Proverbs 9:1-10; Ephesians 2:13-22; St Luke 14:15-24
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
“Its a tough job, but someone has to do it.” You might hear a sewer inspector or a hot tar roofer saying that. Or maybe an alligator farmer, owl vomit collector, or sludge recycler. Any of the jobs featured by Mike Rowe would probably qualify. “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”
Add to that list another kind of work - being the Servant of the Man who gave the great banquet in Jesus’ parable. For that Man who gave the banquet was obsessed with filling His House with guests. And it was that Servant’s job to fill it.
It was a tough job. You might think that calling people to a great banquet would be a cushy job. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t pleasant at all. Especially when you consider the so-called “respectable” friends that the Master of the House invited. They were fickle friends. Disloyal friends. The kind who would RSVP and then not show up on the day of the event. The kind who would RSVP and then make sorry excuses when the day came.
And that poor servant was the One who had to listen to all their lies and last minute excuses. I bought a field. I bought some animals. I have a wife. Translation: the land, the family vacation is calling. I’ve been swamped with work. The wife made other plans. But He wasn’t fooled. He knew that behind all those flimsy excuses were nothing but lies and contempt for His Master. They had a low opinion of both the One hosting the banquet and the banquet itself. They were hungry. They had more important things to do. They rejected His love. But that dutiful Servant simply took in all the lies and the rejection and reported back to His Master.
It was a tough job. And reporting back was no easy task either. For the Servant knew that nothing made the Master more furious than having His generosity rejected, His love spurned by people He though were His friends. In the parallel account in Matthew’s Gospel it was not just a banquet, but a wedding feast. Not only a Master of a House, but a King, throwing a Feast for His Son. And when those who were invited rejected the invitation, the king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those who rejected him and burned their city (Mt 22:7). But for St Luke it is the Servant who has to deal with the Man’s wrath and blistering anger.
Now He had to fill all those empty seats. And it was a tough job. The Master was obsessed with sharing His love. So off He dashed to fill those seats. He went into the streets and lanes and brought into the house the most unlikeliest of guests. People who never would have been invited to a banquet like this in a million years. People who would have never gotten the VIP treatment anywhere else.
He went to the outcasts. The tax collectors and sinners. He invited them to the banquet. He went to the smoky AA meetings. To the prostitutes and pimps. The felons and the junkies. He went off to all the people that society considers riff raft and tries to forget, neglect, ignore and berate. He went to the prisons and nursing homes. To the mentally and physically disabled. To the lonely, the unbalanced, the people who would never darken the door of a church because they thought they didn’t deserve to be there. And He invited them all! And some were even overjoyed to come.
But it was a tough job. And this Filler of the House was not done yet. For there was still room. So He even went tot he highways and hedges and found people. People who worshipped false gods. Who worshipped nature. Gentiles, who were far off, strangers and aliens, those who never even heard of the True God. People of a different skin color who dressed weird and spoke weird. He compelled them to come. And some did. And the house was filled.
It was a tough job because of His generous Master’s obsession. But the servant did it. He filled the House to standing room only, because pleasing the Master was His priority. Come, everything is now ready.
In that Master we see what God the Father is like: obsessed with sharing His love with all. And that’s the purpose of this parable. To show you what God the Father is like. It also shows us how different we are from God the Father. That our wisdom if foolishness to Him and vice versa. Because if we threw a party and all our friends who had RSVP’d didn’t show up it would ruin everything. We couldn’t go on. We’d feel so insulted, so rejected, and so foolish that there would be no more joy or happiness in that event. We would be filled with rage and there would be no banquet at all because we’d be devastated. For when our love, our generosity, our charity is not reciprocated, we plot revenge.
But not so the Father. Rather than plot revenge, He continues to love, continues to invite. And if the Master of the House is God the Father who loves nothing more than to share His love, then we know of whom the loyal Servant is a picture: our Lord Jesus Christ, whose sole priority and obsession was carrying out the Father’s will no matter the cost. No matter how tough the job was. For it was the Father’s will that you might have a place in God’s gracious, everlasting Kingdom. Just as the man at table with Jesus said, Blessed it everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.
