Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity
1 John 3:13-18 + Luke 14:16-24
You heard in the Gospel of a great supper to which many were invited. Jesus told that parable while He Himself was having supper, sitting at a table in a Pharisee’s house, surrounded by a bunch of Pharisees who were watching Him carefully, critiquing Him, perhaps even hoping to catch Him in a violation of the Law. Jesus was a novelty to them, and also a threat. Because the main purpose of the Pharisees was to do such a good job at keeping the Law of God that they could earn a place for themselves in the kingdom of God. And their second main purpose was to teach others to do the same, to be like them, so that all those who were good enough and righteous enough could work their way into the Great Supper in the kingdom of God, together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
But Jesus got in the way of all that. He taught a different way into God’s kingdom—the very way to which the Old Testament Law itself pointed. He kept insisting that these Pharisees stop pretending that they were more worthy than other people of God’s favor. He told them another parable right before the one you heard in the Gospel, in which He urged them to stop picking the highest place for themselves at these banquets, and more importantly, to humble themselves before God and before men, trusting in God to raise them up out of His own goodness and generosity, without any merit or worthiness on their part.
But humility was not a virtue that the Pharisees esteemed. One of them sitting at the table with Jesus piped up and preached his own little sermon after Jesus told that parable. Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God! The parable of the great supper that you heard today was Jesus’ response to him, pointing out to the Pharisees that God’s dining room was already filling up with people, while the Pharisees sat outside, refusing to enter, waiting for some other feast that was never going to happen.
Let’s look at the parable. A certain man gave a great supper. The man represents God, and the supper stands for the benefit of coming into God’s grace, God’s house, the Holy Church, the kingdom of heaven, which is now open for all nations, for all men to enter through faith in Christ and Holy Baptism.
The man invited many. These are the Old Testament people of Israel. Ever since the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God had been telling the people of Israel about the coming of His Son to be their Redeemer, their Savior. Through the holy prophets, He had been inviting the Israelites to wait expectantly for this good Savior to come and crush the devil’s head. Be ready when Christ comes! Be looking for Him! Listen to Him when He comes! And put your faith in Him!
He sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ This is John the Baptist, and Christ Himself, and the Apostles after Him, who announced the arrival of the kingdom of God in the coming of Christ. Now God has taken on human flesh in order to redeem fallen mankind from sin. Now the Son of Man will lay down His life for sinners. Now all men are called to repent of their sins and believe in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.
But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’
We often hear of the thousands of people who followed Jesus at various points in His earthly ministry. But there were tens of thousands in Israel, probably hundreds of thousands, who never listened to Him, who never followed Him, who wanted nothing to do with Him. Among those were the majority of the Pharisees, including the ones who were sitting at the table with Jesus as He told this parable. They all had their reasons, their earthly excuses. Too busy. Too much to do. Family matters to attend to.
In the end, it was simply unbelief that kept them away. The Pharisees thought they didn’t need a Savior from sin. Many sinners in Israel were happy enough to go on sinning and not worry about the consequences that might follow in the afterlife. The rich were too busy enjoying their riches. And even most of those who followed Jesus for a while stopped following Him when they realized that, to be a disciple of Jesus means being ready to leave everything else, even your own life, behind. As Jesus says in the verses right after our Gospel: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. Few people in Israel thought that Jesus was worth that much. Few people in Israel wanted to attend the Great Supper, if it meant they had to suffer earthly loss.
So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry…Notice the man’s reaction—God’s reaction to Israel’s indifference toward Jesus, which is indifference toward God. Sometimes Jesus pictures God weeping over Israel’s unbelief. That’s a valid picture. But so is this one! God is angered when men—especially His chosen people of Israel—reject His Son, their Savior. So what did He do?
He said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’
These are the tax collectors and public sinners in Israel, and the simple folk, fishermen, women, children. The high and mighty in Israel had turned down the invitation to the Supper, but many of these people were glad to learn that Jesus had come to save them, were glad to follow Him and quick to believe in Him.
And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
This stands for Christ’s command to His apostles to go and teach all nations, to preach the Gospel to every creature, Jews and Gentiles, down through the ages, you and me, anyone and everyone—all are invited, through the preaching ministry, to repent of their sins and to believe in Jesus, to be baptized in His name and to gather in His house, the Holy Church, where He feeds us with His Word, with His body, and with His blood, where we “daily obtain nothing but the forgiveness of sins through the Word and signs,” as Luther wrote in the Large Catechism.
For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”
God wants all men to be saved. But He wants them to be saved through faith in Christ Jesus, and in no other way. If men refuse that gift, then God’s will is for them to be locked out of His grace and His kingdom forever. There is no such thing as salvation apart from faith in Christ, or worshiping God without worshiping Christ, or praying to God without praying in Jesus’ name. These words from Jesus’ parable are just another way of saying, outside of the Christian Church (or the Church catholic, if you will) there is no salvation.
This parable of Jesus highlights some very important things for us. Above all, it shows us what the price of admission is into God’s kingdom. It’s free, isn’t it? And the invitation is universal. The invitation to the Great Supper went out to rich and poor, to good and bad, to healthy and sick. No one had to do anything or pay anything to earn the invitation or to earn a place at the Supper. The invitation goes out by God’s grace alone, and a person enters by faith alone in Christ Jesus.
In other words, the “price of admission” is Jesus. You have to enter by trusting in God’s grace for the sake of Christ. You can’t enter by trusting in your own works. You can’t enter by refusing to repent of your sins. You can’t enter by trying to bypass Jesus. It has to be through Him that you enter.
What a great gift God has given you, both in sending His Son to die for your sins and in calling you to faith and Holy Baptism, where you now taste and see that the Lord is good! Don’t be discouraged when you see countless people turning down this invitation, not caring about the Word of Christ, even mocking Him and those who come to this Supper. And don’t imagine for a moment that the problem is with the invitation or with how the invitation is being announced. Remember that Jesus Himself once sat at the table with a bunch of people who received the invitation to God’s kingdom directly from His lips and still made excuses why they didn’t want the Supper He was offering, who still longed to enter God’s kingdom in some other way than by faith in Christ. The problem is never with the invitation. It’s always with man’s stubborn unbelief.
It’s a great miracle of God’s Holy Spirit that you or that anyone should believe the Gospel, and it seems like fewer and fewer people do. But until Christ comes again in glory, you can know for sure that there still is room in God’s house, that this Gospel will reach more people along the highways and hedges, and that the Holy Spirit will still work powerfully through it, bringing men to faith in Christ, where and when it pleases Him. Just tell people the truth about God and His Son Jesus Christ. Don’t be ashamed of it. It’s the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Amen.
