1 John 3.13–18 + Luke 14.16–24
Jesus is dining at the home of a Pharisee on the Sabbath when He tells them the parable of the great supper. After healing a man and teaching the pharisees about humility, someone at the table piously says, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” To this man, the kingdom of God is a future reality which. And when the Lord ushers in the kingdom, this man expects to be welcomed in and enjoy all the blessings of God’s kingdom. The man thinks he enter God’s kingdom when the day comes, and he receives God’s call. What the man—and his fellow Pharisees—don’t see, is that the kingdom of God is already at hand. This is precisely what John the Baptist had preached. Is was the message of Jesus, and it was the message His twelve disciples were to preach when He sent them to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The call is going out, even at this very Sabbath meal, yet he—and so many like him—refuse to enter to into the kingdom. To open his eyes, Jesus tells a parable.
“A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’” The certain man is God the Father. The great supper is Christ and the kingdom over which He reigns. The supper God prepares is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The supper God prepares is the bread of life, which if a man eats, he will never hunger, nor will he die eternally. The supper God prepares is living water, which if a man drink, will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life (Jn 4:14). The great supper is Christ. It is the gospel, which if eaten—that is, believed—gives forgiveness of sins, everlasting life, and the Holy Spirit. This gospel is truly good news because the one invited doesn’t bring anything, for all things are now ready. Nothing is to be brought to the supper, but the invitation requires that certain things be laid down.
This is what so many refused to do. “But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’” When the kingdom of God is announced to those whom the prophets and John the Baptist had invited, all of a sudden there are more important things to attend to. While they had been anticipating eating bread in the kingdom of God, when the kingdom of God arrives and they are told to come to the feast, they excuse themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with buying a field and inspecting it. There’s nothing wrong with buying a farm implement and looking it over. Nor is there anything wrong with marriage. God has us all things graciously. He commands us to labor. St. Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat,” and Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 3:13, “Every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor — it is the gift of God.” God gives temporal blessings as well—money, wealth, possessions—which are to be enjoyed and used to serve others. God established marriage in the Garden of Eden and still brings men and women together in holy marriage. God calls marriage “honorable among all, and the bed undefiled” (Heb 13:4). God blesses marriage with the gift of children who are to be raised in the training and admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4).
There is nothing wrong with the blessings God gives in this life. But there is something wrong—something terribly wrong—with using the blessings of this life in such a way that they become excuses for refusing the great supper God has prepared and offers—not in the future—but right now. We see this all around us in the world. Where is true life to be found? Many prioritize their labor, their job, their career, and the status and worldly honor it brings. Others prioritize the fruits of their labor, living for the sake of enjoying their possessions and wealth. Others prioritize relationships, misusing marriage to fulfill their lusts, or abandoning it altogether for living together without marriage, homosexual relationships, or just plain-old promiscuity. Any of the good gifts which God gives to us in this life can be turned into idols, gods from whom we seek all good things and in whom we take refuge in all distress.
The Christian is not immune from the temptation to turn God’s good gifts in idols, so that the things of this life enrapture and entrance them, so that they, too, ask to be excused from great supper of Christ until it’s more convenient for them. But Jesus reminds us in John 12:24, “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” To love your life means to prefer this life to Christ and God’s kingdom. To hate your life in this world means to prefer Christ and God’s kingdom over above life in this wretched world. Christ is our life. To live under Him in His kingdom of grace is to enter eternal life now, so what we enter into it fully whenever the Lord calls us from this life. To love life in this world more than Christ to love God’s good gifts more than Christ, even to love father or mother, son or daughter, more than Christ, is to make oneself unworthy of Christ—the great supper of forgiveness, life, and salvation God has prepared. So, the master of the house says in the parable, “None of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.” They loved their lives in the world more than their true life—Christ—and forfeit the gospel and kingdom.
But the Lord wants His house to be filled. So, he tells his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.” When the servant says that he’s already done this but there’s still room for more at the supper, the master says, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” These are the people who hear the invitation and rejoice that they’re invited to the great supper where all things are now ready. Those who excused themselves and refused the master’s offer wanted to treasure this world, their sin for just a bit longer, and later come to the feast. But the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind, those on the highways and sleeping under hedges, are those who hear the invitation to the Great Supper, “Come, for all things are now ready,” and rejoice that nothing is to be brought to the supper. They also willingly lay down the love of this life for the sake of entering—and remaining in—the kingdom of God. This doesn’t mean they forsake their labor, their possessions, and their marriages. Those are good gifts of God. It means they repent of setting their hearts on the good gifts of this world, misusing them, and making idols out of them.
Entering into the supper—the kingdom of God in which we daily feast on Christ and His blessings by faith—then fills us with love. And our love for one another—especially the brethren, our fellow Christians—is how we know that we have passed from death to life. Having entered the great supper already by faith in Christ, and experiencing His love in the gospel, we love one another. What does love do? John says in the epistle, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
How did Christ love us? Not with words only, as if that were what love is, but in deed and truth. He sacrificed Himself for us, so we sacrifice ourselves, our time and our desires to give to the brethren in need. If we have this world’s goods love opens our hearts to the brethren in need so that we share this world’s goods with them. Loving Christ above the things of this world—even the good gifts God gives us—enables us to use the things of this world properly, for God’s glory and the blessing of the brethren. Only by entering the great supper in which God graciously prepares all things for us, can we go forth from this place, filled with Christ—filled with Christ’s love—to enjoy this world’s goods in a godly way, with thanksgiving, and sharing them because we love the brethren. Amen.