But how will you ever eat bread in God’s heavenly Kingdom? How will you every have a seat? You are too much like those disloyal friends who think lightly of God’s invitation and banquet and gifts. You take yourself seriously, but not God. Look at what you strive for; take stock of your priorities.
You may not say, “Land and animals and wife,” but you use the other First Article gifts and Daily Bread as excuses. You make the same choices as those who rejected the Servant’s call when you think, “Going to church once or twice a month is surely enough.” Or when you leave your Scriptures closed in your home and do not open them to read them to your children and yourself and you lie to yourself saying “I just don’t have the time,” while you watch an hour or two of Netflix. You make that same choice, that same rejection, when you put recreational or sports activities ahead of attending to God and to His Word. And its a foolish choice.
Well, we’re all fools. Every man. Or as the Proverb says it, simple. The Oracle at Delphi told Socrates that there was no one wiser than he. And in an effort to try to disprove the Oracle the philosopher went around asking anyone and everyone what is truly worthwhile in life. He figured that anyone who knew that would certainly be wiser than him. He questioned everyone he could find, but no one gave him a satisfactory answer. They all pretended to know something when they clearly did not. Socrates finally realized that the Oracle was right. Not about him, but about wisdom. Those who think they have it, don’t. And those who know they don’t have it, do. Everyone is a fool. Its just that some fools know they are fools.
Everyone is a sinner. Some sinners just know they are sinners and repent, heading the wisdom of God and His gracious invitation.
And that’s what else this parable is about. Not only the nature and goodness of the Father, but the priority of hearing and receiving His invitation; His free and gracious invitation to come and participate in the Feast of the Kingdom of Heaven. Tying together Psalm 18 and 34 and Isaiah 49, St Paul preaches, Behold, now is the favorable time; behold now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2). Don't delay. Don’t make excuses, lies, reject the invitation. It is His obsession.
And Christ Jesus, the Servant of the Father, had an obsession too. An obsession with carrying out the Father’s will that you be saved and rescued. Talk about a tough job. A dirty job. But Christ would never say, “Its a tough job, but someone has to do it.” Because He is not just someone and He didn’t have to do it. He is God in the Flesh and He chose to do it. He could have left you in your sins outside of God’s Kingdom with nothing to taste but eternal death. He chose to take on the tough job of seeing to it that you have a place at God’s eternal feast.
And so He went forth and did the dirty work. He went everything preaching, calling men to receive for free what they could never earn. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, prostitutes and felons. He loved Gentiles. He made no excuses. He didn’t complain what it would cost Him. His obsession, His priority was removing the righteous hostility God had for all sinners; tearing down in His own flesh, that separation.
And though He would end up breathless on the Cross, He did it. He bore the insults and the lies and the rejection of His people. He took your place and absorbed the blistering wrath of God the Father’s anger against your sins at the Cross. He did it so that you might have a place forever at God’s eternal banquet. He Himself is your peace.
He was brought to the High Priest’s house as a guilty criminal and mocked so that you could come to Baptism and be brought into God’s Kingdom, declared innocent, holy and approved. He tasted death for you on the Cross until His lips went pale so that you might taste and see from this Altar that the Lord is good and gracious toward you. That you are given to eat Bread not only in His Kingdom now, but you receive the Bread which is His Kingdom; the very Body of Christ Jesus broken for you.
Our priorities may be out of whack. We have much for which we need to repent and amend our lives. This is why He keeps calling us, inviting us, restoring to us the joy of His salvation.
