The Invitation of Jesus
St. Luke 14:15-24
June 9, 2024 anno Domini
Don’t invite Jesus to dinner, unless you want to be saved.
In Luke 14 St. Luke reports on a dinner party to which Jesus is invited as a guest. The Pharisees didn’t invite Jesus because they liked Him. They invited Him to test Him, watch Him, and hopefully ensure that no one wants to sit at His table.
The meal was on the Sabbath so you what the test was. Would Jesus work on the Sabbath or not? A sick guy ended up next to Jesus, a guy with dropsy, retention of water. Back in the Biblical day people thought such a disease was from sexual promiscuity. Would that be interesting if there was such an outward indication of breaking God’s sixth commandment. Sex before marriage – the next day your feet, hands, and face are swollen. What happened to you? Bee sting. So not only was the guy sick, puffy, but a everyone suspected he was an adulterer. What does Jesus do? He does what God does. He is merciful. It’s okay for God to work on the Sabbath, after all it is His day, so Jesus works by healing the man. After He serves up that appetizer of the resurrection, Jesus asks the Pharisees if they would rescue a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on the Sabbath? Would they show mercy on the Sabbath especially to someone of value to them? Of course they would, but they’re not telling Jesus that. It would spoil the meal for them.
Before the main course is served Jesus instructs the Pharisees on table manners. He tells a parable about being invited to a wedding feast. He tells the Pharisees not to be proud – good advice in this month of June. He says don’t be concerned about taking a place of honor. Don’t choose your seat so everyone can see how important you are. Sit in the lowest place and if the host wants to move you to the head table, let the host exalt you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Like I said, good advice for June, but good advice for all of us, all the time. God did not create us to be proud. He created us to be humble – to live under Him in faith, trusting His mercy and to live under our neighbor in love.
Next Jesus gives instructions to those who are hosting a meal. Don’t invite people who can pay you back. Invite the lonely over for dinner, the poor, the family with six kids, the guy who sits by himself every Sunday in church. After all, that’s how God gets you into the Kingdom. You can’t pay Him back for His forgiveness or for His Son or for the feast of the resurrection and the life.
By this point everyone at the Pharisee’s feast is on edge. It’s like a meal of Democrats where Marjorie Taylor Green shows up in her MAGA gear. Or an RFK fundraiser where a person shows up in a mask, asking everyone at the table if they’ve gotten the 14th booster shot. Everyone is quiet. One person has upset the feast. No one wants to say anything, until someone thinks of something safe to say, “How ‘bout those Vikings signing Justin Jefferson?”
That’s where the text begins. Someone says, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God.” Everyone at the meal should be able to talk about this. The equivalent might be saying, “Won’t it be great when we all get to heaven and we’re not arguing at the table.”
Jesus doesn’t agree with the man. Instead, He tells a parable that divides and will cause arguments. Not everyone gets in and the people you would expect to get in (like Pharisees) don’t get in and the people who shouldn’t get in (like the sexually promiscuous swollen dropsy guy) do get in.
There are two problems in the man’s safe declaration, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God.”
The first problem is that it is abstract. It’s generic. When we all get to heaven it’ll be great. Well, what about the specifics? How do we get there? Will we all get there? What sort of heaven are you talking about?
Abstract theology is easy theology. God loves everyone. That’s safe. That’s easy. It’s even true, but it’s abstract. Who is God? What does love mean? Everyone, no matter what? The Bible says God loves you in this way. He invites you to a feast, and the feast is to honor His Son. The Kingdom of God is not about you, but about Jesus for you. The Son of God taking on flesh for you. Jesus living without sin for you. Jesus being sin for you. Jesus’ suffering hell for you. Jesus dying for you. Jesus breaking out of the tomb for you. Jesus resurrected and ruling for you.
But Jesus is hard to swallow. You can’t be proud around Jesus. You certainly don’t want to boast of sin around Him, but you can’t even boast about your works. You can’t brag if you’re a Pharisee or a life-long card-carrying member of the Missouri Synod. Your hope, your faith, your diet, your feasting, your confession, and your heaven all hinge on something very specific – the Son of God became man and died on a cross outside Jerusalem on a particular Friday. Three days later He rose again from the dead. He is the Son of the Father and that you might believe in Him the Spirit has called you by the Word of God to trust His death for your life, to trust His flesh to get your flesh into heaven.
Not every god saves. Not every faith leads to everlasting life. God doesn’t love people just the way they are – no matter how they live or what they do on Sunday mornings. Not everyone goes to heaven. That’s not abstract. That’s concrete and that’s hard to swallow. When many hear such words, they react like toddlers when you put peas in front of them. I don’t like peas. I want ice cream. Or in the words of the text, I don’t want Jesus. I’m going to my property, test my oxen, my wife and I have better things to do.
The other problem with those safe words “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God” is that they are future tense. The Kingdom of God is right in front of the Pharisees in Jesus. The Kingdom of God is the Son of God in the flesh of Jesus Christ. If you’re not dining with Jesus now there is no future feast. The time to repent is now. The time to believe is now. The time to swallow Jesus whole – His birth, His death, His resurrection is now.
If you’re not looking at Jesus now as your Savior, you’re not going to see Him in the resurrection. If don’t believe in His suffering for you your suffering isn’t going to end when you die. If you haven’t have dined with Jesus here, you won’t be feasting with Him there. If there is no Jesus now, if He makes no difference in your life now, don’t expect it will get better then.
This is why Jesus tells the parable of the great banquet. This is why His presence is awkward and His conversation upsets the Pharisee’s dinner party. Jesus never heard of Minnesota nice, but He’s heard of you and that’s why He doesn’t keep His mouth shut. His Father wants you in the great banquet of life for all eternity and the invite is here and now. The Son of God has already offered His body and His blood for you. Your sins were forgiven by His death on the cross. Now His servants are calling you to feast on Jesus, the eat His body and drink His blood to receive forgiveness for your sins. It’s hard to believe that the closest you’ll ever get to heaven is kneeling at the communion railing, but where else is Jesus for you? He isn’t at your land, on your lake, at the soccer field or ball diamond. He isn’t in your cars or toys or work. He isn’t in your family. When the Son of God was on earth He was in the flesh of Jesus. Now that He sits at God’s right hand in His flesh He is on earth in His Word and His Sacraments. He’s here for you. Come, for everything is now ready. In the name of Jesus. Amen.