Good Excuses
Luke 14:15-24
June 14, 2026 anno Domini
I’ve usually ripped on the people who refused the invite to the great banquet. There’s probably a couple of reasons for doing that – first, I’m a pastor and skipping church isn’t an option. It is the only day I really need to show up. Second, I’ve looked down on the excuses they’ve made. I’ve compared going to the land as going to the lake, buying the oxen like checking out your new car with a road trip on Sunday, and thinking that if you celebrated a little too much at a wedding reception maybe you should be in the Lord’s house the next morning.
But looking at those excuses again, they aren’t bad excuses or lame excuses. They are all necessities of life – a field was the means of production. A field provided for food, not just for yourself, but for others and therefore a living. A team of oxen – well, that too is tied to living. How were you going to make use of that field without a tractor to pull your implements? Marriage – that is why God created them male and female – there is no human life without the union of one man and one woman and God’s will is that it happens in marriage.
But there’s more than necessity and life in those excuse – there is joy. When God gave Moses the seventh commandment, “You shall not steal” He gave permission to own private property. So you can go and buy a field. And there is joy in ownership – especially in our home, our property, and yes, if God gives it – a cabin on the lake or some land to care for. That team of oxen – well, there’s the joy of accomplishment – of producing a crop as a farmer, or teaching a child multiplication tables in math class, or building a home as a carpenter, or preparing a great meal for friends. Finally, is there any greater joy than that which flows from marriage? In a spouse that loves you in spite of yourself, in children and grandchildren if God wills it. God’s Word compares marriage to Christ and His Church and the joy of the resurrection to the joy of a newborn child entering the world.
So if all the excuses are good – essentials to life and causes of joy – does that make them good excuses? Not according to Jesus. When the servant came and reported these things to his master …. The master of the house became angry.
Why aren’t the good excuses good excuses? The answer is found in the reason Jesus told the parable in the first place.
Jesus was dining in the house of a Pharisee and the dinner party had become very uncomfortable because of what Jesus said and did. It was awkward with a capital A. No one was making eye contact – especially with Jesus. And then, in order to get past the awkwardness, a guy picked up on something Jesus said about the resurrection and replied, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” I think the guy was saying, “Well, even if none of us agree with your weird table manners and conversation Jesus, at least we’ll all be together in heaven.” And to that Jesus says, “Not exactly” and then He tells the parable of the great banquet.
This parable is about the Kingdom of God. Who’s in and who’s out and why? That’s the starting point. In a Kingdom and especially the Kingdom of God everything necessary for life comes from the King. Every joy you have is a gift of the King. And that second point is especially important. Every time you experience joy you should remember you are made in the image of God. If you find joy when your wife is beside you in a difficult moment. If you find joy in a Dairy Queen blizzard. If you find joy in the birth or accomplishments of a child or grandchild – remember this – you are created in the image of God and He gives joy.
If you believe in evolution (and by the way Christians who believe the Bible don’t believe in evolution), if you believe humans are just a random accident of billions of years of time passing – there is no reason for joy. Joy serves no purpose in evolution. If we are just a few animal steps above the squirrels and rabbits we don’t need joy to procreate or find food or live out our days. Yet, all of you know when you are in one of those low points and there is no joy, you don’t feel human, you don’t feel like yourself. Joy is a gift from the King. Joy tells you God made you – He made you for Himself, to live in His kingdom, to enjoy His gifts.
Life and joy are gifts of the King. The danger is when His good and joy-filled gifts become the object of our worship instead of Him. When we take all His good and abundant gifts and presume that His invitation always stands, that the gifts require no response, that we can live in His Kingdom without acknowledging His presence as King. Then we’re confessing the same nebulous comment of that man in the text, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” He was trying to excuse everyone at the feast who disagreed with Jesus and confessing the false notion that they were all in the Kingdom – whether they were for Jesus or against Him. So a good excuse is not good if it takes you away from Jesus.
This parable is a great teacher of two doctrines – the doctrine of grace and the doctrine of faith.
First the grace of God. Even though the Master of the house had his invitation rejected by His first guests, even though He is angry that their good excuses are no good, He does not cancel the party and drown His sorrows on all the wine He stocked up on.
The God of Scripture is the God who gives. He loves to give and He loves to invite people into His Kingdom to receive His goods. He invited Adam and Eve back in when He promised them a serpent smashing son. He invited Noah in when He told him to build an ark. He invited Abram in with the promise of laughter in a son named Isaac. His guest list included the likes of Rahab the prostitute, Ruth the Moabitess, David the adulterer and murderer, and Jonah the run-away preacher. Jesus sat with tax collectors and sinners and feasted with them.
The main course of the King’s great banquet is the gift of His own Son, Jesus of Nazareth. In Jesus God gives you the life you lost through sin, and the joy that will make your best day on earth seem like Monday in January. Saint John told us in today’s Epistle – by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. By this we have life – that He laid down His life for us. By this we have joy, the joy that our sins are forgiven, that not even death can hold us, that God loves us when we are not lovely – all because He laid down His life for us. God does not just talk about His gifts, but in deed and truth delivers them to us in Jesus that we might have life and have it to the full, that we might have joy and have it to the full. That’s all gift. We have done nothing to deserve Jesus, forgiveness, life, joy.
What is necessary for you to have these gifts? Well, if you get an invite to a great banquet what do you do? Accept the invitation. Show up. Go to the feast. That’s faith. Faith is to receive the gifts of Jesus, to come to His house, to hear His Word and to eat at His table. Those first guests missed out – maybe they thought there would be another banquet and this one wasn’t that important. That would be a faith that says, “Well, there’s always tomorrow to repent. … there’s always another Sunday when I can’t back on track.” That isn’t faith, that’s folly.
The rest of the guests make it clear that you and I don’t deserve the invite or the feast, and yet here we are. The servants had to bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. The poor needed money for an Uber. The crippled and lame had to be carried. The blind led. That’s you and me – God has not only invited us when we don’t deserve to be on the guest list, but He also carries us to the feast – the Holy Spirit creates the very faith we need to say, “Yes, I’m in. Save me a seat. Take me to the feast.”
And lastly we learn in the parable that the Master will not stop working on us until the last day, until the guest list is full. He tells His servants, “Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in.”
How do you think God compels you to come to His feast? First, He has His men call you out for faith in the gifts instead of the Giver, and for enjoying the gifts of the Kingdom but not living in the Kingdom, in the presence of Christ. Second, He also lets our life and joy be taken from us. Sometimes little by little – sometimes all at once – to teach us that life and joy are found in Christ alone. He is the host and the main course in the great feast. You’re invited. Come, for everything is now ready. God wants you at His feast. In the name of Jesus. Amen.