Word of Salvation – Vol.51 No.41 – November 2006

 

The Great Invitation

 

A Sermon by Rev John Haverland on Luke 14:15-24

Scripture Readings:  Isaiah 25:1-9; Rev.19:1-10; Luke 14:1,12-24

Suggested Hymns:  PsH: 115; 309; 413

 

Children, I’m sure all of you love a good story. And not only children love stories – everyone does! This is why movies and videos are so popular; because they are stories, stories you can see.

Most of us also enjoy reading a story in a book or a novel, and we enjoy hearing one read to us. And we enjoy listening to a story that someone is telling about something about their life or about an incident that happened to them that day.

In this passage of the Bible Jesus told a story. He told many stories and, just like today, the people loved to listen to them. In the Bible these stories are called parables. They were special stories because they were stories with a meaning, a message. Parables are earthly stories with a heavenly meaning. These are stories Jesus told about things that happened in everyday life that had an important lesson. Like this one.

Jesus was at a big meal when he told this story. An important Pharisee had invited him over to have dinner with him on the Sabbath and there were lots of other people there. Jesus told a story about a certain man who prepared a great banquet. He put on a big party. Everyone loves a party. This man invited many guests, lots of people. This is what you do when you have a big feast.

When you receive an invitation to a party or a wedding reception you will be asked to respond to tell the host whether or not you are going to attend. At the bottom of the invitation you will see the letters RSVP, which is an abbreviation for a French phrase meaning, “Please Respond”. Those who were invited to the banquet that Jesus described also responded. Once the host knew how many to expect, he went ahead and prepared this elaborate meal.

It was the custom in the Middle East to repeat the invitation when the meal was ready. No one had watches or electronic reminders in their palm tops or their cell phones. So when the time of the feast came the host sent his servant out to the invited guests to say, “Come, for everything is now ready.”

In his parables Jesus would take a familiar event or a well-known custom that everyone knew about. The story would go along for a while just as people expected it to happen, but part-way through he would give it a strange twist. So, too, in this parable. The story went off in an unusual direction. Instead of responding gladly and coming along, the guests declined the invitation and offered all sorts of lame excuses. Those who were listening could tell that the reasons people offered for not coming were phoney excuses designed to insult the host.

The first man explained that he had bought a piece of land and needed to go and look at it (vs 18). Now people in that culture knew that this was nonsense. Land in that culture was extremely important. No one would buy a piece of land without knowing every square inch of the area. The buyer would want to know everything about it before he even started on negotiations. Buying land without seeing it first would be like you buying a house because you liked the sound of the ad in the paper without even going to have a look at it! You wouldn’t do it!

In offering this excuse, the man was saying that he thought his field was more important than his relationship with the host; and in a society that put great weight on relationships, that was a shocking insult.

The second man had a similar excuse. “I have just bought five yoke of oxen and I’m on my way to try them out” (vs 19). Children, a yoke of oxen was a pair of oxen linked together by a wooden bar so they could pull together for ploughing. This man said he had bought five pairs like this. Now those listening knew that this was just as bad as the previous excuse. No one bought five yoke of oxen without trying them out. In fact, if a farmer was selling oxen he would take the animals out on a nearby field and give the prospective buyers a demonstration of how the oxen worked together and pulled together, or he would allow the buyer to have a go himself.

You could compare it today to buying a second-hand car. You know how careful you have to be. You don’t want to buy a lemon. So you take it for a test drive. You listen to the engine for any strange noises. You check over the body for accidents. You poke around for rust and you want to see if it’s been bogged up somewhere. You look before you buy.

It was the same then. Yet this man claimed to have bought these oxen without trying them out! Again it was a ridiculous excuse. What’s more, he didn’t claim that he had to do this, but simply that this is what he was going to do. “I’m on my way to try them out.” He had more important things to do than going to the banquet. Again a slap in the face for the host. But at least he asked to be excused: “Please excuse me” (vs 19).

The third man was even more rude. He said: “I just got married so I can’t come” (vs 20). Now you need to understand that the Middle Eastern culture was very restrained in speaking about women. The women of the family were not discussed in formal settings. But this man ignored this convention. I can’t come because I have just got married. What he was really saying was, “I am more interested in going to bed with my wife than in attending your party.” Now that would be improper in our culture with all its openness in these matters, but in that culture this was a tremendous insult. And he was even more rude in that he didn’t even offer an apology.

We need to pause here for a moment and think about the meaning of this parable so far. What was Jesus getting at? What did he mean by telling this story?

The man who prepared the banquet represented God the Father.

The servant sent out with the invitations represented the Lord Jesus. Jesus came into the world with an invitation to share in the eternal life that the Father offered.

The banquet is a picture of the Kingdom of God, as we read about that in Isaiah 25.

Those who attend the banquet are those who are part of the Kingdom of God, who belong to the church and who follow Jesus as Lord and King.

The first guests invited represented the Jewish religious leaders. They thought they were already part of the Kingdom. That was the assumption of the man who spoke to Jesus as we read in verse 15: “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the Kingdom of God.” He assumed he would eat at that feast. He thought he would be in on the action.

But Jesus told this parable to show the religious leaders that by refusing to believe in him they had refused the kingdom. They did not want to come. They had more important things to do. So the warning in verse 24 was addressed to them: “I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.” They had rejected the invitation.

