A Wedding Party

Intro

When I was in college, I made this goal to be invited to something by the president of Western before I graduated.

I had made the website and the mailer they sent out to prospective students so surely I could get invited to the president’s house right?

I didn’t make it known, didn’t talk about it, and don’t really know where it came from or really when I came up with it.

I started giving tours to prospective students the second semester of my Freshman year. 3-4 for a week.

At some point in my sophomore year we were told that tour guides had been invited to Dr Ransdale’s house for dinner in the coming weeks.

I thought “I have done it!” I had accomplished my goal.

Well something came up and the dinner had to be canceled.

Before that happened though, I had thought up my next goal, to get a building or room named after me at some point. I didn’t know at the time that it would require a large amount of money to make that happen.

There is something in all of us that wants to be significant isn’t there?

Jesus confronts that desire in our final parable of this series.

Luke 14:7–14 CSB

7 He told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they would choose the best places for themselves: 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, don’t sit in the place of honor, because a more distinguished person than you may have been invited by your host. 9 The one who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in humiliation, you will proceed to take the lowest place. 10 “But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ You will then be honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” 12 He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. 13 On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Setting

Jesus is at a party at the house of a prominent Pharisee.

It was likely a quite important event with a “who’s who” list of guest.

By verse 7, Jesus has likely already caused a stir as He healed a man with dropsy at what seemed like the beginning of the party and called out Pharisees since it was the Sabbath.

Now, they sat around the table (which is likely in a “U” shape). Jesus has been watching the people as they came into the party.

Luke records that Jesus’s words come from the scene He observed.

There seemed to have been a jockeying for seats, people rushing to certain places seeking to get a seat closest to the host or people of prominence.

This is probably a pretty common practice, but Jesus saw something deeper in it, a heart-level desire that He saw a Kingdom lesson in.

Oddly, Jesus doesn’t directly address those at this party, but tells a parable about a wedding feast, which is one of the most prominent and formal events these Jews would practice.

Like all the parables, there is a relatable nature to it, but the intention is much deeper and larger.

Jesus is pointing to His Kingdom, His work of redemption and restoration.

He is, again, giving us a glimpse of heaven as He is confronting the crowd.

As He reveals His Kingdom, He is calling those listening, and us, to live accordingly.

We are going to look at 3 Kingdom calls in this parable.

God’s Kingdom calls us to:

1) Honest HUMILITY

I can’t help but think how people would have cringed a bit at Jesus’s words.

They of course knew who He was talking about and knew they had been the ones rushing to a prominent seat.

Had someone been called out by the host and asked to sit at a lower seat? Perhaps...

Regardless, there is a quite practical, and simple, lesson Jesus is teaching here.

If you don’t want to be humiliated by being asked to sit in a less significant place, sit in the lesser place first so you might be asked to sit higher.

This is a Biblical lesson as well

Proverbs 25:6–7 CSB

6 Don’t boast about yourself before the king, and don’t stand in the place of the great; 7 for it is better for him to say to you, “Come up here!” than to demote you in plain view of a noble.

It makes a lot of sense, but we know Jesus’s intention wasn’t just to give us a lesson on how to choose a seat at a party.

He was confronting a deep-down heart attitude that is natural to all of us.

Deep down we all desire to be important, significant, valued.

Sitting at a seat of honor was validating.

They had made it, people looked up to them, maybe even envied them.

Jesus sees their actions, but more importantly he sees their hearts…He sees our hearts.

Not only did this jockeying for position step them up for humiliation with the crowd.

It also is doesn’t flow with the values of the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 20:16 CSB

16 “So the last will be first, and the first last.”

Matthew 18:4 CSB

4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child—this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

We live in a world that says that winning is the most important thing.

Success is the measure of the man.

To be liked and to be important is to live well.

Whether it is school, work, a sport, or just normal society, there is a constant battle for a better seat at the table.

To be better, smarter, more successful, wealthier...

This fight to be significant and successful is a fight to be exalted

Which means to be lifted up or raised up in honor. (think of Rudy being carried off the field).

So Jesus’s words in v. 11 challenge this attitude.

Luke 14:11 CSB

11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The way to exaltation is not battling for position, or wearing ourselves out with effort, it is by understanding who we are and who HE is.

