This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (11am) and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Bairnsdale (3pm).
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Luke 14:15-24)
A man gave a great banquet and invited many. 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.”
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Our gospel reading for today has something very much in common with last Sunday’s gospel. Last week, we read about a rich man, who had many nice things, who dressed well, and ate well. But he was so greedy that he couldn’t spare a little something for the poor man Lazarus sitting at his gate. The rich man goes to hell and the poor man goes to heaven.
But Jesus is not trying to teach us in that gospel reading that rich people automatically go to hell and poor people automatically go to heaven. Abraham was a rich man too—he was very wealthy—and Lazarus was carried to him in heaven by the angels.
There’s nothing wrong with wealth and with being wealthy. Riches and wealth are a blessing from God. But as soon as we realise this, we want to gather as much wealth as we can, and we think that people who are poor are cursed by God. But we learn in that bible passage that God does take notice of the poor man, and blesses him.
But also, in today’s reading, we have a parable about a great banquet prepared by a king.
But we read about the people invited: “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.’ 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.’
We have a similar problem here as with Lazarus and the rich man. There’s nothing wrong with money or riches or wealth as long as you’re in charge of it and it’s not in charge of you. The rich man thought he had everything he needed—so much so that he didn’t need God.
But look at these people who make their excuses today. One man has bought a field, one has bought some cattle, and one has married a wife.
Once again, there’s nothing wrong with buying a field, there’s nothing wrong with buying cattle, and there’s nothing wrong with getting married. But why should those things be an excuse for not coming to have dinner with the king?
Just imagine if the Queen invited you to Buckingham Palace to celebrate her 60th Jubilee with her? Wouldn’t you go? Wouldn’t you go even if you’re not a monarchist? Wouldn’t you like to go just because you’ve been given the opportunity to sponge off of her?! Don’t you think it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity?
Or what about some other rich or wealthy or influential person, like Bill Gates, or the Pope, or some great sport star? What about if you were invited to an exclusive dinner to meet all the members of your football team?
Wouldn’t you go? Wouldn’t you say, “My field can wait till tomorrow, my cattle can wait till tomorrow, my wife can wait till tomorrow?”
If you were given this sort of wonderful invitation to have dinner with some great person, you wouldn’t just pass it up, would you?
Just imagine if you wanted to throw a big party. Just imagine that you, yourself, were planning on inviting all your friends to a special birthday party. And then comes the day and nobody shows up. Why? One person says, “Sorry, mate… I’ve got some spring onions that need planting.” “Sorry, I’ve got to go to the market.” “Sorry, I want to have a night in with my family.”
Wouldn’t you be a bit cross about it?
Surely, you would think that people could plan their lives in such a way that they could do all those things on other days of the week.
But here’s the problem again: There’s nothing wrong with buying a field. There’s nothing wrong with planting veggies. There’s nothing wrong with sowing crops and vineyards. There’s nothing wrong with agriculture. There’s nothing wrong working the land and trying to produce something.
There’s nothing wrong with buying some cattle. There’s nothing wrong with milking cows, with killing and buying meat, there’s nothing wrong with farms, and there not even anything wrong with keeping pets.
There’s also nothing wrong with getting married. There’s nothing wrong with building a home and a house, and having a family. There’s nothing wrong with love and companionship and romance.
But here’s the great problem: God has invited the whole world to feast at his table, and people don’t want to come.
And God says to us in our reading today, “Well, if you don’t want to come, then I’ll invite someone else.”
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So what are we talking about when it comes to God’s banquet?
First of all, we’re talking about the faith as a whole. The Christian faith is for everyone. It’s not just for good people, it’s not just for bad people. It’s not just for Europeans, it’s not just for Africans. It’s not just for the rich, it’s not just for the poor. Jesus said to his apostles before he ascended into heaven, “Go and preach the gospel to the whole of creation”. “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Not one person is without an invitation to God’s banquet.
This is an invitation simply to believe in Jesus Christ, and that his death and his resurrection are for you. God has prepared a feast in heaven, and it is for you. God simply invites you to believe this, and then the invitation is accepted, and the banquet is yours.
He says, “Come, let me baptise you. Believe in the cross of Jesus and its power.” That’s it.
God is extending an invitation to the whole world to eat with him in his own kingdom forever. And would people rather have a field and some cows?
