The last couple of opportunities I've had to worship with you, I've concentrated on a couple of the parables. I've been finding the parables especially intriguing over the last year or so. And I've preached, as I recall, on the sower and the seed and then also the parable of the vineyard. This time I want to focus on the parable of the wedding banquet. So if you have your Bibles, turn to Luke 14, verses 12 through 24. Luke 14, verses 12 through 24, where we learn about God's hospitality. Jesus 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. 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. 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. But he said to him, A man once gave a great banquet and invited many, And at that time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, Come, for everything is now ready. But they all alike began to make excuses. 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. So the servant came and reported these things to his 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. And the servant said, Sir, what you commanded has been done and still there is room. And the master said to the servant, Go out into 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 supper. I've divided this passage into three sections. The context in which Jesus gives the parable, the counsel that sets up the parable, and the controversy with Israel that the parable provokes. First of all, the context of the parable is important. Eating and drinking with the Lord is one of the major themes that you find throughout the Old Testament. Going all the way back to Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve wanted their happy meal, ordering from their own menu, instead of eating and drinking in fellowship with the Lord, having successfully fulfilled his will. Abram and Melchizedek appear on the scene with Melchizedek giving Abram a blessing and signifying and sealing that blessing with bread and wine. With the renewal of the Sinai covenant after the golden calf episode, Moses, Aaron and his sons, and 70 of the elders ascend the mountain in order to meet with the Lord. And we read that they beheld God and ate and drank. And then throughout the book of Deuteronomy, you have this emphasis on Canaan being the land flowing with milk and honey where the people of God will eat and drink in the presence of the Lord. It's a common recurring phrase. Eating and drinking in the presence of the Lord really is the consummation of all that God desires with his people. I will be your God and you will be my people and I will dwell in the midst of you forever. Canaan will be a place where only the best wine will be served. In the wilderness, God says that apart from the miraculous provision, you did not eat bread, you did not drink wine or strong drink. But he says in the land of Canaan, that is precisely what will happen. There will be a feast, blessings of feasting in the presence of the Lord in the land that he has appointed for his people. Leading his people to the promised land, God spreads a table in the wilderness. He gives them bread from heaven. He gives them water from the rock. And yet they demand, but can God give us meat also? Even when the spies return with the firstfruits of the land they're about to enter, the land of Canaan, the people refuse these gifts. That whole generation, including Moses, was barred from eating and drinking in the presence of the Lord in the land flowing with milk and honey. And everything else in the historical books is marching toward this goal. No longer merely leading the journeying people, pitching his tent outside the camp. He will make his permanent dwelling in their midst. He will be Emmanuel, God with us. He will be the host of the great feast. Be silent, God says through Zephaniah, be silent before the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is near. The Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests. And throughout the prophets, the age to come, that age of messianic blessing is associated with feasting in the presence of the Lord. In the New Testament, Satan pulls out the old play from a very old playbook with the last Adam and the faithful Israel when he tries to get him to eat something by himself, kind of drive-through meal, because he's hungry, and he taunts him with food because that was Jesus' weak spot. He was human, just as we are. He also taunted him with power and glory. You can have it all now. You don't have to go to the cross. Skip Golgotha. Go around it. Right now, I can give you all that God has promised you at the end. And Jesus responds, very much unlike Adam, very much unlike Israel, it is written, appealing to the Word, not to his own thoughts, his own feelings. Well, this is the kind of God I like. Well, this is how I feel. This is the God I worship. No, he appeals to the Scripture and says, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Luke's gospel really follows the feasts of Israel's calendar. It's a lot of eating in Luke. It's a gospel that's just full of meals. And it emphasizes this theme of Jesus as the journeying guest who is not received. And then he turns the tables and becomes the host who creates his own meal and brings his own guests. In fact, he's rejected in Jerusalem, as we learn in Luke 19. Luke explicitly invokes this phrase from Deuteronomy, eating and drinking in the presence of the Lord in Luke 13, 25, to describe the kingdom. John the Baptist's ministry was not kingdom-bringing. It was a precursor to the kingdom. It was a ministry of mourning. It was a ministry of dividing. It was a ministry of judging between Israelite and Israelite. It's not a ministry of jubilation in the promised land. He came neither eating nor drinking, we're