There Is Still Room
Pastor Mathew Magera – 6/19/16 – Sermon 171
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace
and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
So, here’s the scene. Jesus
was out on the Sabbath having dinner in the home of a prominent Pharisee at the
time. He was being watched pretty closely as he healed a man, which was frowned
upon on the Sabbath. He even questioned the host and his guests if they would
follow the letter of the Law if their child or their ox fell into a well on the
Sabbath. So, needless to say, Jesus is not exactly the most popular person
there. Then he goes on to offer a suggestion that for banquets like this they
should invite not those close to them but rather the poor, crippled, blind and
lame. The host and guests don't really have a response here but you can imagine
they were not too happy with his suggestion. What’s so bad about Jesus’
suggestion is that it negates a social practice of reciprocity. By inviting
someone they know and is well to do, the host of the party would now be nearly
guaranteeing themselves an invitation to a party of a similar caliber by one of
the guests.
One of my favorite shows to
watch on TV is the Big Bang Theory and in this show, one of the characters,
Sheldon, has a very strange apprehension toward gift-giving because of its
social obligation to repay the gift with another gift of equal value at another
given time. This plagues him so much that he does his best to reject Christmas
presents and in one episode for standing up in a friend's wedding, receives a
$100 comic book and complains that he only bought him an $88 gravy boat and
proceeds to give the groom $12 in cash as to not be in his debt. The social
structure in Jesus' time might be as it is today whether we think of it that
way or not that if one is invited to a party, there may be an under-toned
obligation for the host of that party to be invited to your next party. So,
Jesus is implying that the Pharisees are banking on this philosophy and
therefore would not invite the poor, crippled, blind and lame because there
would be nothing in it for them. So, Jesus makes this a fine time to pull this parable
out of his back pocket.
You Are Invited To A Banquet
I posed a question online
this week about going to a party. I said that if you were legitimately invited
to a party thrown by a prominent person, how would you react? Would you go? I
did get some pretty honest feedback. One of my cousins was first to answer and
she said that she would go and have a good time. Furthermore she said she would
take the opportunity to meet as many of the guests as she could, being excited
and overwhelmed on the inside but calm and polite on the outside. Nobody said
they would not go. Interesting. So, what would you do if you were invited to a
party thrown by a very prominent person? Would you go?
We have been invited to a
banquet, the victory feast of Christ our Lord. We are invited to a feast where
Jesus is not only the host but is the main course. As strange as that may
sound, to feast on Jesus is to take in who he is and to consume him in such a
way that we reflect him in our daily living. I’ve you’ve ever heard the phrase
you are what you eat, if you’re eating Jesus it’s true. We feast on Jesus in
worship. We are fed with the Word of God. We are fed through the bread and wine
in Holy Communion. We feast on Jesus at Bible study, in our daily devotions.
Each of us are invited to this banquet. So, how would you react and respond? You’d
probably say, “yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I’m in!” So did the people
who were invited to the banquet in today’s parable. But then things changed and
I think their behavior might actually reflect that of our own.
Don’t Make
Excuses
This point needs to be heard
by us but also by those who are not here right now. Don't make excuses. Do you
have an excuse for not going to worship? Don't make excuses. I say this because
we often do exactly that, make excuses. Some of them are better than others but
they are excuses. In our parable, the Bible says they all began to make
excuses. "The first one said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go
and see it.'" I don't know anything about buying fields but would you buy
a field without first going to take a look at it? Is this really the excuse
this person comes up with? Wouldn't it still be there after the banquet was
over? It goes on, "Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen,
and I'm on my way to try them out.'" How do you try out oxen and is this
something that must be done right this very moment? I think possibly the best
excuse but still not a good excuse comes from the next one, "Still another
said, 'I just got married, so i can't come.'" I think we might all know what
that means but is it a good excuse?
I remember a story one of
our deans at seminary told. He said he was on a plane once and started up a
conversation with the person next to him. The conversation starts out fine with
the usual questions but eventually, and you just know it's coming, there is
always a question about work. So, the conversation gets to this point and he
offers that he works at a seminary and asks the other person if he goes to
church. In response he said, "You know, just before I left on this business
trip, we had a family meeting to plan out our year ahead and we put everything
out on the table that we wanted to do and of course we wouldn't have time to do
it all. So, we narrowed it down to the most important things and church didn't
make the list."
