The parable of the great banquet: Luke 14:15-24
Yeshua said to him, “A certain man made a great supper and he called many.” 17“He sent his servant at the time of the supper to say to those who were invited, 'Behold, everything is ready for you; Come.' “ 18“And they began each and every one of them to make excuses; the first said to him, 'I have bought a field, and I am compelled to go to see it. I beg of you, allow me to be excused.' “ 19“Another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to examine them; I beg of you, allow me to be excused.'” 20“Another said, 'I have taken a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' “ 21“And that servant came and he told his employer these things; and the owner of the house was angry and he said to his servant, 'Go out quickly to the marketplaces and to the streets of the city and bring here the poor and the afflicted and the feeble and the blind.' “ 22“And the servant said, 'My lord, it is as you ordered, and still there is room.' “ 23“And the owner said to his servant, 'Go out to the streets and to the place of hedges and compel them to enter, that my house may be filled.' 24For I say to you that none of those men who were invited will partake of my supper.' (Aramaic Plain English Bible).
“If someone invited you to a banquet, to a feast and I’m not talking about just any feast but the feast to end all feasts, a feast that included every delicacy, the finest of foods, roast chicken and duck, beef, kumara, parsnips, potatoes, carrots glazed with honey. Fish dishes like seasoned Salmon, buttered Trumpeter, crayfish, scallops and oysters. Pavlovas, fruitcakes, jellies, chocolate éclairs, glace’ cherry’s with cream, ice-cream’s of all descriptions, fruit salad and chocolates and a chocolate fountain, a feast that went on and on would you go?
This someone who invited you is an important someone, they have sent their servant with the invite, a white card gold edged hand embossed and signed card, straight up would any of you be takers?
The Jewish people had this historical picture, a time honoured tradition that one day when the Messiah, the Christ came he would put on a feast beyond comparison for them as a people, that this would be an extraordinary feast signalling that the Kingdom of Heaven had come to Earth through him, the Messiah. This is why in verse 15 of chapter 14 of Luke’s gospel a chapter that is all about a meal Jesus was invited to and things related to food; one of the bods who was at this meal that Jesus was at, sidled up to Jesus and said to him, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.” Jesus feedback to this man tells an interesting story about the great banquet, and the Jewish people’s response to it, well maybe all peoples response to it.
If we see this as a parable and we see the players in the story as being important to the Nation of Israel at the time of Jesus and to the birth of the Christian Church we see some interesting stuff and from there we can relate the story to the present and to our own circumstances.
Any ideas who the “certain man” that was preparing the banquet might be? Well there’s a lot of thinking around this important man being God. The feast had been forecast for many years the prophet Isaiah had said this about it around 690ish BC:
“On this mountain the LORD ALMIGHTY will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, …… – the best of meats and the finest of [things] …... (References to wine dropped as this can be a trigger to some of our recovery community) On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:6-8) Now that is some promise that The Lord spoke!
So the Jewish people knew about this feast for some time and I think what Jesus is saying here is that they were all invited, to what would be an extraordinary event, invited by the Messiah himself. Preparing a feast at that time was a big deal; the certain man would have had to have known how many guests were attending. No microwaves back in the day and meat would most likely have still been on the hoof until numbers of those attending were known. These guests had been given the nod, would have been invited well ahead of time.
So here’s Jesus relating this story and remember that Jesus was a guest at the house of a Pharisee, a group of people who largely. though not all rejected his teaching. The people in Jesus story who had been invited to the feast came out with all sorts of excuses
.
“I’ve just brought a field and must go and see it.” This bloke knew what his new field looked like, he was telling porkies, he didn’t want to go to the feast. No one in those days brought property without a protracted discussion, he knew exactly what it was he had brought. It’s a little like us being challenged by God over something, or putting some possession or thinking in the way of the relationship we have with him.
The next invited guest says something about a team of five oxen, this bloke’s work or maybe his equivalent to his tractor or car was getting in the way of his attending the feast. He put his new motor ahead of the feast. It would be like us saying I’ve just brought the latest 2014 Subaru Impreza 2.0i PZEV and I’m taking it for a spin. Or if you relate to farming it would be like saying I’ve got myself a John Deere, 2.9 litre, 5E 3 tractor and I want to put it through its paces harvesting a field of Lucerne. Could that field have waited, could that spin around the block really have been the priority that this man made it look like?