told, but of serious judgment and call to repentance, while the ministry of Jesus will be that of actually calling and gathering sinners and outcasts, strangers and aliens, to his festive banquet. The Son of Man came eating and drinking. And they say, behold, a glutton and a drunkard, friend of tax gatherers and sinners. What are the purpose of the parables? I've mentioned this on the other occasions, but I can't even remember what I said, so I don't expect you to. Parables are really amazing. They're not timeless truths. This is not Aesop's fables. You know Aesop's fables, you have a story and then a moral to the story. And therefore, that's why we don't have such and such. A little story and that little story kind of illustrates a universal maxim or principle. The parables aren't like that. The parables are like what happens when Nathan tells a parable to David after David has committed sin against Bathsheba and Uriah, her husband. And he tells this very poignant, very simple parable. What would you do to a person who stole this one poor faithful person's lamb and destroyed it? And David, of course, is enraged, full of indignation. I'd take the guy out in the back and who knows what I'd do to him. And Nathan says, you are the man. That's parables. That's what parables do. Parables actually indict. Parables actually show us that we are the ones implicated in the parable. It's like Hamlet's play within a play, where when that is acted out, the participants who have committed the crime know that this isn't just a story. They know it's about them. That's why Jesus says, he who has an ear to hear, let him hear. This is not to make difficult things more understandable. A fable or a maxim is designed to provoke the same response from anyone, anytime, anywhere. But these parables are very targeted to a specific context, particular time, particular place, and a particular audience. They're explosive. You know, with a fable, you walk away, or a maxim, you walk away and say, you know, wow, that's interesting. I never thought of it like that. But you don't really find that with Jesus, do you? Not with Jesus and the religious leaders. They don't say, you know, what I really like about Jesus most is that he says timeless things in such a new and fresh way. You never get that, do you, in the Gospels? They're enraged, and they have reason to be. gradually they begin to realize, like David, you are the man. This is about you. And you see that progressively with all of the parables. As Jesus moves along, it sort of begins with them not getting it. They scratch their heads, and the disciples walk over and say, what are you talking about, Jesus? Could you let it sit on this? This is a little strange, what you were saying over there. And the Pharisees, of course, didn't get it. And then later, as they get closer to the cross and Jesus becomes clearer in his parables what he's talking about, finally, they begin to look at each other and say, I'm not sure, but I think he's talking about us. And then by the last one, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, he's talking about us. Kill him. That is why Jesus tells these parables. Jesus actually is creating the situation he's describing in the parable by telling it. He's bringing about, this is like performance art. Jesus is actually creating on the ground the situation described in the parable. Parables happen. They're not just descriptions of things that happen. In this case, with Jesus telling the parable, what is indicated in the parable is actually coming to pass as he speaks it. The situation of this parable is, first of all, the background of chapter 13, where Jesus introduces this theme of repent or perish. And this is primarily directed, again, at Israel, just as John the Baptist's ministry was exclusively drawn to dividing Israelite from Israelite. Judgment begins in the house of the Lord. And then he tells the parable of the barren fig tree. A man said to the vine dresser, look, for three years I've come seeking fruit on this tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And the vine dresser answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. What Jesus is saying through all of these different parables is that he is so lenient, he's giving time. He's ready to judge. Israel should be judged. The fig tree should be cursed. It should be uprooted. But he'll give it a little bit more time. Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath and the ruler of the synagogue is irate in verses 10 through 17. We read that God's kingdom is now universal. It's like a mustard seed that becomes a great tree spreading its branches around the earth. Or it's like leaven that works itself into the dough until the whole dough is leavened. But it's also a narrow door. Many who thought they were his followers, who said, didn't we perform many miracles in your name? Didn't we cast out demons in your name? Weren't we your disciples? We'll nevertheless be told, I never knew you. while he says people will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of God and behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last. And that really is a great summary of most of these kingdom parables, isn't it? Because the people who came last to work in the vineyard get as much as those who came first? All of these points that Jesus is making have to do with the first being last and the last being first. So some of the Pharisees come to Jesus and they say, hey, quick, escape. This is a great way out. Herod is trying to kill you. Jesus is thinking, with friends like you, thank you for telling me about Herod. I'm worried about you. You're the people who will eventually put me on the cross. And Jesus said to them, go and tell that fox. Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow. And the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. There's so much irony packed into this response of Jesus. You can't really tell it without chuckling a little bit. It is full of irony. Basically, first of all, Jesus is saying, Herod who? No, I am going to be crucified, and I am going to be raised, but on my terms, on my timetable, and until then, I'm going to perform cures today and tomorrow and the next day. until I'm ready to be crucified. It's not in Herod's hands. I'm in charge. And on the third day, I will finish my course. And it's interesting, the verbs here are very similar. Perfected, completed to the verb that is used in John speaking of Jesus' words, it is finished. So there's the announcement that it is finished. Here Jesus is saying, then it will be finished. It will be completed. My work will be done. Jesus is really punchy with the Pharisees here who don't really care about saving Jesus from Herod. But he asserts his sovereignty. In the meantime, before his crucifixion and resurrection, he'll finish his ministry of healing and teaching and then he'll enter Jerusalem. And this is the most ironic remark of all. Because, after all, it would be out of keeping for one of the prophets to be killed outside of the precincts of the temple. It would be bad form for Israel to kill a prophet outside of the religious capital. This is punchy. And then he turns from sarcasm or irony to sympathy when he issues his lament. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets. and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not. But look, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So this event begins, with all of that in the background, begins at a dinner with a Pharisee. You can tell that this is set up for problems. Jesus had problems with the Pharisees because he ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners, but this is a little bit more of a dance of porcupines. This is a little more difficult, a little stranger. We read verse 1, One Sabbath when they went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. We shouldn't think of this as an after-church dinner They're just giving Jesus hospitality. This is another opportunity for them to catch Jesus. And so the foxes are circling around their prey. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy, edema, swelling. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? Now this is already, you talk about pouring salt into a wound. He's already gotten into trouble twice for doing this. And so before he does it, it's like he's poking his finger in their eyes saying, by the way, interesting that someone is sick around the table here. Is it okay, do you think, to heal on the Sabbath? I love it. But they remain silent. they couldn't say anything, give any good answer at this point, because if they said no, they would sound like they didn't care about this friend of theirs. But if they say yes, then they are actually violating a rabbinical law, not a law in God's law, but a law that the elders had made up in order to protect the law of the Sabbath. The tradition of the elders did forbid such things on the Sabbath. But Jesus is deliberately provocative. They haven't even raised the Sabbath issue yet. They haven't even said, well, how are we doing on that whole Sabbath thing? Because you've done it a couple times. Are you planning on not doing it again anytime soon? Instead, Jesus just presses them right then and there on the point, adding to the indignity of it all. Jesus interrupts the meal to heal him. Why not wait until after the meal? Or even wait six hours, then the Sabbath will be over. You can imagine the leader of the Pharisees at this point looking over at his wife and saying, Okay, Mildred, this is the worst after-church dinner we've ever had. And then he turns to the council, the seats of honor. On top of everything else he's just said and done, Jesus adds a parable of a wedding feast. Again, everything is happening right in front of him that he's talking about in the parable. And we read, Now he told a parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they took the places of honor. Once again, Jesus is being deliberately provocative in what he's saying here. He sees them come into the room and take the seats of honor. Everybody's, you know, that's my seat. They didn't even think, they didn't even think that they might have the lower seats. They knew that the best seats were for them. And so Jesus, when he noticed how they took the places of honor, says to them, you know, when you invite people over for a meal, let me give you a little advice. When you invite people over for a meal, don't invite your friends or your brothers. or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid? Imagine them scratching their heads saying, that's why you invite people to dinner. