Come to the Father’s supper in Christ!

Sermon for Trinity 2

1 John 3:13-18  +  Luke 14:16-24

An invitation has been extended to you to attend a rich, glorious supper at the house of a certain man. There is no date or time stamped on the invitation, just the fact that a supper will be given, and that you’re invited to it. You’ll be told when it’s ready, so be ready to go when supper time comes! Oh, you’re eager to attend this supper—or, at least, you say you are. But you’ve waited a good long while for it. You’ve taken on a number of tasks and added to your to-do list and grown comfortable with your life as it is. So when the messenger finally comes to tell you it’s time, you decide you have better things to do.

That sums up what happened with the people of Israel. Since the time of Abraham, some 2,000 years before Christ was born, God had revealed Himself to them. He had taught them, trained them, explained to them how He had created the world, how mankind had sinned and brought death and destruction on our race. He had revealed to them His plan of salvation and had given them a special place in that plan. They would be the recipients and guardians of His Word. They would be taught the truth while all the nations around them went astray. They would be the people to whom Christ the Savior would be born and among whom He would preach and teach and live. The date and time of His coming wasn’t spelled out in the invitation. But they were given hints and clues, and when He finally came, John the Baptist was the first to announce to the nation that the supper was ready. It’s time to go! It’s time to repent of your sins and believe in Christ Jesus and live under Him as your King in the kingdom of God!

Come on! This is what we’ve been waiting for all this time? Jesus? I mean, His miracles are something, but He’s just a man, right? He isn’t promising a better life here on earth—that’s what we really want. He isn’t praising us for waiting so patiently for Him and acknowledging that we deserve to live with God forever. No, He’s telling us we’re sinners who need a Savior. He’s telling us we have to change, to be “born again.” He’s telling us we’re slaves to sin and that we need Him to free us from it. And then, to top it off, we see Him welcoming bad people into His company. We see Him spending time with thieves and prostitutes and poor people and crippled people, and we even hear Him sometimes praising people who aren’t Jews, people who weren’t on the original guest list to the supper! Bah! We have better things to do than to attend this kind of supper.

And God was angry, like the man in the parable Jesus told in today’s Gospel. God had given His Son to be born as a man in order redeem sinful mankind, starting with the Jews. But they didn’t want God’s greatest gift. In fact, they hated it, hated Him and eventually crucified Him.

But God also knew ahead of time that it would turn out this way. In fact, it had to turn out this way so that the Son of God could die for the sins, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles—of all people. God is determined to have His house filled—determined to give people eternal life, determined to forgive the sins of all those who turn to Jesus in faith. And so He keeps sending messengers out into the world to invite anyone and everyone, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, until His house is full. Anyone who wants Jesus for a Savior can have Him for a Savior and can live under Him in His kingdom and taste the supper of God’s goodness and grace and love. Anyone who wants God for a Father and Jesus for a Brother can have it!

But the Jews weren’t the only ones to refuse God’s invitation. Many who have heard this Gospel, this good news, have found better things to do than to come into God’s kingdom and become members of His holy Christian Church, and many who have become members of the holy Christian Church have since walked away from it, in their hearts, if not with their feet. People want to approach God in their own way, believe their own way, behave their own way. They want to “believe in God,” but only as a minor part of their life. They don’t want their livelihood disturbed by Him, or their traditions, or their family, or their fun. Or, they have simply believed the devil’s lie that rings out in the world, “There is no such thing as ‘God.’ You—you are your own god. You are the master of your fate. Celebrate pride! Just follow your heart and be true to yourself!”

What deadly advice that is! There is only one true God, and it isn’t you, and it isn’t I. He has given us His Word, and in it He has revealed the truth about all things, starting with the truth that Christ Jesus came to save sinners, and that salvation and eternal life are found only in Him. If you want some other supper than the one God has provided for you in Christ, then you will never taste His supper. What you will taste is eternal separation from God the Father. What you will taste is an eternity with a very different father—with the father of lies, also known as Satan or the devil.

But if you want God for a Father, then this is the only invitation that works, to enter His house through His Son Jesus Christ, to come into His holy Christian Church through repentance and Baptism, and then to live as members of His Church, regularly hearing and learning His Word, receiving Christ’s body and blood, each day turning away from sin and living for righteousness, living the life of love that God has set forth for you in His Word.

Still there is room in the Father’s house. Still the word goes out: Come! All things are now ready! As the hymn said, Delay not, delay not, O sinner, draw near. The waters of life are now flowing for thee. No price is demanded; the Savior is here. Redemption is purchased, salvation is free. Hear God, the Holy Spirit, calling you to faith and calling you to remain in the faith and to live as members of His Church. And for as much as we would like — as God would like! — for all men to come to the supper with us, take comfort in the fact that God knew that most of those whom He invites wouldn’t come, and yet He kept inviting until you heard the message, until you came into His house. And now He gives us some small part in extending the invitation to others.

You fathers who are here today, you can’t overestimate how important your role is in that inviting. You can’t overestimate how important your example is to your children. Your example of godliness and faith doesn’t guarantee that your children will come to the Father’s supper. But no one on earth has a greater influence on them than you do. So be the fathers God has called you to be, and leave the rest in the capable hands of the true Father, who will hear your prayers for your children and will work mightily in their lives to coax them into His kingdom and to keep them there.

May He keep all of us there until the day of Christ’s return, when we fully taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed are they who take refuge in Him! Amen.