Second Sunday after Trinity

Jesus’ parable of the Great Supper teaches us of the doctrine of election. Salvation originates not within the heart of man, but within the heart of our merciful God. Consider how urgently the Lord extends His invitation to the banquet. Again and again He sends His servants out—to three different groups of people: first to those who had already been invited, then to the poor and disabled, and finally to the highwaymen, compelling them to enter.

This is the expression of God’s earnest desire that none would perish, but that all would be saved. To that end God sends out His servants, or as one of my professors would say, His slaves. (That is, after all, what a pastor is: a slave of Christ. I speak as I am commanded. I have no authority of my own, yet I come in the name of Him who wields all authority. I have no words of my own, yet I am sent out with a message of eternal consequence.) And the message that the slaves of Christ carry is the invitation to life everlasting: “Come. Enter the banquet. For all things are now ready.”

The message is first delivered to the natural born sons of God, that is, the people within the Church. In Jesus’ day, this meant the Jews. Today, it could mean lifelong members of the Church. The folks in the parable have known about the banquet for some time. They’re expecting the invite, just as all Christians know of and expect the imminent return of Christ. But while they await the final summons, their hearts have grown cold. Love for the world and the deceitfulness of riches have ensnared their hearts. They want to be listed on the rolls of the Church, but they no longer have any love for Jesus. And so they all begin to make excuses. But their excuses are fake; they’re lying.

We often make false excuses in polite society. Someone invites you to an event, and you say, “I need to check with my wife…” which everyone knows is just a polite way of saying, “No.” When you say this, you know you’re lying. You don’t actually want to go. The person who invited you knows you’re lying, but he pretends to believe your excuse. It’s all part of the charade that we play in society.

So it is with the excuses for not attending the Lord’s banquet. “I just bought some new oxen, and I have to go try them out.” Nobody would ever do this. It’s not a real excuse. Imagine waiting to test drive a new car until after you signed the papers. The same with the next excuse: “I just bought a new property and I need to go see it.” Again, that’s ridiculous. Nobody would ever do this (except super rich people from New York during COVID). And the last excuse is the most half-hearted of all: “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” Husbands, don’t ever use your wife as an excuse for avoiding God’s banquet. Your job is to be the spiritual leader of the home. Tell your wife that the whole family’s going to church next Sunday, and she will rejoice to follow your lead.

All of the excuses are lies, and everybody knows it. The people of God knew about the banquet. They had all the time in the world to prepare. But they chose not to. Whatever excuses they offered, in truth they didn’t go because they didn’t want to go. This, by the way, is the extent of our free will. We don’t choose God. We can’t choose salvation. God must choose us. He must send out His slaves to invite us. We don’t have free will to choose to attend. But having been invited, we do have the free will to reject God and His invitation. Free will can say no to salvation, and if the Holy Spirit did not intervene in our hearts, every one of us would make a lame excuse and decline the invite to eternal life. Thanks be to God for what happens next.

“The master of the house became angry” (Lk 14:21b). Believe it or not, this is actually good news. When those who had first been invited refused to come, the wrath of God was aroused. God gets angry when people refuse eternal life. His wrath is tied to His love. He gets angry when people reject His invitation and refuse to enter all joy. So what does the Lord do next? He sends His slaves out to invite those who don’t deserve His banquet. In other words, God invites you! That is, He invites “the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.”

I suppose someone could hear this and take offense. “Are you calling me poor, blind, and lame?” But why be offended when you can be invited? Why insist on being deserving when God’s invitation is for the undeserving? The messenger of the Lord shows up and says, “I’ve been commanded to invite poor, miserable sinners into the banquet of heaven. Anyone here by that description?” Don’t be offended. Just raise your hand. “Yep. That’s me! Lost and condemned creature? You found me.”

But even still, the banquet is not yet full. There’s still room. So the Lord sends out his slaves one final time—this time into the highways and hedges. You know what a highwayman is, right? A bandit. A thief. Yes, God invites the poor and the lame – those who have been beaten up by life in our broken world, by sin, death, and the devil. But God also invites really wicked sinners: thieves, adulterers, and murderers. “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” (Lk 14:23).

And that’s how the election of God works. Moved by His wrath toward those who spurn the invitation and also by His love for the broken, the lost, the maimed, and the really wicked sinners, God compels us to come in, that His house may be filled.

Have you been invited? Have you been found? Have you been gathered? How did that happen. God compelled you. He sought you. He found you. He gathered you. He elected you. So forget any phony excuses you might have made, and simply allow Christ to serve you at His banquet.

There’s one more bad excuse for not coming – not an excuse that any of the invited guests made in the parable, but one that sinners often try to make: “I’ll come, but first I need to clean up my life.” It’s easy to think that way if you’re one of the blind and lame or thieves and highwaymen. But listen to the words of the invitation, “Come, for all things are now ready!” Don’t wait until you clean up your act. Don’t try to make yourself worthy. Everything that needs to be prepared is already done! Jesus says to you, “Come, for all things are now ready.”

The Lord’s Supper is the foretaste of the heavenly banquet, and some people get the idea that they must stop sinning before they can approach the communion rail. But only sinners have been invited. The good people wouldn’t come, and so the invitation has been given to us. Don’t wait. Don’t make excuses. Jesus bids you come now. Don’t try to clean up first. Instead, bring your sins, bring your shame, bring your burdens. Bring them with repentance to the altar of Christ and leave them there. Receive His forgiveness and mercy. Do not delay, but heed the invitation and come, for all things are now ready. Amen.