Word of Salvation – Vol.22 No.15 – January 1976
Excuses, Excuses, Excuses!
Sermon by Rev. A.I. de Graaf, B.D. on Luke 14:15-24
Scripture Readings: Romans 13:7-14 (law); Luke 14:1-24
Suggested Hymns:
Psalter Hymnal: 195; 379; 371; 420; 325.2.
Brothers and sisters, boys and girls, Congregation of our Lord,
At the moment Jesus tells this parable, He is sitting at a meal. Nice and quietly, leisurely, for it is Sabbath. And at this meal Jesus tells this parable
ABOUT that meal.
It’s like a hitchhiker striking up a conversation with the driver who picked him up. And what do they talk about? Cars of course … and roads.
Jesus talks at this meal about a Meal, a Banquet.
He had already been showing the healing and joy-giving love of God
as he healed that sick man, also at that meal.
There had been some grumbling about that by his strict, Jewish hosts. But Jesus had silenced them with the simple argument of love:
Love which is the fulfilment of the law even though it is NEVER the abolishment of the law.
Did they understand? These leaders who COULD know so well?
After this Jesus had been teaching a few lessons on humility, on modesty, on that inner smallness which God’s children ought to have, and therefore, when invited at meals, they should not themselves seek the places of honour.
God’s Kingdom is not a “me-first” rat race, says Jesus.
God’s Kingdom is living by God’s grace,
is learning to be small, learning to be unimportant
until GOD says: come, yes come higher up, I want YOU!
Did they understand? These leaders of God’s people?
Who COULD know so well?
Then Jesus went on – at this meal – again talking of meals – about whom to invite.
Not the rich fellows who can invite you back.
That’s not love … that’s not necessarily generosity.
That may just be a good deal: I WILL INVITE, THEN HE’LL ASK ME BACK!
But the outgoing love that invites those who have nothing to offer…
the love for the down-and-outers.
the concern and generosity for the have-nots.
O these orthodox, law-studied masters of God’s people, do they understand?
Well, it sounds as if ONE does! One who calls out:
“Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God!”
Ah yes – he was sure he, too, would be at the party!
He was sure he, too, would eat bread in that Kingdom, where Israel’s God would rule undisputed and God’s own people sit in the seats of honour. After all, were they not the people of GOD’S COVENANT? The members of GOD’S CHURCH? Bearers of rich and everlasting promises?
It is THEN that Jesus tells this story.
The story of that meal, to which many indeed WERE invited,
and yet … when the hour of the meal came … they did not come.
NOT because the Lord of the Banquet changed his mind about the invitations.
But because there were things in the way!
That is the first thing we see:
1. THE INVITATION WAS THERE ALREADY, BUT THE CALL IS UNEXPECTED.
Jesus says: there was a man, (not the King of Matt.22, not as elaborate as all that).
Just a man who was to have a banquet, a DINNER PARTY for his friends.
And of course all these friends were set to come,
and as the man suggested it to his friends, they had said:
“great idea, man! You can count me in.”
Ah yes, and so there had been some lapse of time.
this was expensive for that man who only had one servant
and doubtlessly not immediately all the money etc. available.
The Bible says: He invited many
…and at the TIME OF THE BANQUET
HE SENT HIS SERVANT TO THOSE WHO HAD BEEN INVITED,
“ALRIGHT NOW! Come, for all things are ready…!” Get the picture?
The invitation had been there before.
As with Israel the invitation in their circumcision,
and to us the invitation in our baptism:
The invitation to the BANQUET
The invitation to the Feast.
So THAT is also that Kingdom of God!
It is not only work in the vineyard.
It is not only to bear fruit, 30-, 60-, and 100-fold …
It is also a feast, a banquet!
a joyful togetherness of the Lord and His people,
a deep enjoying together of all the Lord cares to set on the table.
The Easterner feels that even stronger than we about a meal.
The sharing of it … the togetherness of it.
God the Maker of all says: I don’t want to enjoy all this in lonely splendour,
I want to live the life with my Friends!
And so there is the invitation: I will be your God .. and you will be my people!
Tremendous!
People have a way of making religion sound dull and drab.
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy…!”
People have a way of making God look like an undertaker clad in black,
a traffic cop ready to book you,
always hitting you over the head with the law.
People have a way of making the very law of God look like a wet blanket:
… a prison:
When … oh when will the time come that we no more H A V E to keep it?
Some people look at God’s law the same way an old fashioned housewife looked at her marriage bed: She spoke of the duties of marriage and sighed and said “alright, I have to, I suppose.”
Is that the way God wants to live with his children?
NO SIR! Jesus says here that it is a meal
an enjoying-together of each other
and of all the gifts loading down the table.