But Jesus’ priorities aren’t askew. His priority was you, bearing your sins to the Cross and triumphing over them to appease the Father’s wrath so that you are blessed in His Kingdom now. Not merely in the future, but now, in the present. Fellow citizens and members of the Household of God. He did the dirty work of redeeming you. This is true wisdom. Come. Everything is now ready.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
“Its a tough job, but someone has to do it.” You might hear a sewer inspector or a hot tar roofer saying that. Or maybe an alligator farmer, owl vomit collector, or sludge recycler. Any of the jobs featured by Mike Rowe would probably qualify. “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”
Add to that list another kind of work - being the Servant of the Man who gave the great banquet in Jesus’ parable. For that Man who gave the banquet was obsessed with filling His House with guests. And it was that Servant’s job to fill it.
It was a tough job. You might think that calling people to a great banquet would be a cushy job. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t pleasant at all. Especially when you consider the so-called “respectable” friends that the Master of the House invited. They were fickle friends. Disloyal friends. The kind who would RSVP and then not show up on the day of the event. The kind who would RSVP and then make sorry excuses when the day came.
And that poor servant was the One who had to listen to all their lies and last minute excuses. I bought a field. I bought some animals. I have a wife. Translation: the land, the family vacation is calling. I’ve been swamped with work. The wife made other plans. But He wasn’t fooled. He knew that behind all those flimsy excuses were nothing but lies and contempt for His Master. They had a low opinion of both the One hosting the banquet and the banquet itself. They were hungry. They had more important things to do. They rejected His love. But that dutiful Servant simply took in all the lies and the rejection and reported back to His Master.
It was a tough job. And reporting back was no easy task either. For the Servant knew that nothing made the Master more furious than having His generosity rejected, His love spurned by people He though were His friends. In the parallel account in Matthew’s Gospel it was not just a banquet, but a wedding feast. Not only a Master of a House, but a King, throwing a Feast for His Son. And when those who were invited rejected the invitation, the king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those who rejected him and burned their city (Mt 22:7). But for St Luke it is the Servant who has to deal with the Man’s wrath and blistering anger.
Now He had to fill all those empty seats. And it was a tough job. The Master was obsessed with sharing His love. So off He dashed to fill those seats. He went into the streets and lanes and brought into the house the most unlikeliest of guests. People who never would have been invited to a banquet like this in a million years. People who would have never gotten the VIP treatment anywhere else.
He went to the outcasts. The tax collectors and sinners. He invited them to the banquet. He went to the smoky AA meetings. To the prostitutes and pimps. The felons and the junkies. He went off to all the people that society considers riff raft and tries to forget, neglect, ignore and berate. He went to the prisons and nursing homes. To the mentally and physically disabled. To the lonely, the unbalanced, the people who would never darken the door of a church because they thought they didn’t deserve to be there. And He invited them all! And some were even overjoyed to come.
But it was a tough job. And this Filler of the House was not done yet. For there was still room. So He even went tot he highways and hedges and found people. People who worshipped false gods. Who worshipped nature. Gentiles, who were far off, strangers and aliens, those who never even heard of the True God. People of a different skin color who dressed weird and spoke weird. He compelled them to come. And some did. And the house was filled.
It was a tough job because of His generous Master’s obsession. But the servant did it. He filled the House to standing room only, because pleasing the Master was His priority. Come, everything is now ready.
In that Master we see what God the Father is like: obsessed with sharing His love with all. And that’s the purpose of this parable. To show you what God the Father is like. It also shows us how different we are from God the Father. That our wisdom if foolishness to Him and vice versa. Because if we threw a party and all our friends who had RSVP’d didn’t show up it would ruin everything. We couldn’t go on. We’d feel so insulted, so rejected, and so foolish that there would be no more joy or happiness in that event. We would be filled with rage and there would be no banquet at all because we’d be devastated. For when our love, our generosity, our charity is not reciprocated, we plot revenge.
But not so the Father. Rather than plot revenge, He continues to love, continues to invite. And if the Master of the House is God the Father who loves nothing more than to share His love, then we know of whom the loyal Servant is a picture: our Lord Jesus Christ, whose sole priority and obsession was carrying out the Father’s will no matter the cost. No matter how tough the job was. For it was the Father’s will that you might have a place in God’s gracious, everlasting Kingdom. Just as the man at table with Jesus said, Blessed it everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.