You know, all these things, food and drink, house and home, family, land, animals, all these things are necessary for human life. We need them, and God gives them to us. They are our daily bread. But in the Lord’s Prayer, daily bread is not the first thing we pray for. The first things we pray for are that God’s name be kept holy, that his kingdom come, and that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Then we pray for daily bread. That’s the proper order—that’s the way Jesus himself teaches us to pray.
So what’s there to lose in taking God’s invitation and joining him for eternity at his banquet table?
But secondly, we can also see this passage as speaking about the divine service which we celebrate together. What excuses have you used that make you think that it’s OK to stay home?
Luther explains the third commandment by saying: “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and his word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”
Do you despise preaching and the word of God? Do you hold the word of God sacred? Do you hear and learn it gladly?
Now, sometimes there are some situations where people genuinely can’t make it to church. It’s not easy for some people. And now, in our society where nobody respects Sunday any more, it’s very hard. People have to work on Sundays, there are courses on Sundays, there’s children’s sports on Sundays.
As a pastor, I understand the challenges and the pressures that people face. But you see, the divine service is just so important. Many Christians don’t understand it. Parents throughout Australia send their children to Christian schools and have their children confirmed, and never bring them to church. It’s like teaching someone the rules of football but never actually taking them to see a game. But God has invited you to his banquet—to hear the word of God applied to you for the week, to receive the full forgiveness of your sins, to come into the very presence of God who made you, to pray to him and place before him all your needs, and to receive the body and blood of Christ for you! Wouldn’t you want to come two or three times a week? Wouldn’t you want to come every day if you could?
But thirdly, the call to the banquet of God occurs in our homes and in our hearts every day. God calls us to feast on him every day—to go to our rooms and shut the doors, to pray to our Father who is in secret. God calls us every day to taste and see that the Lord is good. But there’s always breakfast to be had, a shower to be had, a newspaper to be read, a crossword puzzle to be done, some TV to be watched, some coffee to be brewed, some dishes to be washed, some toe-nails to be clipped…
We have pretty mundane lives, you know! What about God? Where does he fit into our hectic schedules? Where does he fit into our crazy lives?
Martin Luther said that when he had more to do in a day, he prayed longer.
But if you read the Small Catechism, for example, the pattern for daily prayer that Luther sets out would only take us 5 minutes at the beginning and end of every day—less than that even: as much time as it takes to say the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer? Are we too embarrassed to take that make that sort of time for God? Have we got some field, some cattle, or a newly-married wife that we can’t spare 5 minutes?
“Taste and see that the Lord is good!”
My intention is not to laden you with guilt for all the things that you fail at in your spiritual life. I know from my own experience that the devil always wants to squash me down and make me miserable about all the things I haven’t got done, and it’s no better when the thing I haven’t got done is prayer.
But listen: don’t think about these things as a burden—the invitation is there. God’s happy to hear from you whenever you call on him. The angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents. The waiting father will immediately kill the fattened calf for his prodigal son. Just have a little taste from God’s table—what a blessing it will be to you!
But the banquet that we’re talking about is not duties, or obligations. The most important thing about this banquet is what the food is. And Jesus is the food. He says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.” He says, “Whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow streams of living water.” He says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. And whoever opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.”
He is such a wonderful Saviour to you! He has died such a powerful death for you, and risen from the dead with such victory for you. He has been prepared and cooked and baked on the cross. He is our Passover lamb. And now he wants us to come and eat, to taste, to enjoy, to feast.
He is blessing and guiding your life with his Holy Spirit every day! He forgives your sin, he has baptised you into his own body, and he is dishing himself up in the Lord’s Supper today for you—he’s the host of the banquet, and he’s the food!
He wants to compel you to come in so that his house may be filled. There’s still room for you!
And so we read in our reading, those wonderful words of the king’s servant to all those people who are invited, “Come, everything is ready!”
And I say the same thing! Come! Don’t look back! Come to the banquet! You will never regret it! The banquet is wonderful! The food is wonderful! The king is wonderful!
Amen.
Lord God, heavenly Father, our hunger for you is great. Let us taste of your goodness. Teach us to enjoy your gifts, to enjoy Jesus Christ, and to come running to your banquet! Amen.
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