The covenant of God is this marvellous thing that God says:
though you have sinned and made yourself unworthy of being Mine,
yet I call you, I invite you, to be with me
and enjoy with me what I made!
Then the law of God becomes my delight when I say:
I walk with my God and love to walk IN HIS WAYS!
Then the will of God becomes the thing which I want to do:
the friend with the friend, the bride with the bridegroom;
Where it’s no more dull duty, given in to at last,
but deep enjoyment, deep sharing,
“blessed submission all is at rest,
I in my Saviour am happy and blest!”
It’s a MEAL too, that Kingdom of God, says Jesus.
It’s a meal where the meat stands sizzling on the table
and the champagne sparkles in the candlelit crystal!!
That at the same time it is hard work
AND bearing fruit is the secret of it.
God wants our work, our sanctification,
our fruit-bearing, yes, even at times our cross-bearing,
to have the character of a meal: joy, togetherness with Him.
Alright. Israel had heard that. The Old Testament was full of it.
Think of the delirious joy in which Psalm 119 spoke of the Law!
The deep, deep pleasure of a Psalm 16:
You O God are showing me the path of life,
and in your presence there is fullness of joy!
Think of Psalm 36, where this meal-character,
this feast-side of being God’s people is sung in this way:
“Your love, oh Yahweh, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds;
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God,
Your judgements are like the mighty deep!
Oh Lord, protector of man and beast,
how precious, God, your love!
Hence the sons of men
take shelter in the shadows of your wings.
They feast on the bounty of your house,
You give them drink from your river of pleasure
Yes! With you is the fountain of life itself!
And in your light we see light!”
(Psalm 36:5-9 Jerusalem Bible)
And of course they said: “I accept that invitation …!”
Ah – said Jesus, but when the CALL comes, are they ready to come?
You see, you have got this invitation in your Baptism;
and maybe in Public profession you accepted too:
and said to this God: Sure! we come!
tell us when you have the meal and we’ll be there!
Yes, Lord, this is IT, I accept, count me in – for sure!
But then the service was over, and this normal business of living sort of took over again. Yes, it was nice … but now …?
Yes, what now? Jesus goes on with his story, now to tell of…
2. HOW ORDINARY LIFE CAN BE IN THE WAY
You know: here’s where this parable is rather different
from that other invitation-to-the-meal one, in Matt.22.
There the invited guests are real nasty blokes who kill or maim the servants of the king. None of this nastiness here, really! They’re nice and civil and polite about it.
And what they say in their EXCUSES is so very REASONABLE.
There’s this first man and he says:
“Oh but that’s terrible!
I just bought a piece of land, and I have to go and survey it.
Lot of money involved in that you know!
Boy, I would just l o v e to go to that dinner, really,
but business goes before pleasure, does it not!
Oh, why just TONIGHT, that dinner …!
Please tell your master that I am very, very sorry indeed;
But I won’t be able to make it.”
Nice chap, really! Too bad! And as we say to each other:
that’s how things go in life, what else could the fellow do?
Jesus’ story has already gone on.
The servant has travelled another few streets and knocked on another door.
Another such case!
“Well! That’s a bad coincidence!
I just bought me 5 yoke of oxen.”
We would say: a nice new Caterpillar tractor or a beaut five-ton-truck,
and just tonight I am to pick it up and try it out.
I have arranged with my foreman and the leading hand
and a couple of blokes to come back and have a look at it.
No, I have to be there myself. Imagine something would happen!
I am responsible – you realise that don’t you?
I am very, very sorry – next time I’d just LOVE to come.
“Ah yes … BLESSED IS HE WHO EATS BREAD IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD!”
someone said to Jesus.
But – says Jesus – you don’t get there so easily.
We have our great Appointment with God,
the Appointment which we call the Covenant of Grace.
An everlasting Covenant, God calls it.
HE sticks to His invitation and sure HE does call you
to come to that meal of love
where He and you can enjoy the NEW Life.
He promised to really lay it on thick for you …
to be your Father,
to wash away your sins in Jesus’ blood,
to live in you by the miracle of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit…!
But we are called to love this God first of all
and to listen to His voice first of all
and to walk in His ways.
That is our great Appointment with God and when that is KEPT,
yes, then a man can get very enthusiastic and say:
BLESSED IS HE WHO EATS BREAD IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
But only little things can come and get RIGHT in the way.
Common things. Daily things.
And not even bad things at that!
It does not at all have to be the wrong choice
of a lost son to go on drugs or become a drunk or kill a man.
It does not have to be the messy business of another woman
or embezzled funds.
It can just be the common things of life.
