Invitations

Scripture Lesson

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition Luke 14

15 One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. 17 At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is ready now.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ 19 Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ 20 Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ 22 And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ 23 Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ”

Kids to the Knowing Place

Introduction: We’ll see.

I’m sure that I’m completely alone in this, but I hate disappointing anyone at all ever.

And I’ve come up with some pretty ridiculous schemes for trying to avoid that disappointment.

One of my go tos: We’ll see.

I just used this the other day.

Here’s how it works.

Someone invites you to a party.

They really want you to be present at the party!

But you also know that you have a sermon to write, and kids to bathe, and chores to catch up on.

There is no earthly way that you’re going to be able to make it to the part.

The physics of getting from point A to point B alone don’t allow it.

So when the person in question invites you to the party, you don’t say no.

They say “Will we see you tonight?”

You say “We’ll see! I would really love to be there, but I do have a lot going on!”

Now, as far as I’m concerned, every single word in that sentence is true!

We will see! Mostly we will see that I’m not there!

I would truly and genuinely love to be there, but there’s no earthly way I’ll make it.

And, the hint of truth, I do have a lot going on.

But there is a downside to this strategy.

If you are invited to enough parties, and you pull the “we’ll see” method too many times, pretty soon you’ll stop being invited.

Pretty soon people will begin to assume that you just don’t want to be there at all.

Bible Breakdown

Context

This story actually starts a few verses earlier.

Jesus is sitting down to dinner at the house of a Pharisee.

The Pharisee apparently had invited a whole bunch of people who were high rollers in society at that point.

Maybe to show off for Jesus?

Maybe to intimidate Jesus?

Maybe the Pharisee saw himself as a high roller anyway?

So Jesus knocks him down a few pegs.

Hey, maybe instead of inviting the who’s who, you should invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

Essentially, invite those in society who have no standing and are extremely unlikely to be invited to anything ever.

And then I imagine that because this is a room full of popular people, there was a tremendous silence.

Jesus is calling them out!

So...

Luke 14:15 “One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!””

Essentially, one of the high rollers says to Jesus “Hey, that’s a great idea! We should be about that!”

And then Jesus launches in to a parable.

A parable

A parable is a short story that points beyond itself, telling us about the nature of God or about the kingdom of heaven.

Essentially it uses the ordinary to point to the sacred.

We know who the God character is, right?

In any story where there’s a master or a king or a Lord, we know who that is, right?

So this parable is probably going to tell us a few things about the nature of God.

What does God want? A celebration!

The master of the parable seems so very intent on having a party.

He gets one of his servants and sends out all kinds of invitations.

And then he goes about preparing the party.

He sets the table.

He kills the animal they’re going to eat.

He bakes the cake.

He puts together little party favor bags that he saw on Pinterest.

And finally, when the time is right, he sends his servant out to go get everyone.

They’ve already been invited, but now they need to actually show up.

People come up with excuses that are good things, but lame excuses.

They are the like “We’ll see” crowd!

One guy has bought a piece of land, but apparently hasn’t seen it yet?

Buying a piece of property is a good thing!

But raise your hand in this room if you bought your first house completely sight unseen?

No way! This thing reeks of an excuse.

Another bought five yoke of oxen.

Again, kind of the same thing.

We’re happy for you to be able to buy such a big bunch of oxen for your business.

But there again exposes the excuse: No one would make such a big purchase without trying them out first.

The third guy says that he’s just been married.

He didn’t see that coming?

To be clear, the invitation has already been sent!

If he knew he was getting married, why did he RSVP yes?

These are all people who like the idea of the King’s celebration.

But they also think that what they’re doing is more for their benefit.

The good is getting in the way of the perfect for them.

But then this parable tells us something else that God wants.

What does God want? A full house!

The master sends the servant out to get the exact same group that Jesus has encouraged the Pharisee to invite to his dinner parties.

Go get the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.

Go get the people who have never ever been to a party before in their lives.

Go get people who other people are going to roll their eyes when they hear we invited them.

Go get people who are actually going to appreciate a good celebration!

So the servant goes and gets all of those people and brings them into the dinner.

But there’s apparently still a problem!

Not a problem with questionable company.

Not a problem with the opinions of others.

Not a problem of having enough food.

The problem is that there’s still room in the house.

Apparently for the master, who is God remember, the goal is to have more people at the celebration, not less.

The goal is not to be exclusive in the celebration, a party for a select few.

The goal is to have a house overflowing with people.

Go into the streets and get people that we have never met before.

For God, the desire is abundant, almost excessive celebration.

A condemnation, or a statement of reality?

The story ends with this kind of uncomfortable line:

Luke 14:24 “For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ””

And I think it’s been misused in the past.

Some would preach that line as a condemnation, that Jesus is saying that those folks that make an excuse are kicked out of the celebration.

Like there’s somehow a bouncer at the door to the house party.

But I don’t read it that way, with a kind of finger waging tone.

I hear a healthy twinge of sadness.

Those guests who were invited and made excuses?

They’ve excluded themselves from the celebration!

They’ve made the choice to chase their own desires, rather than join the feast.

Ugh…they’re never going to taste my dinner.

A story about the end, or a story about now?

There are some who treat this text as a story about the end.

The feast could obviously be about the Kingdom of Heaven.

Which, is a perfectly reasonable interpretation.

And worth mentioning that if that’s how we choose to interpret that text, then we ought to prepare ourselves now to be surprised by who’s in the Kingdom with us!

Jesus is going to go out into the streets and grab some folks who we might roll our eyes to discover them in Heaven.

But I actually think this is a story about life in this age.

Remember, this is following Jesus’ instruction to the Pharisees about who to invite to an actual dinner party.

