to avoid tension, or
as we simply fall into the same pattern of life in which they live. Jesus says immediately after our text, “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.” Jesus says that he must be the Lord of our
life, and not even close family relationships can be allowed to challenge faith
in him.
In the parable,
those originally invited rejected the master and his banquet. So he told the
servant, “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring
in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” The master calls the helpless and unwanted to
his banquet. He brings in those who have
no right or expectation to be there.
This is the
good news of the Gospel, for that is what you were. In many ways, that is what
you still are. You were sinners who were
cut off from God. You were alienated and hostile to him. And you continue to be people who struggle
with the presence of the old Adam in you.
You do not love God above all things.
You do not love your neighbor as yourself.
Yet Jesus
Christ is the One telling the parable because this is the case. He is the Son
of God in our world – conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin
Mary. And he is on his way to
Jerusalem. Earlier in the Gospel Luke
tells us, “When the days drew
near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to
Jerusalem.”
Jesus is on his
way to Jerusalem to suffer and die on the cross. He will say at the Last Supper, “For I tell you that this
Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the
transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” Jesus goes as the suffering Servant who
offers himself as the sacrifice for your sin.
Jesus
died in the suffering and humiliation of the cross. But on the third day God raised him from the
dead. Because of Jesus we now have
forgiveness and life. God has given us
both of these in Holy Baptism. You have received one baptism for the
forgiveness of sins, and so your sins have been washed away. Through faith in what God did through
baptism, you know that you continue to stand forgiven before God.
And
through the water of baptism the Holy Spirit gave you new life. Paul says that in baptism we have received
“the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” This work of the Spirit is the source that
enables us to live the life of faith as we deal with possessions and family.
As we
live in Christ, our possessions and wealth are not something that threaten
faith. Instead, they become the means by
which faith acts. We use the blessings God has given us in order to support the
work of the Gospel in this congregation through our offering. We use them to support the work for Christ’s
kingdom, such as in helping the two men from our congregation who are starting
seminary this year. We give of these
blessings to help others through the congregation emergency fund and other
human care ministries.
Through
the work of the Spirit, family members are no longer a threat to faith. Instead our family becomes the setting where
we share the faith. We continue to speak the truth about Jesus Christ’s death
and resurrection to our family members who don’t believe. We invite them to come to church. We encourage those who believe to walk in
faith by receiving the Means of Grace.
And we show our faith in deeds as we love and support our family members
in the callings – the vocations – where God has placed us.
We had
no right to share in the feast of God’s salvation. But through the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ, God has given us forgiveness.
He has washed away our sins in Holy Baptism and made us a new creation
in Christ. Now, in the Sacrament of the
Altar he invites us to the foretaste of the feast to come. He feeds us with Christ’s true body and blood
given and shed for us so that we can say in truth: “Blessed is everyone who
will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”
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