And then we see coming up one of the great points of this parable of Jesus: namely That the CHOICE –
the choice about accepting that invitation –
must be made time and again, in the context of common things,
in the daily routine of things.
“I have no time tonight…”.
That’s nonsense of course.
You have time alright. 4, 5, 6 hours you have.
You have 24 hours each day.
But WHAT HAVE YOU DECIDED TO DO WITH THESE HOURS?
That’s the question. When we say.
“I have no time” we mean to say:
“Sorry, I have spent my time elsewhere.
I have time … but NOT FOR YOU.
And so it can happen that Christian people, church people, can say to the God of their salvation: “I have time … but not for you …”
Land … oxen … house … sports … going fishing on Sunday…!
A man who goes fishing with other men for a weekend
says to his wife and child: “I HAVE NO TIME FOR YOU.”
MY enjoyment comes first.
And when he doesn’t go to church he says that to God, too.
Materialism is that things come before people
and surely things plus people come before God.
Time is like money. You have quite a good lot of it.
But you can spend it only once.
And that comes each day,
that is the business of living for you and for me each day.
When I have no time … it means I have given that time ELSEWHERE.
For I had it … but what … of what was MOST IMPORTANT for me?
The Great Appointment of God with His people
is not just a solemn call to a once-per-year-Great-Happening
But it’s a choice to be made day by day
moment by moment, when God says: Are you in a hurry?
May I come in HERE? NOW?
And the tragedy of many Christians and church people
is that they fill their life so full with things
organisations
money making projects
land … houses … oxen …!
that FEASTING WITH GOD is crowded out.
Secularisation: a world with God crowded out begins there,
where a LIFE has God crowded out.
And that while what God calls us to is a FEAST,
the carefree and abundant feast
of having HIM deck the Table … day by day!
But we forgot a third guest, did we not?
He has that OTHER excuse:
Not THINGS, this time, but PEOPLE:
“I married a wife … I cannot come.”
Now for a Jew this particular excuse had a typical ring.
For the Law of Moses stipulated that when a fellow was just married he was NOT supposed to be drafted into the army for a year. Nor was he supposed to serve on tax duty for a year (you know: the duty in labour to be given to the King for building). Scripture reckons that a marriage is something to be enjoyed and also something to be worked at, built on.
But what when one is invited to a dinner with a friend?
An invitation already accepted before anyway?
Does that not mean that this friendship is seen as DUTY only?
Like military conscription, or free labour on a building?
Marriage is great and family life a wonderful thing.
But may it be in the way of our joyful celebration with God?
The new life? Is it not rather so that that wife should COME ALONG?
That together this husband and wife shall sit at meal with their friend?
We shall see now, that this man inviting these guests
surely was not miserly with his places.
That wife would have been MOST welcome to come along.
That is the CHRISTIAN marriage, where husband and wife do not say: “It’s God or me … you’d better choose” (O bitter tragedy of the mixed marriages!).
Christian marriage is where they say with joy and gladness:
“As for me and my house TOGETHER we will serve the Lord.”
Yes … but meanwhile it looks as if the feast is miscarrying:
the one after the other declines …
EXCUSES … EXCUSES … EXCUSES!
But no, Jesus does not end on this bitter note:
THE HOUSE SHALL BECOME FULL!
And then – as Israel refuses to believe in its Saviour
and so many church members have NO TIME REALLY
for the glad Kingdom service of God,
then the servant goes out to get the riff-raff,
the maimed and the outcast …
the blind and the beggars.
Then we see here again the wonder of the Gospel
that not the good ones but the lost ones,
the bad ones, are called into the Kingdom of God!
And then we can sometimes misunderstand the Doctrine of Election as if it would mean that ONLY A SMALL NUMBER will make it.
But listen to Jesus, how he tells that the servant brought in the droves of pick-ups from the street, but there are still places and they must be filled:
“GO and get MORE!”
Surely there we see the work of the Missions and the way the Church should work, certainly in our age:
THERE IS PLACE IN THE JOY OF GOD
PLACE A-PLENTY IN THE NEW-FOUND BANQUET OF LIFE ETERNAL!
Go get them in. The Lord is NOT a miser.
He wants MANY to share with Him the new song of a redeemed world.
That He delays sending Jesus back on the clouds of heaven is ONLY (says Peter) that MORE must be added to those feasting in the banquet hall!
More must be torn out of an empty life of boredom and pessimism.
More must be coaxed away out of the nothingness of money and sensual slavery.
More must come out of the hunger of a God-less life to the bounty of unity and friendship with the Maker of it all.
There is SO much room – go and tell!
Go and call!
Instead of with the busy guy with the excuses get along with the busy guy with the invitations! That also YOUR time may be filled with the very worthwhile business of the King of glory.
Amen.