But how will you ever eat bread in God’s heavenly Kingdom? How will you every have a seat? You are too much like those disloyal friends who think lightly of God’s invitation and banquet and gifts. You take yourself seriously, but not God. Look at what you strive for; take stock of your priorities.
You may not say, “Land and animals and wife,” but you use the other First Article gifts and Daily Bread as excuses. You make the same choices as those who rejected the Servant’s call when you think, “Going to church once or twice a month is surely enough.” Or when you leave your Scriptures closed in your home and do not open them to read them to your children and yourself and you lie to yourself saying “I just don’t have the time,” while you watch an hour or two of Netflix. You make that same choice, that same rejection, when you put recreational or sports activities ahead of attending to God and to His Word. And its a foolish choice.
Well, we’re all fools. Every man. Or as the Proverb says it, simple. The Oracle at Delphi told Socrates that there was no one wiser than he. And in an effort to try to disprove the Oracle the philosopher went around asking anyone and everyone what is truly worthwhile in life. He figured that anyone who knew that would certainly be wiser than him. He questioned everyone he could find, but no one gave him a satisfactory answer. They all pretended to know something when they clearly did not. Socrates finally realized that the Oracle was right. Not about him, but about wisdom. Those who think they have it, don’t. And those who know they don’t have it, do. Everyone is a fool. Its just that some fools know they are fools.
Everyone is a sinner. Some sinners just know they are sinners and repent, heading the wisdom of God and His gracious invitation.
And that’s what else this parable is about. Not only the nature and goodness of the Father, but the priority of hearing and receiving His invitation; His free and gracious invitation to come and participate in the Feast of the Kingdom of Heaven. Tying together Psalm 18 and 34 and Isaiah 49, St Paul preaches, Behold, now is the favorable time; behold now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2). Don't delay. Don’t make excuses, lies, reject the invitation. It is His obsession.
And Christ Jesus, the Servant of the Father, had an obsession too. An obsession with carrying out the Father’s will that you be saved and rescued. Talk about a tough job. A dirty job. But Christ would never say, “Its a tough job, but someone has to do it.” Because He is not just someone and He didn’t have to do it. He is God in the Flesh and He chose to do it. He could have left you in your sins outside of God’s Kingdom with nothing to taste but eternal death. He chose to take on the tough job of seeing to it that you have a place at God’s eternal feast.
And so He went forth and did the dirty work. He went everything preaching, calling men to receive for free what they could never earn. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, prostitutes and felons. He loved Gentiles. He made no excuses. He didn’t complain what it would cost Him. His obsession, His priority was removing the righteous hostility God had for all sinners; tearing down in His own flesh, that separation.
And though He would end up breathless on the Cross, He did it. He bore the insults and the lies and the rejection of His people. He took your place and absorbed the blistering wrath of God the Father’s anger against your sins at the Cross. He did it so that you might have a place forever at God’s eternal banquet. He Himself is your peace.
He was brought to the High Priest’s house as a guilty criminal and mocked so that you could come to Baptism and be brought into God’s Kingdom, declared innocent, holy and approved. He tasted death for you on the Cross until His lips went pale so that you might taste and see from this Altar that the Lord is good and gracious toward you. That you are given to eat Bread not only in His Kingdom now, but you receive the Bread which is His Kingdom; the very Body of Christ Jesus broken for you.
Our priorities may be out of whack. We have much for which we need to repent and amend our lives. This is why He keeps calling us, inviting us, restoring to us the joy of His salvation.
But Jesus’ priorities aren’t askew. His priority was you, bearing your sins to the Cross and triumphing over them to appease the Father’s wrath so that you are blessed in His Kingdom now. Not merely in the future, but now, in the present. Fellow citizens and members of the Household of God. He did the dirty work of redeeming you. This is true wisdom. Come. Everything is now ready.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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