Those fighting for a better seat were seeking to overcome the reality of their brokenness through human/worldly means.

Rather than understanding and accepting their inability to heal their brokenness, they were banking on worldly honor, earthy success, and the acceptance of others to SAVE them.

That isn’t the way of Jesus.

1 Peter 5:6 CSB

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time,

Jesus isn’t saying that the desire to be exalted is wrong in-and-of-itself, but that the WAY we seek to be exalted is.

We want it now.

So we wear ourselves out, worry ourselves to death, and step on others in order to lift ourselves up.

Pride is at the roots of our pursuits of exaltation, and pride is birthed in a lack of knowledge.

The root of humility is knowledge, right knowledge. The man who really knows himself and his own heart, who knows God and His infinite majesty and holiness, who knows Christ and the price at which He was redeemed, that man will never be a proud man. Ignorance of self, ignorance of God, and ignorance of Christ, that is the real secret of pride. He is the wise man who knows himself, and he who knows himself will find nothing within him to make him proud.” — J.C. Ryle

God’s Kingdom calls us to Humility.

To know we are broken and Jesus is the one who makes us whole.

2) Unassuming GENEROSITY

In verse 12, Jesus turns His attention to the host of the party, who we are told is a “ruler of the Pharisees”.

He is an important guy who likely has some really important friends, or at least acquaintances.

Put yourself in the disciples shoes real quick.

Jesus has already healed a guy and confronted the Pharisees about their hypocrisy with the Sabbath laws.

Then called out the guys trying to get a better seat at the table.

Now He is calling out the Host for only inviting people to the party who he could gain something from.

I can imagine they are wiggling in their seats.

But what Jesus says here is so very important.

This host did what every party host would have done, even today.

He invited the people who were not only deemed worthy to come, but who had the most potential to benefit him in the long run.

Maybe they would gain him credibility in the community.

Maybe he would be invited to their parties if he invited them to his.

Maybe there was a financial or business interest in having them there.

Regardless, it was clear that the guest list seemed to have been made with intention and purpose.

Poor, crippled, lame, and blind.

Groups that these Pharisees would have shunned, and people that would never be able to reciprocate what they were given.

To invite them to the party would be an act of pure generosity.

Jesus isn’t saying “Don’t invite your friends and colleagues to you parties because they are poor or sick enough.”

He is again confronting the attitude that is in all of us and that the culture we live in celebrates.

“look out for yourselves.” “pursue what is best FOR YOU.” “Fight for number 1.”

The call of the Kingdom is no holds, no expectations, no reservations generosity.

A generosity that flows from a heart that has experience unearned, pure generosity in Christ.

Jesus is confronting our natural, selfish tendency to use people to raise ourselves.

There is the pure form of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” sort of practice.

But it shows up when we live as chameleon, changing the way we talk and act based on who we are around, seeking to fit in, be accepted, and win people for our benefit.

It is also the heart behind peer pressure and giving in to the temptation to compromise our values in order to be accepted by others.

Jesus is calling us to pure, unassuming generosity.

3) Restful CONTENTEDNESS

Behind both of these callings and both of these confrontations we find Jesus’s deeper intention.

Our constant jockeying for position, fighting for honor, and pursuit of success leaves each and every one of us stressed, weary, anxious, frustrated, and depressed.

We work so hard to be successful, but the target we are aiming at seems to be constantly moving.

We try so hard to be accepted by others, but people are fickle and we lose our identity trying to shape ourselves into what they like.

We struggle to sleep at night worrying about what others think, whether we have accomplished enough, or whether we have done enough to justify ourselves to others or even to ourselves.

Behind these confrontations is one BIG and POWERFUL invitation.

Stop working so hard, stop worrying so much, stop searching for something you will never find in the places you are looking for it.

Jesus is inviting us to rest in Him.

His work of justification is finished.

You do not need to prove yourself.

You don’t have to work to earn, nor to you have to work to keep it.

You are accepted, loved, valued, and cherished in Christ, not because you earned the right grade, won a trophy, got a raise, or whatever else.

God’s love is a gift that we can not earn, but we are invited to receive.

The best proof that He will never cease to love us lies in that He never began. — Geerhardus Vos

Romans 5:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Matthew 11:28–30 CSB

28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”