Don’t Miss This Banquet!

(Luke 14:12-24, Preaching: Pastor Nathan Snyder, November 13, 2016)

[12] He said also to the man who had invited him, “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.  [13] But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, [14] and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.  For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

[15] 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!”  [16] But he said to him, “A man gave a great banquet and invited many.  [17] 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.’  [18] 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.’  [19] And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them.  Please have me excused.’  [20] And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’  [21] So the servant came and reported these things to the master.  Then the master of the house became angry and 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.’  [22] And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’  [23] 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.  [24] For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

God has prepared a feast of the richest possible delights, a banquet of never-ending, ever-increasing joy in his eternal kingdom.  For centuries he prepared the Jewish nation for this coming banquet.  The coming Christ, the Anointed One, the one who would be God’s perfect Prophet, Priest, and King—he would bring this great time of joy and victorious celebration to God’s people.  Through the prophets of old, God sent out the invitation to his covenant people.  The day of feasting was coming.  The night would flee when Messiah and his resurrection kingdom shone upon Israel.  Get ready for the coming Christ, for everyone who eats bread in the kingdom of God will be forever blessed.  It would be the greatest tragedy to miss out on this banquet.

When the time of the banquet had come, God sent out the second invitation to his people.  The feast was ready.  But when the nation of Israel received the word that the day had come, many refused to come.  They were wrapped up in their lives, and even in their religion.  The banquet had come because Messiah had come.  He said that those who feasted on him would never go hungry.  Those who drank from him would never thirst.  Those who believed in him would never die.  He came to bring life that was abundant and free and eternal.  He was God’s anointed King who came to usher in God’s kingdom.  He was the Resurrection and the Life, who would die for the sins of God’s people and three days later rise from the dead.  He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one would enter God’s kingdom feast apart from faith in him.  God sent his Son to his own people, and many of them, including many of their religious leaders, rejected him.  By doing so, they shut themselves out of the very kingdom feast they professed to anticipate.  A tragedy indeed!

One of these religious leaders, a ruler of the Pharisees, invited Jesus to his house one Sabbath day for dinner (verse 1).  It wasn’t because he genuinely wanted to learn from Jesus, but because he and his friends were suspicious of Jesus and intended to watch him carefully.  Jesus, unfazed by what he knew was a disingenuous invitation to dinner, took advantage of the occasion to shake things up a bit for them.  He did not need to do this.  Jesus was being very gracious to these unbelieving, self-righteous Pharisees.  His shaking things up for them was an act of love toward them.  First, he healed a sick man before their eyes, when they considered it wrong to heal on the Sabbath (verses 1-6).  Next, Jesus taught them lessons on humility and service (verses 7-14).  He noticed the guests at the dinner were scrambling to secure the most honored seats at the table for themselves.  So he told them that the path to honor is to put oneself lower than other people, not above other people, and to let God be the one to exalt them in due time.  Jesus then had words for those who host a dinner or banquet.  Don’t invite people who can return the favor.  Why?  Because they might return the favor.  Invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.  Why?  Precisely because they cannot pay you back.  God will repay you at the resurrection.  Jesus’ intent is not to encourage us to be calculating in our service to others: “If I do this, I will get a bigger reward in heaven.”  On the contrary, he wants to set us free from calculating, so that we would genuinely love those in need who cannot repay us, just like he came to serve us by dying for our sins when we cannot repay him for this in the least.  I think Jesus, knowing that we do tend to only do things for people when we think we’ll get something out of it from them, is pointing out that God will more than repay us at the resurrection for sacrifices rendered now.  So we don’t need to worry about people repaying us here and now.  We are free to serve, knowing God will repay us in due time, just as we are free to take the place of dishonor now, knowing God will exalt us in due time.

Hearing Jesus mention the resurrection of the just, one of the guests exclaims how blessed those will be who share in the resurrection banquet.  My study Bible’s note on this verse suggests the man might be trying to change the subject, since Jesus’ talk about inviting in the poor and disabled is making him feel uncomfortable.    Whatever the speaker’s motivation for his statement, Jesus uses it to shake up the dinner guests even more.  Yes, those who partake in God’s resurrection banquet are blessed, but sadly, many in Israel whom God has invited refuse to partake.  Jesus makes this point by telling a parable about a master who threw a party, but those who were originally invited to be guests wouldn’t come.  They made up lame excuses.  Obviously if a person has just purchased a field or oxen, he would have already inspected them.  And anyways, the field and the oxen would still be there.  And the guy who just got married?  Why is that a reason not to come to a party?  So the master gets angry, and rightfully so.  The refusal of these invitees to come is a major slap in his generous face.  He commands that the poor, crippled, blind and lame be invited instead, the same kind of people Jesus has just told the Pharisee and his guests they should invite to their own parties.  When the master learns this has been done and there is still room, he commands that the highways and hedges outside the city be searched and people be compelled to come to his party until the house is full.  The word “compel” might mean “strongly persuade.”  Jesus might also be referring to the fact that the grace of God compels us to come to his banquet in the sense that he gives us a new heart that desires his banquet when in our sin we would never want to come.  God doesn’t compel us to come against our will.  But he changes our will so that we freely come.  Otherwise, we’d all simply make excuses for ourselves and refuse God’s invitation.  Whichever way we interpret Jesus’ use of the word “compel,” the main picture in all of this is of God inviting the Jewish nation to the feast he had prepared for them through Jesus, but many refusing to embrace Jesus.  Many rejected God’s banquet, so God invited those others had rejected.  The people whom you and I might not want to invite to our dinner, God invited to his.  Yet this was not enough.  God would bring his invitation beyond Israel to the Gentiles, those out on the highways, and the vagabonds taking shelter in the hedges.  He is bringing us in too until his house is full.

Paul wrote that God has chosen the foolish of the world to shame the wise.  He has chosen the weak of the world to shame the strong, that we might boast not in ourselves but in him (1 Cor. 1:26-31).  If we have received Christ and await the fullness of his resurrection kingdom, if we get the fact that it is pure grace on God’s part to throw such a feast and invite undeserving sinners like us, then we will be a people who extend love to the marginalized, the broken, and those who cannot repay us and may even make us feel uncomfortable.  This will be our joy, for we were poor, crippled, lame and blind in our sin, and God reached out to us.  I conclude by urging that you and I not be among those who miss God’s banquet in Christ.  Don’t make up silly excuses when God is offering us everlasting fullness of joy, at the cost of Jesus’ own life.  Don’t be so caught up in your possessions, your career, your marriage, or anything else in this life, so that you ignore God’s invitation to be part of his kingdom banquet.  Let go of your excuses.  Come be part of God’s feast.  Only God in Christ can satisfy our hearts forever.  And as we make our way to the feast, let us show God’s kindness to those the world has rejected, that they too might know the love of God in Christ and come to his banquet.