I like the next blokes answer because it gets my imagination going in three different directions as to why the bloke said it, “”I just got married, so I can’t come.” Now Hebrew men were exempt from a few things for the term of a year, if they had been married. “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.” (Deuteronomy 24:5). Now there’s a section for an employment contract, but being hosted at a banquet was no duty.
i) I wonder if his wife had straight out said no, I doubt it as it is unlikely in that culture.
ii) Did the young man think that staying home was more important, maybe he had forgotten and his new wife had dinner on the table?
iii) Was the bloke just using his marriage as an excuse not to go to the feast?
I wonder these things, because I've known of men who started out on a faith journey whose wives told them they didn't want to be involved so their husbands stopped their involvement also and visa versa. Then there are men who put on hold their relationship with God because of physical thin.s, temporary things that are less important. The third thing is that excuse, I wonder at times if some people will search or scramble for any excuse not to encounter God in an extraordinary way, sometimes the invitation is as close as they want to get? Interesting thing is that if you encounter God in an extraordinary way, you end up encountering your real self and that from personal experience, can be quite a challenge.
So in Jesus story the certain man’s servant, heads on back to the master of the feast, his master and tells him the news. “Boss I caught up with all those bods that you invited and they've all got other stuff on the go.” Understandably the master of the feast gets more than a little stroppy. I can imagine him looking around at the flash tables, the beef that has been cured for days and is now cooking and ready to eat, those ducks all dripping in orange and honey sauce, those baked veges, sweet potatoes and yams, the lobster, the special dressings, special buttered herb breads with delicate aromas, expensive goat and sheep milk cheeses and that’s just the entre. All this great food going to waste, food that’s taken days to months in preparation and it’s all going to waste.
So he sends out his servant into the streets and alleys of the town, and the lame, the crippled, the poor and the blind are brought into the feast, but the servant comes back and tells his master there is still room, this was some feast heaps of room for all who would come. So off goes the servant again, out to the roads and the hedges so that the master’s house will be full, the master is generous, he wants a full house. Now the hedges back in the day were places where people of little or no status lived, vagrants’ and drifters, those people who no one cared for. All those now at the feast; ordinary people, broken people, people without status or homes, people who were just going about life as best they could all invited to the feast to end all feasts. People who some would have been seen as cursed by God because of their afflictions are all invited to the Messiahs feast. (I like how Jesus blows the physical handicap a curse from God duck out of the water). The masters house was now full, there would not be any there who would not be at the end of the feast full, nourished and well catered for – this was to be the feast of feasts, all that was required was for those who were there was to participate.
This is a picture of the church, the certain man being God, as Jesus the Messiah, the servant his disciples, those of us who believe are also to invite others and by others I mean all others to this feast which is life as a citizen of the kingdom of God. All who come were to be accepted, the homeless, the lame, the spiritually blind, those living in the hedges of society, the Messianic feast continues. Many who were invited have not come, and many who it was thought could not be guests are guests.
There is an interesting point about Jesus ministry that Jesus does things in a different way to what we as humans consider right at times.
Often we think that people should Believe, Behave and then we will accept them. This is a very human response where Jesus; accepts people, then God himself through his Holy Spirit, through the reading and teaching of his word sorts out the other two things beliefs and behaviours often not in a given order. Our role is to invite people, to accept people as they are to participate so that they can meet with our extraordinary God. Whosoever will may come.
In Matthews gospel 21:31 Jesus answers the chief priests and elders when they question his authority at the temple, that, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Because the tax collectors and prostitutes wanted to be right with God whereas the chief priests and elders just wanted to be right. There is a massive difference when it comes to these two things, being right or being right with God, one is self-focused and centred and the other is relational. One is about self-promotion where the other is about participation beyond self. How often do people put barriers in the way of their being right with God, because of self-focus? Participation with God is enriching and results in a feast of living beyond self, participation in the Messiahs feast of living is enriching in that it takes ordinary lives, vagrant drifting lives and engages them in the extraordinary nature of kingdom living. The lives of those attending the messiahs feast give out in ways that are lasting and society altering for good, rather than lives that focus on self.
Self goes as far as me, as far as this (pointing to self).
Life lived feasting with the messiah is a life that explodes beyond, living with and for others, though this community, this city, into the whole world and into eternity.
How do you want to live, the messiah invites you to feast…the messiah invites you to live a life that is way beyond the ordinary. Will you participate?
