Banquet

Luke 14:15-24

¹⁵ When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” ¹⁶ But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. ¹⁷ 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.’ ¹⁸ But 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.’ ¹⁹ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ ²⁰ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ ²¹ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²² And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. ²⁴ For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Jesus continues to deal with the crowd at the banquet He is attending. He has used the situation to illustrate the place that humility has in the Kingdom of God and now He furthers the illustration by discussing who has been invited to the banquet – and you already know who is asked to attend; it’s everyone.

Even in the Old Testament, God used the important community event of a banquet to describe what life is like in His Kingdom. Feasting is very much a part of His glorious bounty.

Isaiah 25:6–8

⁶On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

⁷And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.

⁸He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

The story is told of an elderly Christian woman who wanted to make sure that she was buried with a fork in her hand. She was already mentally prepared for the “banquet that was yet to come” after she passed from this earth. She was ready to take God up on His promises. That’s faith. Also deep within this teaching is an understanding that we are already participants in God’s amazing feast through the practice of Holy Communion where we remember what Jesus has done for us in the shedding of His blood for our forgiveness.

In this illustration, Jesus is clearly the “Lord” who is issuing an invitation to everyone to come on into His wonderful banquet. It is to be a huge celebration. But remarkably His invitations (both of them - which is important in the Middle Eastern culture) are rejected! The recipients make up reasons why they cannot attend. For the Middle Eastern listeners to His story this rejection would be a seriously strange response. But reject the Lord they do and so He goes further out of the cultural circle and invites those who are mentioned in the passage just previous to this one - those who would be considered “unclean”; the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Those people are not so foolish as to reject the Lord but there is still room at the table after they have arrived. The servants are then instructed to go out and invite the Gentiles. The master’s rage over those who reject him is palpable.

In the telling of this story, Jesus shares a key to the heart of God. His invitation extends to everyone. First to the Jew, then to the Gentiles (Acts 1:8). The banquet is set and the party is going to happen. The only question is “who will attend?” The only invitation to accept is that of the Holy Spirit’s call to believe in Jesus Christ. When that invitation is accepted your seat at the banquet table is set, complete with a name card.