Come and Eat the Master's Bread!

Second Sunday after Trinity

June 5, 2016

Luke 14:16-24

Come and Eat the Master's Bread!

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Think of the fanciest house where you eaten your fanciest meal. Maybe it was your house, but it was probably someone else's. You were on your best behavior. You ate slowly. You talked carefully. The stories you chose to tell were designed to please your dinner companions.

Jesus ate at fancy places. In Luke 14, He was invited over to supper at the house of a big shot, “a prominent Pharisee.” And He was “being carefully watched.” They wanted to catch Him out when He said something wrong.

So why did He go there and eat with His enemies? Because He loved even them. And He was there to invite them to eat at His banquet.

This dinner party turned into one of the most read-about suppers in the history of the world. The dinner was rolling along, when Jesus grabbed and healed a man suffering from abnormal swelling.

Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say. (Luke 14:3-6 NIV 2011)

Jesus kept giving them opening to attack Him—just as they had hoped—but they remained silent. Perhaps they were too polite. More on that later.

Then Jesus told a story about people who tried to take the best seats at a banquet and then are humiliated when the host asks them to move to the cheap seats when a real VIP shows up. Jesus' point?

“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Then Jesus said to his host,

“When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:11-14 NIV 2011)

This caused one of the guests at the meal to say:

“The one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God is blessed!” (Luke 14:15 HCSB)

And this brings us to the story that we already heard read. When we read a parable of Jesus, we need to locate ourselves in the parable. Which characters sound like us? Which characters do things that we do? We also need to find Jesus. What is He saying and doing in these stories?

“A man was giving a large banquet and invited many. At the time of the banquet, he sent his slave to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’ (Luke 14:16-17 HCSB)

The man giving the large banquet is the Lord God, and the slave sent out is His Son, Jesus Christ. This is where we find Him, doing the will of His Master, His Father. His Father's will is for all to enjoy this feast of good bread. Since we can't fully grasp the joy of life together with the one true God, He puts it in terms we can understand: delicious food with joyful guests hosted by our dear Lord. His Son went out and invited the guests to come and eat.

But now we quickly find ourselves. The guests politely made excuses to the generous invitation. And they all were quite reasonable. The first needed to inspect his new land. The second chose to take a test drive of his new cattle. The last was on his honeymoon and thought how his absence was so obvious that he didn't even bother making a polite apology, as the first two had.

Too often we are these wretched invitees who make reasonable excuses to avoid the good food that our Father has prepared for us.

To borrow from our Catechism we should fear God because of our sinful excuses. Indeed the Master's reaction was furious anger.

But His anger did not lead to destruction, but to more invitations! The Son is told to invite all those whom are considered undesirable: the poor, maimed, blind, and lame. But this Slave, Jesus, is so in step with His Master's mercy that He has anticipated this request. All these had been invited and brought in. But there's still room for more. And so the Slave is sent to the corners of the earth to invite even more and carry even more of the poor and the lame into life with His Master.

In context the original guests would have collectively been the Jews, many of the very people with whom Jesus was eating supper. And the undesirables would have been the non-Jews. Jesus brought the Gospel to them as well as the Jews. But the Slave's work is brought full circle by the holy apostles and preachers that Jesus has sent out into distant corners of the world.

And in this continuing work of the Master, the poor, maimed, blind, and lame are brought into life together with Him. And we find ourselves again: we are the poor, maimed, blind, and lame whom Christ carries from death to resurrection. And He calls us blessed in His name.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for

righteousness, for they will be filled.

(Matthew 5:3-6 NIV 2011)

Share this Bread with those in your life whom you have been called to serve, as the wise servants listen to our dear Master's voice. For those who refuse to come and eat the Body of Christ in Communion, call them to repentance and forgiveness in God's good bread of life. And for yourself as you let God's holy absolution feed you with joy, enjoying the company of His other servants, your sisters and brothers saved by the blood of His Son.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21