I don’t do well at fancy events. In my younger years, I was outrageously over the top. Once at a fancy wedding, all the groomsmen sang a rap song to the bride, but I was the only one who knew the words. At an Opera house in Washington DC, I came out of the restroom wearing a toilet seat cover as a necklace, and I was threatened to be escorted out if I didn’t remove it. I made Chewbacca noises at a live theater during a quiet contemplative moment of the show. And now as a much older person, I would rather avoid fancy events. I think I finally realized I can’t do fancy. In this week’s passage we have the parable of The Great Banquet.
Luke 14:15-24 Common English Bible
15 When one of the dinner guests heard Jesus’ remarks, he said to Jesus, “Happy are those who will feast in God’s kingdom.”
16 Jesus replied, “A certain man hosted a large dinner and invited many people. 17 When it was time for the dinner to begin, he sent his servant to tell the invited guests, ‘Come! The dinner is now ready.’ 18 One by one, they all began to make excuses. The first one told him, ‘I bought a farm and must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ 19 Another said, ‘I bought five teams of oxen, and I’m going to check on them. Please excuse me.’ 20 Another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ 21 When he returned, the servant reported these excuses to his master. The master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go quickly to the city’s streets, the busy ones and the side streets, and bring the poor, crippled, blind, and lame.’ 22 The servant said, ‘Master, your instructions have been followed and there is still room.’ 23 The master said to the servant, ‘Go to the highways and back alleys and urge people to come in so that my house will be filled. 24 I tell you, not one of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’”
One of the beautiful things we realize when we spend an extended amount of time in the gospels, we get to know Jesus more intimately. And while we see a myriad of details in the life and ministry of Jesus, there are some sort of broad and sweeping realities that come into our view. One is that though we see that Jesus wept, but there is no record in the Scripture that Jesus ever laughed. Though He told all kinds of stories that were somber and sobering, there is no indication that He ever told a joke.
Surely Jesus had a sense of humor… right?
The Luke chapter fourteen scripture surely seemed to the listeners as if He was telling a joke. This story would be received by the Jews as laughable, ludicrous, ridiculous, impossible. No such scenario could ever happen. Inconceivable, this is a joke without a punch line. Invited guests to a great feast prepared by a wealthy man as indicated by the fact that it was a big dinner and many were invited would be the pinnacle of social life, the high point. For important people to hold such banquets and to fill them with those invited guests was to receive not only a great meal prepared for you, not only great honor for being there, but to enjoy great music and the fun and the fellowship that went along with the celebration.
This was the pinnacle of Jewish social life in a rather mundane and boring world of existing in an agricultural environment or eking out an existence in the city, in the routine of trying to get enough for food, which was a daily battle because you had to prepare your own or have someone do it for you. To have a great feast prepared for you and to be invited by a very prominent person could be the highlight of your life. This just wouldn’t happen; that people who had accepted an invitation would then refuse to come, and the rich man would fill his banquet table with the riffraff, and the outcasts of society would be absolutely absurd.
So, what is Jesus trying to communicate with this parable?
How can the preceding verses in John chapter fourteen help us decipher this parable?
Does this parable mean anything to us two thousand years later?
Let’s talk about it on Sunday.
~ Pastor Dustin