Sermon Tone Analysis

Pentecost 14

Luke 14: 1-14

September 2, 2007

*“You are Invited” (Luke 14:12-14)*

Introduction: Coach Shug Jordan at Auburn University asked his former Linebacker Mike Kollin, who was then playing for the Miami Dolphins, if he would help his alma mater do some recruiting.

Mike said, "Sure, coach.

What kind of player are you looking for?"

The coach said, "Well Mike, you know there's that fellow, you knock him down, he just stays down?" Mike said, "We don't want him, do we, coach?" "No, that's right.

Then there's that fellow, you knock him down and he gets up, you knock him down again and he stays down."

Mike said, "We don't want him either do we coach?"

Coach said, "No, but Mike, there's a fellow, you knock him down, he gets up.

Knock him down, he gets up.

Knock him down, he gets up.

Knock him down, he gets up."

Mike said, "That's the guy we want isn't it, coach?"

The coach answered, "No, Mike, we don't want him either.

I want you to find the guy who's knocking everybody down.

That's the guy we want."

\\             That's the guy we want to be seen with, that we want to invite to our dinners and social gatherings, to our homes.

We don't want to be seen with the guys who are always being knocked down--the poor, crippled, the lame, the blind.

But these are the very people, as we shall soon see, that we are encouraged to associate with.[i]

\\             Did you ever hear of anyone giving a dinner and inviting all the poor people, all the crippled, all the lame and all the blind of the neighborhood?

Yet that is what Jesus seems to suggest here.

Not only that, but He says, "Do not invite your friends or your fellow church members or your relatives or your rich neigh­bors."

What can Jesus mean?

Look at the words at the end of the twelfth /verse.

/There He gives the reason for His surprising state­ment - "lest they invite you back and you will be repaid.”

You see, Jesus uses this picture of a dinner and its guests to show us what should be the true Christian spirit behind all we do for others.

The followers of Jesus Christ do nothing with the aim of seeing how much he or she can get out of it, but only how much he can give.

IS this true?

I ask you to consider the thought.

(Repeat the above).

If a man is tempted to serve others just for the sake of what he may get, as a Christian, let him provide service to those who are unable to pay him back.

Then he will be like the man who invites the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind.

Ten year old Albert was having his first birthday party.

His mother asked him whom he wanted to invite.

"Why, just the boys who have had me to their party," he answered at once.

Now Albert was not really giving a party.

He was just paying for the other parties he had attended and the gifts that the boys brought were just their payment for the gifts Albert had brought them.

So it goes with so many of our gifts; so it goes with much of our entertaining of guests.

We have the wrong idea about giving, making the same mistake that these Pharisees and lawyers did.

We almost always give where we are pretty sure of getting a gift in return, getting something in return; inviting people who can and will invite us back.

Jesus clearly shows us that this is not giving at all, just paying and repaying.

In a way it is just a shuffling of our wealth and resources back and forth.

I provide you a nice dinner today, next time we will eat at your house.

This is also true when it comes to what we call giving in the Church.

According to Jesus’ words much of what we call giving is not really giving at all, it is merely paying.

We give to our church, in return we have a church in which we worship, a pastor and an organist a principle and teachers, light, heat, hymnals and choir music, Sunday school lessons, and all the things about the church that must be paid for.

We are getting something for our money, maybe not all that we would like, but we are getting something.

\\             But Jesus wants us to do things for people that can give us no special return - feeding and clothing the poor, giving our time to church work, supporting the work of the whole Church by giving money to foreign and home missions, helping our old folks' and orphans' homes, supporting our schools where young people are trained to be ministers and church workers.

And especially embracing and showing hospitality to sinners.

You know, those people that we would rather not associate with because of who they are or what they have done.

Jesus has come into the world for sinners.

The healthy need no doctor, but only the sick.

Jesus was accused of, and it is rightly so, of eating and associating with tax collectors and sinners.

These are the people that He desires to share His everlasting table fellowship.

He came for the undeserving, the lost, the despicable and the helpless.

If you are not lost, despicable or helpless, then Jesus did not come for you.

But let me assure you, all of are these and more.

And Jesus came for you and I. His desire is that we would recognizes that when He calls us to feed and care for and share our table fellowship with those people that cannot pay us back, we are expressing in our lives and in our actions the work of God and what He has done for us.

Who of us will raise our hands to say that we can repay God for His grace in our lives?

Who of us will raise our hand and say that we can give back to God for giving us His only Son.

Who of us can pay God back for His Son’s blood shed on the cross?

Who of us would dare to try to take a seat of honor in the Kingdom of God? Though some people might dare to do these things, none should.

Whose banner will I raise when I dare to enter into eternal rest after death?

Shall I say to God, “Here I am, Pastor Mark Berlin, your faithful pastor and friend for all these years.”

No, No, No.

In humility I and we must enter into God’s presence, only desiring a scrap of what heaven has to offer, and to ask for this only as we point to the cross as the price that was paid for each one of us personally.

Then, let it be up to God, to seat us where He will.

I like the story historians tell about the funeral of Charlemagne.

Charlemagne was the greatest Christian ruler of the early Middle Ages.

After his death a mighty funeral procession left his castle for the cathedral at Aix.

When the royal casket arrived, with a lot of pomp and circumstance, it was met by the local bishop, who barred the cathedral door.

"Who comes?" the Bishop asked, as was the custom.

"Charlemagne, Lord and King of the Holy Roman Empire," proclaimed the Emperor's proud herald.

"Him I know not," the Bishop replied.

"Who comes?"

The herald, a bit shaken, replied, "Charles the Great, a good and honest man of the earth."

"Him I know not," the Bishop said again.

"Who comes?"

The herald, now completely crushed, responded, "Charles, a lowly sinner, who begs the gift of Christ."

To this the Bishop, Christ's representative, responded, "Enter!

Receive Christ's gift of life!"

The point, of course, is that in God's eyes, we're all equally needy.

Charlemagne, Martin Luther, Mother Teresa, you and me.

None of us will ever be "good enough" to force entrance into the presence of God.[ii]

            Until that time, Our Lord bids to come into His presence even her on earth.

Certainly He makes us His dearly beloved children in the waters of Baptism, just as He has done with His dear sweet Emma on this day.

Bur He also bids us to come into an intimate table fellowship and celebration here in this place, here at this rail.

He bids us to come, the poor, the blind and the lame.

Each of God’s honored guest, receiving the most blessed of foods, Christ’s own body and blood, given and shed on the cross.

At the cross we understand what real giving is.

What God has done, that is /real /giving, giving His only Son Jesus, for each and every one of us!

As the redeemed of God, we can give to.

When we do things for others, for the Church, for Jesus, without ever thinking whether we shall be repaid, then we are doing what Jesus asks in today's Bible reading.

Then, too, we shall be blessed, not in this life but certainly in heaven, with heavenly rewards beyond our comprehension.

This is Jesus promise and it is made real by God’s grace given to us because of what Jesus has done for each and every one of us.

Amen.

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[i] eSermons, *"*How to Stay Humble in a Haughty World"*

[ii] Alex Gondola, Jr., Come As You Are, CSS Publishing Company, 2000