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Sermon for Trinity 2
1 John 3:13-18 + Luke 14:16-24
Who will inherit eternal life? Who will eat bread in the kingdom of God? Last week, we saw, in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus, that it was the poor man Lazarus who had a place in Paradise, while the rich man was eternally tormented in hell. Today’s Gospel comes a little before last week’s Gospel, but we see Jesus teaching a similar message. Today, we see Him focusing more on the reason why some are lost and some are saved. Those who are saved are saved because of God’s grace alone, while those who are lost are lost because they despised God’s grace.
The context is critical.If we look back a few verses in Luke 14, Jesus was having Sabbath-Day supper at the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees, who had invited Him. He healed a man of dropsy, and the guests weren’t happy about it, because He dared to help the man on their precious Sabbath Day. Then He noticed how the guests all chose the places of honor for themselves. (We’ll focus on that account a few months from now.)Then our text begins. Then He said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Do you understand what Jesus was teaching? He wasn’t criticizing the man simply for inviting friends to a supper. There’s nothing sinful about that. But He was teaching the man something about grace. When you invite your friends to supper, when you invite good people, popular people, rich people, worthy people to supper at your house, that’s fine, but it’s not grace. Because those people can turn around and invite you to supper, or return your kindness in some other way. You gave them something, with at least the hope or maybe even the expectation that they’ll give you something in return. And so, in giving this supper to them, you haven’t really given away anything. You’re only exchanging one supper today for another supper tomorrow. In the end, neither one actually gains anything, and neither one actually gives up anything. It’s more like an even trade.
Grace, on the other hand, is to give something away freely and generously, expecting nothing in return. No, more than that. It’s to give something away freely, knowing full well that the recipients of your gift will most certainly never be able to repay you for it. It’s goodness shown for goodness’ sake. It’s about giving away things on the side of the giver, and about receiving gifts on the side of the recipient, which is what would happen if you prepared a feast, as Jesus suggested, for the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. You would be doing all the giving; they would be doing all the receiving. But, Jesus says, there is Another, there is Someone Else who is watching. And He will make sure that you are repaid in the end, at the resurrection of the just—repaid, not by those who received your kindnesses, but by God Himself, because, by giving away free gifts, you show yourself to be truly a child of your heavenly Father, who is the God of grace.
But there was a man sitting there at the table with Jesus who wasn’t interested in all that “grace” talk. He thought he would teach a little lesson of his own to Jesus. He said to Him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” That man clearly thought that he (and surely also his Pharisee friends at the supper with him) would be among those blessed people who will take part in God’s eternal supper in heaven. He was clearly looking forward to it! But who are the ones who actually get to take part in God’s eternal supper? Not everyone! Only those who want to receive it as a free gift. Only those who want to enter by God’s grace. In fact, those who despise God’s grace will most certainly not take part in His supper, but will spend their eternity in hell, like the rich man we saw last week in Jesus’ parable. To illustrate that truth, Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the great supper.
Then he said to him, “A certain man prepared a great supper and invited many people. And he sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come! All things are now ready!’ This is what God did for the Jews, for the people of Israel. Since the time of Abraham, he his descendants after him were invited to come into the kingdom of God through faith in God and in the coming Messiah. They were invited to wait for Christ, and, when Christ would come, to receive Him as their Lord and Christ, and so to enter into God’s supper, even in this life, to receive God’s free gift of salvation from sin and deliverance from death and the devil. It was an invitation of grace from the beginning—God’s grace, to be revealed in the person of Jesus, who was the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
And one after another, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I need to go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out. Please have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a woman, so I cannot come.’ One excuse after another why the invited guests couldn’t possibly come to the supper. A free gift was being offered to them—had been offered to them since the time of Abraham. But when the gift, who was Christ, finally arrived, they found better things to do.
Why? Because it wasn’t grace, it wasn’t a free gift they wanted. It was recognition the Jews (especially the Pharisees) wanted. It was a reward for their many works that they wanted. They wanted to have the kingdom of God as their wages and as their right for being such good and decent children of Abraham. They didn’t want it on Jesus’ terms, which were (and still are) recognition of and repentance for their badness before God’s holy law, and faith in Him as the One who insisted on (and still insists on) being their righteousness before God.
Is it any different today? Most people want to offer God their terms for entry into heaven, and if He doesn’t like their terms, or if He dares to criticize their works and call out their sins, then He’s not worth their time. They’ll find a different god to worship as they go right on living in their sins and indulging their evil desires. Of course, that god would be a false god. And a false god can’t save anyone from the true God’s wrath that is coming upon all sinners.
The thing is, the true God doesn’t want to pour out wrath on sinners. He sent His Son into the world to save sinners, to save the world, to suffer for our sins and to pay the penalty for them. He offers eternal life as a gift of His grace through faith in Christ Jesus. And He wants all people to take advantage of that gift, to come to Christ and so be counted no longer as sinners but as saints through faith alone in Christ Jesus. We see that in the next part of Jesus’ parable.
“So the servant came and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring the poor, and the crippled, and the lame, and the blind in here.’ And the servant said, ‘Lord, what you have commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ Then the lord said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and make them come in, so that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited will taste my supper.’” See, this is how God wants people to enter His kingdom. He does what He told the host at the supper to do: He calls the poor, the lame, the maimed, and the blind. That is, He calls people who are not worthy, who can’t even begin to repay Him, who need His grace, and who will receive it through Christ.
In reality, no one can repay God. He is the Owner of all things. No one is worthy, because all have broken His commandments and His laws. No one, by nature, worships Him with true fear, love and trust. No one gives His name and His word the honor they deserve. No one respects God-given authority as they ought, or protects the life of the innocent, or remains sexually pure, or is content with what he has, or guards his neighbor’s reputation, or keeps his desires and passions in check—not with the holiness that God’s law requires. That’s why everyone needs His grace—grace that is offered to all, the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life through Christ crucified.
Many despise God’s grace and will not submit to it or listen to what Jesus has to say. They will not taste God’s supper. They will not see eternal life, not because God didn’t want them there, but because He only wants people there who wish to enter by the path of His grace, by the way of His beloved Son. Be among those people! Recognize yourself among the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind, who are called and urged to the supper, and then enter, by grace, through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.
