Dearly loved by God in Christ Jesus,
Dinner parties elicit good conversation. Early in my ministry, one of our neighboring pastors liked to host such gatherings. I recall meeting some interesting people around his table. One Sabbath Jesus was an invited guest at just such a get together in the home of a prominent Pharisee.
As he often did, our Savior seized the opportunity to teach the truths of the kingdom of God. Luke tells us just before our lesson that even as the other guests and his host watched him closely Jesus healed a sick man. Jesus then asked the others if they would have done the same. The Lord noticed also that some took the best seats in the house as if they had the right.
The conversation turned to a general discussion of proper etiquette at a banquet, and whom the host should invite. This led to the question Jesus answered with our parable. For our theme, we focus on the invitation, “Come, for All Things are Now Ready.” First, the Master invites us to the feast in his kingdom. Second, he will see that his wedding banquet is full.
In Jesus’ parable, the master of the house had prepared a feast. The menu would have included the good things we heard about in our first lesson, “rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine- the best of meats and the finest of wines.” Jesus is essentially making the same point Isaiah had made seven centuries before. Just as the master prepared and served only the finest of foods in his house, so in his kingdom God serves only the best blessings of the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. This is the wedding feast of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus had shown his love in action by healing the sick man even though it was the Sabbath. When Jesus asked the Pharisees if that was the right thing to do, they could not answer. If they had said no, they would have shown themselves to be the unloving hypocrites they were. If they said, yes, then Jesus could ask them why they were so bent on opposing him.
The preparation of the feast was complete. The master had sent out invitations to many so now he sent out his slave, or servant, to tell the invited guests, “Come, for all thing are now ready.”
In a broad sense, the invited guests are the members of Israel. All throughout the Old Testament, the Lord had invited the people in Israel to come to him and enjoy the feast that was theirs in the coming Savior. In a more narrow sense, the invitation goes out to individual sinners through the gospel as God’s servants in the church tell sinners that God has prepared this feast of good food and fine wine for them in his the life and death of his Son, Jesus Christ.
The master had prepared the feast, sent out his servant with the news that it was ready, and with the invitation to come and enjoy. There was nothing the invited guests had to do toward preparing the meal. It was not a pot- luck or pitch in. Whether they answered the invitation or not, had nothing to do with why they had been invited. That was only because of the goodness of the master of the house. In the kingdom of God, God has prepared the banquet completely in Christ. He sends out his invitation through his servants, “Come, for all things are now ready.”
Rather than come and enjoy, Jesus said, “They all alike began to make excuses.” The invited guests were too busy looking at land, trying out a yoke of oxen and setting up housekeeping to come to the wedding supper. The excuses are not the main point. The point is the callous disregard for the loving preparation of the feast. It as a slap in the face to the host. The excuse makers thought their lives and the things in them were more important.
When the kingdom of God invites, there are those who have no regard for God’s forgiveness. They slap the Lord in the fact by considering what he has done to be of no value compared to the busyness of this life. That has not been our response. Yet this part of Jesus parable is cautionary for us. We are no different or better. We are the recipients of God’s undeserved love in our call to faith. However, we must be on guard that we do not make excuses for hearing that invitation that also keeps us in faith by being too busy or unconcerned about our spiritual lives.
When God sends out his invitation through his servants, it is because his will is that his kingdom is full of sinners. He is like the master in the parable. His preparations would not go to waste. If there were those not interested, he would invite others. We see that his servant was on the same page. When the master told the servant to go out into the “streets and alleys” the servant told the master he already had invited “the poor, and the crippled and the blind and the lame,” and “there still is room.
The master then ordered his servant to go out and invite others “that my house will be full.”
The master commanded his servant, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in. “ Jesus’s words parallel God’s promise also through Isaiah that his Word will not return empty but accomplish the purpose for which he sent it. [55] In the immediate meaning of the parable, Jesus was telling the self- righteous and proud Pharisees that if they weren’t interested in him, he would invite people who were in their eyes unworthy of God-the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. In the spiritual sense, Jesus is referring to the poor in spirit, the broken in guilt and fear who hear the invitation as a great, undeserved magnanimous act of the host.
In the broad sense, the new invitees are the Gentiles. In the narrow sense, they are the poor with broken and contrite hearts who daily recognize, confess, repent of sins and believe in Jesus Christ for forgiveness. That repentance and faith do not help prepare the feast. Answering the invitation is not by my power nor does it in any way make me worthy of what I will enjoy. I come because the love of God in Christ through the gospel compels me, turns me from sin and unbelief to faith in Christ.
Those whom the master invited and made excuses will not taste the wedding supper. However, those compelled to come by the invitation will eat the best meat and drink the finest of wines. This is God’s will and why he invites you, “Come, for all things are now ready.” Amen. <SDG>