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and then you'll be blessed because they cannot repay you. Precisely because they cannot repay you, you will be blessed. What kind of reversal is he talking about here? Well, Jesus says, you know what happens when you go into a room and you take the best seats? He says, the host will very often come and have to re-seat you. And that's very embarrassing. Isn't that embarrassing? Have you ever had that happen to you? They're not amused. Jesus is talking about them being seated at the Lord's table. And so Jesus has a different set of guest invitations in mind. And he proceeds to lecture the host, the leader of the Pharisees, mind you, in the proper etiquette for guest invitation. The Pharisees were professionals in this business. They knew who was in and who was out. They knew who should be invited to parties and who shouldn't. Their whole lives and the religious industry depended on their labors And these labors had no other objective than to sanitize Israel so that the lame, the crippled, the blind, the poor, the outcasts, the immoral could not make their way into the precincts. Only then could the Messiah come. Now here the Messiah is present and he's saying, you didn't get it at all. It's the other way around. Think of when I was in Manila, brothers there picking me up from the airport were telling me about the Pope's visit. And they said that all of these walls that you see here are walls that they put up so that the motorcade wouldn't have eyesight of the worst areas of Manila. But Jesus is telling them that they don't know the first thing about throwing a party. They have the guest list all wrong. The very people they want to exclude are the honored guests the king wants to invite. And every parable has something to do with this great reversal. Invite those who can't repay you. Isn't that amazing? I mean, think about throwing down $30,000 instead of putting it on the usual guest list for your daughter's wedding. Going to the rougher parts of Escondido, inviting people that you've never met before. That's what Jesus is saying here. This is what his kingdom is like. Now, remember, these aren't timeless, abstract principles. Jesus isn't rewriting a sort of Christian mismanners manual. This isn't a saying that we can't invite the boss over for dinner. This isn't saying that we can't invite our friends over or have Thanksgiving with our family. He's talking about his kingdom, this strange new regime of grace. He's talking about his table. Who is invited to his table? And as the camera moves around the room, capturing the nervous faces of the guests, Jesus is announcing regime change. This is his table, not theirs. And I like this guy, this poor guy who sort of gets in there as a supporting actor. He says in verse 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. This is an interesting character. Just one line, but a very interesting character. He's the nervous uncle who's had a little bit too much to drink, Breaking up the tension with some beside-the-point remark, like, yeah, I'll fly away, O glory. Not at all to the point of what Jesus has said. Calvin had this to say about him. He says, It is by no means probable that the guest and friend of a Pharisee broke out into this exclamation from any sincere feeling of piety. Still, I do not look upon it as having been solely in derision, but as persons who have a moderate knowledge of the faith and are not openly wicked, are in a habit of indulging amidst their cups in idle talk about eternal life, I think that this man threw out a remark about future blessedness in order to draw out some observation in return from Christ. Well, he did. He got a parable out of it. A whole parable as a response to that man's careless remark. Blessed is everyone who eats bread in the kingdom of God. Sure, push it off into eternity when the king of the kingdom is present here in this room right now. And in verse 24, Jesus answers this man's unreflective remark. For I tell you, none of those who were invited shall taste my banquet. Not only were the religious leaders beginning to think that he was talking about them, but notice how they could only see this as insolence, not believing that he was who he said he was. Will not taste my banquet. They knew they were all talking about eating and drinking in the age to come. They all believed, one thing they did all believe, was that this would be a great day when we would all eat and drink in the presence of the Lord. And that was what spawned that man's general off-the-cuff remark. And Jesus is saying, don't think that you're going to eat and drink at my table. My table. He was already asserting his messianic sovereignty over the table. Finally, Jesus responds with the parable. In Matthew's version, Matthew 22, there are two invitations, and this was usual in the ancient Near East. This was usually the case where you would first get an invitation, and then you would respond to that invitation, and then as the event came closer, you would get a second invitation. And you know how it is when you get an invitation, It's easy to put it off if it's sort of six months out into the future. Sure, absolutely. Then it's a week before and you say, I've got too much going on. I can't do that. And that's what people are doing here. But it's an offense to the king who issues the summons. The servants that the king sends are prophets, but the people didn't repent. Instead, they killed the prophets who called them all to prepare at all costs for the coming kingdom. As Jesus will say in the parable of the vineyard and the woes against the religious leaders, that's exactly the same reception he's getting. Only not as the servant of the owner of the vineyard, but as the son. So a third invitation goes out. See, this is like watering, putting manure on the fig tree. God is just so generous. I am giving it another chance. A third invitation goes out, highlighting the appealing generosity of the host. Then he sent some more servants and said, tell those who've been invited that I've prepared my dinner. My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet. Crickets. Everybody has something else to do. Some want to go to their farms. Some got married. Others had to tie up loose ends at the office. They didn't get what's happening right in front of their noses. Matthew tells us the rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. And the king, enraged, sent servants to burn down the city. So now another group of servants is sent out into the world to the barrios, the