Time is likely one of our
top three excuses for not attending the banquet. God, I just don't have time. I
have other things that I need to do. God is inviting us to the banquet of all
banquets and we're making excuses. "No one should take attendance at the
messianic banquet for granted."[1]
So, as we are invited to the banquet, let's think about how we can eliminate
the excuses.
Accept The Invitation And Go
So, if we’re able to avoid
making excuses, what is the one thing we should do? We should go. Accept the
invitation and go to the banquet. After those who were invited did not come the
host of the banquet sent his servant to bring in the poor, crippled, blind and
lame and said, "there is still more room." The ones who had nothing
to repay the host. The ones who had no thought of ever being invited received
the invitation and they went. And there was still more room.
I remember this one morning
I was driving my morning routes on my school bus and as I did every morning, I
brought them in. The sleepy, the hyper, the snooty, the snotty, the sick, they
were all invited on my bus. There was not enough hand sanitizer in the world to
help me when I picked up my elementary students. But, I invited them in every
morning I stopped the bus and opened the door. They certainly had nothing to
owe me for taking them to school. On this particular day, though, as I had
finished picking up all of my elementary students and was making the 10 minute trek
back down to the school I was listening to the radio. I overheard a bus
breaking down. As the driver talked with our dispatch I listened in while I
kept one eye on the road and one eye on a bunch of 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders in
my mirror. As I listened to where the broken down bus was headed to pick up
kids, I realized that in a few minutes I would be passing by that neighborhood.
I called in on the radio and asked if I could help. The reply I got was, "are
you full?" Our school buses can legally carry 72 passengers, 12 rows and
three students to each seat. Now, as I looked up in my mirror and tried to
estimate my load, I knew I about 50 kids, which meant I had room for 12 more. I
called back in on the radio and I said, “There’s still room!” They led me to my
first extra stop. I opened the door and said, "Come on in, there’s still
room!" I picked up about 3 or 4 bus stops and my kids were not happy with
me. I'd get up and tell them to squish in saying that we had to do three to a
seat. Some stood in the aisle looking at me with a look on their face that
said, "I can't fit there and besides I don't want to sit next to Johnnie,
he has cooties" or whatever the excuse may have been. Anyway, the point of
the story is, I was able to fill in empty spots. There was still room. There
was no way those kids were going to get to school on their own. Jesus is
hosting a banquet and it’s as if we’re standing out at the bus stop and the bus
we’re depending on is not coming. Then Jesus pulls up and says “come on in!”
There is still room at the
banquet that is hosted by Jesus and the invitation that is given for us to fill
into God's house is the act of grace. There is nothing in us that warrants an
invitation to this banquet but God shows his love for each person that he has
made and invites them to come and to enjoy the banquet. Not to make excuses but
to accept the invitation and go. This invitation of course represents the
invitation to our personal relationship with God, to feast on the Word of God,
that is Jesus our Lord.
* * *
So, I say again, we've been
invited to a feast, a banquet. How do we respond? The truth is we can't help
but make excuses sometimes. Sometimes we're too sick. Sometimes the weather is
just too severe. At some point, even, we just have to admit that there are days
we'd rather do something else than go to church but it is who we are. I'm not
affirming that in any way but I'm saying that we all struggle with it and we
are all in the same boat. But, you see, in realizing that we are not perfect we
see that Jesus still offers the invitation to the broken ones too, just like
us. Jesus renews us on the inside and still offers us that invitation out of
grace. We should accept that invitation and go because Jesus reached out to us
and said, "I want you to be there because I love you." How many times
do you get invited to a party and are told, "oh yeah, and bring a
salad." or "oh yeah, and bring some rolls." or "oh yeah,
and don't forget to bring a present." It’s not that way with Jesus. You
don’t have to bring anything to this banquet except yourself. That is all he is
asking for. Stripped bare from our sinful desires, Jesus wants us there as he
created us. Jesus invites us to the banquet not so that we can bring anything but
because he has something to give us. Jesus simply invites us because he loves
us and he wants the house to be full. As broken as we are, there is still room
for me. There is still room for you. That's the power of this parable, not just
that we have a choice to accept the invitation or to reject it but that the
invitation is given to all people, to everybody. Regardless of who we are, what
we've done or where we've come from the invitation is open. There is still room
at the banquet. Will you accept the invitation? To God be the glory now and
always. Amen.
[1] Snodgrass,
Klyne. "Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of
Jesus." Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2008. Pg. 322.