Second Sunday after Trinity (2024)

Luke 14:15-24

(Tie in with the Ephesians text of Christ as the Cornerstone and those who seek God apart from him reject the cornerstone)

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we have another parable that points to the Kingdom of God and how many people miss out on the invitation not because God hates them, or ignores them, but because even though they are invited they have allowed other things to grow more important and take the place of God’s great feast. For should they refuse the invitation and seek means to avoid it, they will be cut off from the feast in the end. Now this is a rather pointed parable, and reminder to us as Christians of the importance of the Sacrament.

The Banquet of the Pharisee

Text without pretext is missing context.

This parable that Jesus isn’t just told in a void, and it is important for us to set the scene as it were.

A Pharisee invited Jesus for dinner.

When you understand what this parable is saying, and how it is addressing the pharisees and those who invited him. You might think that Jesus was refusing an olive branch that had come from the Pharisees, until you read what happened when he entered into the house.

They had laid a trap for Him.

They knew that Jesus was a healer of the sick, and would care for anyone who was in need. So they had brought a man who had an illness to the feast. The feast was on a sabbath day and the pharisees had a very strict set of rules about the Sabbath. They wished to prove that Jesus was a sabbath-breaker, and a breaker of God’s Word.

This is the second parable Jesus tells.

The first was addressing those who were jockeying for position at the feast and presuming themselves to be most important. They were acting with pride and arrogance and so Jesus had reminded them that it was better to be elevated from a lowly position than to be knocked down from a high one. This is all sitting in the background of the parable that Jesus shares.

The Banquet of the Kingdom

Many were invited, but they refuse to come.

Even though they had warning and knew the importance of the Banquet, when they time came they made excuses. Now in our modern day, we are disappointed if a person is not able to be there,

The Master is angry with them.

We can understand this, imagine if you had invited a number of people to a party and they had promised that they were coming, but then many that had promised to be there, and you considered close friends ignored the party and blew you off. It wasn’t for things that just came up, each one of these things were manageable and able to be known in advance. So a feast had been prepared and everyone abandoned him.

It’s not just the work, it’s the disrespect.

There is a massive amount of work that goes into preparing for a feast, but they lied to him and treated the master not at all like a friend or anyone they cared about, but like a stranger and someone they didn’t want to be around.

The banquet won’t be Wasted.

He sends his servants out to seek others who would receive the banquet with gladness and would come in and fill his hall that they might celebrate.

The Unexpected Guests

The servants seek out the unworthy.

In the ancient world, these are folks that cannot repay your kindness, but ones that would be beggars in the street, and they are brought into masters house to partake of the banquet, and as though that weren’t strange enough.

They also bring foreigners.

Those to whom the master was not related, nor belonged to the city, but were outsiders, but they were brought in to fill the house of the master and partake of his banquet.

These are the people Jesus said ought to be invited.

For the Pharisee had invited those who were his friends and would repay him in kind instead of using his wealth to benefit those who were in need, he was inviting those who would invite him back.

The Meaning of the Parable

Jesus is the living bread.

Jesus has come to give life to mankind through the banquet that He has prepared at the Sacrament. This connects and unites us with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That we might find life in Him. The pharisee sitting with him who says blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God, refuses the very thing that he praises and exults.

Pharisees refuse this meal.

They are the ones who have studied the Scriptures and know that the messiah was coming, and yet when the time for the feast arrives, they chase after the treasures that they have in this world and forsake all that Christ had come to give them. The time for celebration has arrived. Yet they are wrapped up in other things and forget about everything that Christ has given. So what does Jesus do?

Jesus invites sinners to the meal.

The Pharisees are offended that Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors with the ordinary and the plain, that he goes out amongst the crippled, lame, blind, all of those that they think have been cursed by God and the evidence of their sin and the parents sin is before their eyes. That the Word of God would go out to the gentiles as well, was unfathomable. Those who were not of the blood of Abraham, but we are of the same faith that hopes in the messiah.

What Does it Mean for Us?

First, if Jesus invited you, don’t neglect the feast.

That feast includes the teachings, the forgiveness of sins, and the sacrament that bestows upon us eternal life. Christ invited you to receive the bread of eternal life, and you come this morning, thanks be to God for that! But make no mistake there are things that try to pull us away and have us neglect the feast.

Don’t let earthly things stop you.

They are tempting and they try to pull ya away. You might not have fields, oxen, or wife, but each one of those symbolizes the things of this world. A person who works hard, or who tends to their home, or who prioritizes their family, all things that are good in the eyes of God, but when they become more important than partaking of the feast that the master has invited you too. It angers Him.

Second, we are the strangers.

We’re the gentiles that have been welcomed into the Kingdom of God and we ought to rejoice in the feast that has been prepared by Christ. It is a surprise for who amongst us earned or deserved a place at this feast, and we were invited, for while the rest of the world would have left us alone Christ brought us in.

This feast is for the broken.

This is to say it is for the sinners, that have fallen short of the glory of God. That is who Jesus came to save, and so it should be no surprise that where Christ’s teachings are shared, they would be shared and received by sinners who are in need of mercy. Now this pertains to the teachings of Jesus and the promise of forgiveness, but why don’t we also apply it to the Lord’s Supper? While the teachings of Christ are available to all without threat, there is a very real danger that comes with the Lord’s Supper, and it is also a confession of faith that unites those who partake of it, and making them one.

What if my sins are too great?

What is greater than the blood of Jesus?

Imagine if you were invited to the kings palace to receive his blessings. You look at your sins and your rags and say well look at me, who am I to attend? I have nothing to wear. Jesus clothes you with his own righteousness and washes away your sins.

Shouldn’t people get their life right first?

I hear this often with folks who say that they will come to church once they get things right, and once they are able to walk through the doors with their head held high. What type of foolishness is this? They refuse the invitation like the first group who will not partake of the feast. Consider for a moment

Where else will they find forgiveness?

If you they could cleanse themselves from their sins, without the teachings of Jesus, without His blood, without His sacrifice, then what need would you have of this banquet? Are you going to show up to the feast already full? What foolishness is that? Satan convinces many to think this way, and by so doing condemns them to death. For while our hearts of stone can be broken by God’s Law, the Law cannot change or transform hearts or bring us back to life. That is only the work of the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for you. When we talk about Close(d) communion and the minor ban, when a Pastor forbids a member from coming to Communion. Is that person any less a sinner than anyone else who comes up? No. It happens when a person refuses to hear the Law, and recognize the sin which is to say they refuse the teaching of Christ like the Pharisees. You cannot reject Christ’s teaching and belong to His Kingdom. To be placed under the ban is not meant to wake a person from their persistent unbelief that they might be saved.

My Brothers and Sisters this is why this parable is needed still today. We are to be on guard and always hear the Words of Christ and receive the teaching of His Kingdom and not ignore His invitation to hear His teaching, or to receive the Sacrament which Jesus instituted. May we diligently hear the word, and every time the Sacrament is offered let us come together for the feast has been set and those that have been prepared to receive it are blessed, and let those not yet ready seek to become ready.