hovels, the dark alleys, and the plow fields to invite, in fact, to compel the most unlikely guests to the royal wedding feast. And it's interesting, invite is what is used in those other instances. Compel is what is used here. This is an effectual calling. I will bring people into my kingdom. he came to his own and his own received him not but to those who do receive him he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God and again all of this is actually happening even as Jesus is telling it Christianity is not a new religion it's a fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham Isaiah 55 says the same thing here Isaiah 55 talks about the great feast. Come, buy, without money. Sit at the Lord's table. A great feast is being spread. And in the same chapter speaks of foreigners coming from all nations to join in the feast. And then turns right around in the same chapter to rebuke the religious leaders for barring people from entering and from having no understanding exactly what Jesus is saying and doing here. In Matthew's version, there's also a dress code. You have to have the wedding garment. Come in in rags, those rags are stripped off, and he puts his wedding garment on you. But there was one person there who didn't have a wedding garment, and he was cast out into outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. In chapter 15, there are three parables about lostness. One lost sheep, one lost coin, one lost son, and each ends with a party. Woven into these parables are the themes of being lost and found, the last being first, death and resurrection, apostasy and homecoming. That's really what these parables are not only about, but what these parables actually bring about. For Jesus says here in Luke 14, for many are called, but few are chosen. Now again, that could be turned into a general maxim. Many are called, few are chosen. You know, that you throw into a conversation, no matter what the conversation is, many are called, but few are chosen. Meaning, especially in America, many have opportunity to rise to the top, but few actually make the most of their abilities. But that's the world's elect. God's elect are, as Paul says, not many wise. Not many fast. Not many noble. Not many powerful. For God has shamed the powerful things of this world by choosing that which is weak. Rejected by his own. Just as he was when the spies returned with their firstfruits of the good land. God nevertheless sends his messenger into the highways and byways to gather guests for his banquet. Invite those to the banquet, Jesus tells his disciples, who cannot repay you. After all, isn't that exactly what God does with us? So on one hand, we're not to interpret these parables as if Jesus is sort of giving general rules for social custom. God created us as people who are part of families, who are part of extended networks of friends and co-workers. God created us with a certain sense of enjoyment of each other's company and fellowship and scratching back and they scratched back. But what he's saying is this is a new kingdom that's breaking into the kingdoms of this age. It isn't like those other kingdoms and it's not like those other meals that we can have. And that's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians that the supper that the Lord gives doesn't recognize any division in the body of Christ as the Corinthians were horribly celebrating communion with the wealthy separated from the poor. And Paul says this is a travesty, this is a parody of what communion is intended to create because he says you have your own homes. to have dinners in. And there Paul is making the point that it's okay to have common meals in our homes with our family, friends, relatives. But tragically, in a lot of church planting methodology today, in a lot of just basic assumptions about what church is, you're supposed to go through a demographic survey, you're supposed to find the growing sections of town. Guess what parts of town those are and aren't? Basically, the way Walmart finds a place to plant a new store. Don't plant one in a bad part of town. Don't plant one. There aren't just these huge manuals of how to plant a church in Watts. How to plant a church where there are members who cannot pay you back, who cannot do anything for you, who cannot validate our successful ministry. Jesus is saying that his kingdom is different. It targets the moral outcasts. It targets the weak. It targets those who cannot repay him. And that is you and me. We're in that class. To be seated at this table, you have to be lost. You have to be last. and you have to be dead and you are and I am apart from the one who raises from the dead who seeks and finds that which is lost and because he was last for us became first the first fruits from the dead in whom we have our own resurrection or as Jesus says here for the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Granted, our Lord knew how to ruin a perfectly good dinner party of religious elites, but has the world ever seen a more gracious host or a more lavish dinner? Let's pray. Our Father, we cannot even imagine what awaits us. Even when we gather for those opportunities to taste the morsels of that feast through your word and through your sacraments, we know, Father, that it is only a foretaste. We know that we will eat and drink with you in that kingdom, but that it is your kingdom and that you have invited your guests. Indeed, you have affectionately drawn us into your kingdom. We who were no people, we who were outcasts, we who had not received mercy have now received mercy. Help us, Father, to receive this hospitality, to live in this hospitality, and to show this hospitality to others. For we pray in Christ's name. Amen.