This applies to us today. In both society and in the church there are people who think they are in the kingdom. Like the Pharisees, they are confident of going to heaven. They’ll tell you:

“I believe in God.”

“I went to Sunday School.”

“I am part of a Christian Country.”

“I have my name on the church roll.”

“I go to church, at least occasionally.”

Yet while they say this, in reality, other things are far more important to them. They have other priorities – their land, their car, their sport, a hobby, their husband, their wife, their children, their job.

Some of you may be like these people in the parable. Many of you children and young people have grown up in Christian homes, you attend church, you know something about the Bible. But that doesn’t make you a Christian. Just as living in a garage doesn’t make you a car, so too attending a church doesn’t make you a Christian. To be a Christian you have to accept the invitation Jesus gives you to join the banquet and follow him in a life of obedience.

Have you accepted the invitation of the Lord Jesus to join the meal? Do you want to be part of the kingdom? Or are you coming up with silly excuses. Some people do that.

They say, “I’m not going to church because my parents forced me to go when I was young and I got sick of it.” Or they say, “The church is full of hypocrites.” Or, “There aren’t any people my age in church.”

Those excuses are as lame as the ones offered in this parable. Don’t turn Jesus away with pathetic excuses. The Lord Jesus invites you to be part of the Kingdom. Accept the invitation. Join the party.

Let’s go back to the parable.

When the servant came back with this news from these guests, the host became very angry. I’m sure all the women here can sympathise with his feelings. You imagine you have just spent the whole afternoon slaving over a hot stove, preparing an elaborate dinner for invited guests. You are getting ready to put it on the table, hoping they won’t be late, when the phone goes. It’s your guests ringing to say, “Sorry we can’t make it.” What’s more, they offer an excuse that makes it clear that they don’t really want to come – they would prefer to be doing something else. You, too, would be angry, as was this host!

But this wasn’t the end of the party. The man had another idea. “Go out quickly”, he said to his servant, “into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”

This time the invitation went out to the outcasts of the Jewish community – those who lived on the fringe of society; those who were scorned by the Pharisees. There is an interesting contrast here with those who were first invited. The poor did not get invited to banquets. The blind did not go out to examine fields. The lame did not test yokes of oxen. The crippled did not usually marry. But these were the people who were invited.

In the gospels you can read about Jesus taking the invitation of the Father to these people. Yes, he went to the homes of Pharisees and the religious leaders. But he was also known as the friend of tax collectors and sinners. He once said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick… I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” – that is, the people who know their own sin and weakness and need of forgiveness (Mt 9:12-13).

So he preached the good news of the kingdom to all, regardless of their social standing and position. We need to do the same. The good news about Jesus is not for one class or group or type of person. Everyone is invited.

The servant came back: “Sir, what you ordered has been done, but there is still room” (vs 22), there are a lot of empty places around the tables. What do I do now? So the host told his servant to extend the invitation even wider. “Go out to the roads and the country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full” (vs 23).

Those who were listening to this story understood that Jesus was extending the invitation to all the non-Jews, the Gentiles, to those outside the people of Israel. This gives us an insight into the wide scope of the gospel and the graciousness of God. The Holy Spirit had anticipated this in the Old Testament: that after Pentecost the whole world would hear this invitation, not just the nation of Israel. That one day all people, from all races and cultures would be invited to join the banquet.

This is still happening today. You are invited. The Lord Jesus invites you to accept the offer of the Father. He invites you to believe in Him, to trust Him and to accept His offer of life. Will you do that? Will you believe what the Bible says about Jesus and will you submit to him as Lord?

You who have accepted the invitation are then sent out as servants of Jesus, as ambassadors for the king, to invite others to the banquet of the King. You are to take this invitation to all people, regardless of their social position or their economic standing or their intellectual ability. You are to do this wherever God has placed you – at school, on your farm, in your factory, in your office. You are to do this through what you do and what you say.

Sometimes we will find that people are surprised by such an offer. They may be inclined to decline, thinking that this is not for them. This is why the master instructed his servant to “make them come in”, to persuade them to come in, to assure them that the host definitely wanted them to come along.

Sometimes we do this, too. Someone drops by and you invite them to stay for a meal.

“No”, they say, “I was only passing by and I need to get on my way.”

But you insist; “Look we want you to stay! Please do. We have plenty of food. See, we’ve already set you a place.”

This is what we do as Christians: “Listen, the master is inviting you to a banquet!”

“No,” they say, “the church is not really for me. I’ve got plenty of others things to do in my life.”

Or they take another approach and they say, “No, the master doesn’t want me in the kingdom! I’m not good enough to come. If he only knew what I’ve done! Too much has gone on in my life. I don’t deserve to come. You must have the wrong person. There must be some mistake.”

“No”, we say, “there is no mistake. The invitation is for all – and it is for you. God does know what has gone on in your life – he knows you through and through. And he wants you to be part of his eternal kingdom. Everyone is invited. You are invited!”

For God wants his house to be full. He wants every place at his table filled.

One day that will happen. This was prophesied in Isaiah: “The Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples.” One day the wedding of the Lamb will come. All the invited guests will gather for that great feast in heaven. All those who have believed in Jesus and followed him will sit down with Jesus and thank and praise him who has laid out such a glorious feast.

Children, young people, all of you here today: You are invited. Will you join in? Will you accept? Will you be there at that great feast?

Amen.