Luke 14:1, 15-24
Accepting God's Invitation

[1] One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. ...

[12] Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or 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."

[15] When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."

Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'

"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'

"Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'

"Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'

"The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'

" 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'

"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' "

New International Version

It's hard to tell what this prominent Pharisee had hoped to accomplish when he invited Jesus over for dinner. He might have intended to reason with Jesus, so that this popular teacher might not be so critical of the actions of the Pharisee establishment. I rather think this Pharisee was bored, looking for entertainment by exploring what he assumed would be the foolishness of this uneducated carpenter. What he got instead was direct confrontation and condemnation, and a pointed reminder that God's ways were very different from the ways of the Pharisees.

In the teaching that begins at verse 12, Jesus challenges the underlying piousness of this dinner party. It was likely a habit of these religious insiders to meet weekly for a meal as part of their Sabbath activities to honor God. Jesus warned them that doing a kindness to someone who will repay that kindness shows merely human nature, not the nature of God. For that matter, by associating only with those they considered theologically worthy of their dinner invitation, they exhibited the same arrogance that prevented them from receiving God's message and being changed by God.

In contrast, God's Way required them to offer dinner invitations to those who could not reciprocate. God's Way required them to look outside their circle of friends who perpetuated their closed ways of thinking and openly embrace the experiences of those the Pharisees considered of a lower caste in the religious order. These men so carefully controlled their religious environment that they might never have done anything out of a spirit of joyous abandon that would allow God's blessings to pour out on them.

The teaching that starts in verse 15 begins with a pious defense offered by one of the Pharisees. His comment is intended to remind Jesus that those to whom he is lecturing will receive their blessings at the "Messianic Feast" in the end time, which had become a strong part of Hebrew theology.

Jesus contradicted this man's assertion with a parable of a large feast that a rich man had been planning. Since it was the custom of that time, we can be assured that he was planning a feast that would have lasted for many days, and we can be assume this feast would have offered opulent delights to everyone who attended. The host had sent invitations earlier to other rich people he wanted as his guests, and when the time came for the feast to begin, he sent a servant to go inform these guests that the feast was starting. It was customary at the time for important people to require several invitations before they would attend a function, with the extra notifications affirming the value that the host placed on their presence. It might have even been accepted practice for these guests of higher honor to fabricate "white lies" like the ones Jesus mentioned as a way to encourage the host to send yet another invitation.

That was not the case in this parable! First, this host was not inviting them repeatedly to the party; instead, the host was announcing that the time had arrived, and they would either come or they would miss the party. The feast had started and would not wait for them. Second, the "white lies" the guests told specifically pointed to joys found in this present life, intended to warn the Pharisees not to let this world interfere with the next world. Finally, Jesus warned the Pharisees that the decisions of the invited guests to decline the invitation had permanent repercussions. It was not enough for the host to make certain his house would be full for the party, but the host emphasized that none of those who had rejected the invitation would come.

The Pharisees certainly understood fully what Jesus meant by this parable, and many of them must have seethed at the audacity of this Galilean outsider to imply that they might be excluded from the Messianic Feast! Down through history, all of us who think we have religion figured out and all of us who believe we have earned the right to attend Heaven's final banquet need to rid ourselves of the delusion that our personal merit and goodness entitles us to anything in God's heavenly kingdom.

Although we are not worthy to attend the feast, the good news is that our Host invites the unworthy to the banquet. No one of the Pharisees in attendance at that dinner would have invited the poor, crippled, blind, or lame to a feast, for the physical infirmities of these people were widely assumed to mirror equally serious spiritual frailties. Jesus didn't stop with just inviting outcasts in his parable, but has the host sending his servant into the roadways to invite even foreigners to the feast. Just as Jesus ordered the Pharisees to invite the "unworthy" to their parties, God invites us who have failed God to God's party. This is amazing good news, for Jesus assures us that everyone is invited to this feast!

The invitation to God's Kingdom, both here on earth and in Heaven, is available to us, but we must accept that invitation. When we think that God promises each of us life everlasting in God's presence, free from sin, pain, and sorrow, and described in the most glorious terms the writers of the New Testament could express, we can't imagine who would reject that invitation! But, as Jesus teaches us now, even if we love the idea of heaven, we will miss out if we allow temporal concerns to distract our focus from our eternal home. Just as Jesus taught us in Matthew 6:21, our heart will be where our treasure is.