God wants to celebrate!

God wants a full house!

And God does not want us to hang around and wait until we die for it!

Why would you wait until your afterlife to experience joy?

Why would you wait until the Kingdom to experience the goodness God has given to us?

Why wouldn’t you want to experience every drop of that joy right here, and right now?

Which leads us to something that’s been on my mind lately.

The Discipline of Celebration

A little while ago I read John Ortberg’s book The Life You’ve Always Wanted.

Highly recommended by the way!

The subtitle of the book is “Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People.”

When I think of spiritual disciplines, I have a certain couple of things that come to mind.

Reading the Bible

Praying

Studying.

But the first discipline Ortberg names in his book is the discipline of celebration.

Celebration Defined

“Celebration generally involves activities that bring pleasure-gathering with people we love, eating and drinking, singing and dancing. Spiritual celebration means doing them while reflecting on the wonderful God who has given us such wonderful gifts.” -John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted.

So there’s a two part discipline here I think:

You have to put yourself in a situation where you are doing pleasure giving activities.

This might cause the more stoic Scottish Presbyterians among us to cringe.

But if God desires celebration, it’s very ok to take the time for pleasurable activities.

But they also mean to reflect on God and God’s gifts to us in those moments.

When you are at a party with friends, celebrate! And while you’re at it, give thanks to God for the people God’s placed in your life.

When you’re enjoying nature, take a moment to express gratitude that God gave us this world for our enjoyment.

When you are out on date night with your spouse or significant other, rejoice that God gave us so much love that we’re able to share it with each other.

But, to master this, we have to master something else.

Know what you’ve said yes to, so you can know what you’ve said no to.

Every single thing that we say “yes” to is inevitably a “no” somewhere else.

If I have said yes to church on Sunday morning, it means that I might have to say no to sleeping in on my precious weekend.

If I have said yes to spending time with my family, it means that I might have to say no to sending that e-mail back right away.

If I have said yes to being on the travel soccer team, I probably have to say no to being in the jazz band.

And this is for sure a statement of reality when it comes to our time management, right?

We tend to worship at the altar of busy-ness these days.

But it’s also a statement of reality when it comes to our priorities.

If I have said yes to being the constant complainer…I’m probably going to say no to a discipline of celebration.

I have I said yes to viewing the world through a lens of scarcity, always worried about whether I will have enough, then I probably have to say no to enjoying the abundance God provides.

If I have said yes to lesser goods, I’m probably going to say no to the deep celebration the master is inviting me to.

All of this is impacted by exactly how we view God.

The Nature of God

There’s a version of this story that makes going to Church a little bit like eating your vegetables. (Which some of you have already come to learn I have a complicated relationship with…)

You spend your weekends at soccer practice? Better go to Church!

You like to sleep in on Sundays? Better go to Church!

You can have a lot of fun with the rest of your day…after you go to Church!

But I don’t get the sense in this story that Church, or the God we worship when we’re here, are designed to be chores.

The master’s not inviting people to laundry day.

He’s inviting us to a celebration.

He’s inviting us to a party.

He’s inviting us to joy.

The nature of God is not stuffy.

The nature of God is not witholding.

The nature of God is not stiff.

God wants the house filled to overflowing for a feast that never ends.

And he’s inviting you, and he’s inviting me.

Containers:

We remember a few weeks ago that we set up this series by talking about containers.

The religious practices we hold are the container, they’re meant to hold something.

Our spiritual lives, our connection with the Divine, are the liquid we put in there.

Build the container: The Discipline of Celebration

What does it look like this week in particular to put yourself in moments to celebrate?

Perhaps for you this is a season where your children are engaged in a lot of sports or activities

You could pay attention to how busy all of that makes you, or...

You could celebrate their successes with them!

Take them out for ice cream…or maybe we’re still in hot chocolate season? Check the weather first.

Perhaps you work on a team of people.

You could pay attention to how people are messy, and we make mistakes, and we wound one another, and we’re prone to getting it wrong.

Or you could choose to be the encourager on your team!

You could be the one that will never give up on those around you.

Or perhaps for you, church needs to start being a celebration again.

Kind of like a team of people at work, a church is full of people who will get things wrong and make mistakes and wound each other.

If you are on the look out for that, if you’ve made a discipline of complaining, you’ll certainly find more than enough ammunition.

Perhaps for you church needs to return to the discipline of celebration.

Maybe we need to discipline ourselves to see the best of our brothers and sisters instead of the worst.

To be able to do any of this, we’re going to need to say yes to celebration, and probably say no to a whole bunch of other things.

To say yes to celebration is to say no to negativity.

To say yes to celebration is to say no to jealousy.

To say yes to celebration is to say no to cynicism.

But the practice, the container itself isn’t enough.

Fill the container: Reflecting on God

Anyone can celebrate, and in fact you can celebrate to excess can’t you?

Ever meet someone who just couldn’t find their way to be serious ever?

What we’re after here is the connection we get with God in our celebrations.

God’s very nature is to invite everyone to celebrate.

So when we celebrate our children and their activities, we celebrate the God who knit our family together before we even knew what was going on.

When we celebrate our team at work, we celebrate the God who reminded the people of Isreal that being a slave is no good, and that we ought to take joy in our efforts.

When we celebrate in church, we worship the God who reminds us that a day in his courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.

These are worthy things to meditate on in our celebrations.

Overflow: Make an invitation

You know Presbyterians, the room is still not full is it?

We don’t let that bother us because we want more members to brag about, or to have an awesome budget, or the other reasons some come up with to fill the room.

We want the room full because God does too.

Who could you make the invitation to celebrate with?