A few years ago, a Seattle-area bride named Dana Olsen and a Sacramento-area bride named Quinn Duane had a couple of unusual and unique things happen to them within weeks of each other. Not only (a) were they stood up by their respective fiancées mere days before their wedding, but also (b) because the deadline for getting a refund from their caterer and venue had passed, they opted to turn their wedding reception into a gift for the area’s homeless … to open up their party and provide a four-star meal with music and dancing—an event that cost in the tens of thousands of dollars—for those that were less fortunate and would typically never be invited to that kind of event. When these two brides found themselves stiffed by their husbands-to-be and couldn’t get a refund on their reception arrangements, they contacted an area non-profit that served the homeless and asked if they wanted to provide an evening to remember for their clientele. The answer, of course, was “Yes!”.
Some people may wonder how these two brides came up with this idea. But many of us know this notion wasn’t original with them but, in fact, stems from a story Jesus told—a story that teaches us something very important and essential as it relates to how God’s Kingdom operates and the attitude we, as His followers, need to maintain. For if we see what happened in this story as nothing more than what those two brides-to-be were doing after they were stood up by fiancées—if we see it as an attempt to salvage a difficult and unwanted situation and do something nice with food that would have otherwise gone to waste—we’ll miss it. So … lets look at the story Jesus told:
When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one 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 compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”
To really understand what’s going on, we need to realize Jesus told this story about a fictional dinner party while he was actually attending a gala hosted by a prominent religious leader. However, Jesus wasn’t included in this event because the host wanted to honor or pay tribute to him. His reason for receiving the invitation was much more dark. It says in the first verse of this chapter he was invited because the host and some others wanted to watch him. They wanted to trap him or find him saying or doing something they could seize upon to discredit him.
In the next verse it says that at this dinner party, which happened on the Sabbath, was a guy who had an ailment called dropsy … a very painful disease that causes the body to swell with fluid and makes the person look bloated. Perhaps he’d been invited by the host to see what Jesus would do … how he’d handle the situation given it was the Sabbath—whether he’d observe the Jewish Sabbath guidelines or disregard them. When Jesus healed the guy, breaking Jewish Sabbath convention, a conversation broke out that no doubt had an air of contention and friction to it. This led to a story from Jesus’ lips about the importance of humility—again using the setting of a dinner party as a backdrop. He said rather than thinking you’re important, taking a seat of honor, and being embarrassed when the host asks you to get up and relocate to a less prestigious place that it would be far better to adopt a posture of humility—to take one of the more inconspicuous seats and have the host come up to you and say, “Join me up here at this more prominent place“. According to Jesus, it’s far better to be unpretentious and assume a low-profile than it is to think you should be treated as important and subsequently asked to move in the other direction because the host doesn’t share that opinion.
At some point during the evening, one of the invited guests stood up, raised his glass and, while looking directly at Jesus said, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God” (v.15). This was a formula toast—a common thing often said at Jewish gatherings. His words allude to a metaphor in Isaiah 25 where the prophet paints a picture of what life will be like when the Messiah has come and established his Kingdom. God’s people will get to participate in a sumptuous, lavish banquet—a concept the writer of Revelation picked up on and referred to as the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The typical response when this toast was offered was that the person—in this case Jesus—would respond with something to the effect of, “May we be counted amongst the righteous. May we be granted the privilege of participating in that great day.”
So … imagine the surprise when Jesus responds to this guy’s toast not with the expected response but with instead, “Hey, let me tell y’all another story.” And then he launches into an account of a host who throws a lavish dinner party and a number of invitees offer up a variety of lame excuses as to why they can’t come … excuses which cause the host to become so angry and exasperated that he says, “Open this party up. Invite anyone. Doesn’t matter—I just want a full house!” He shares a story that basically says, “Some of y’all that are so convinced that you’ll be sitting around the table at that great banquet celebration at the culmination of history—you ain’t gonna be there! And furthermore … if you were , you’d be absolutely surprised and shocked at some of those in attendance. For they’re not your kind of people!” Just as some paintings can startle, stun, and shock the audience, so this story no doubt stirred up and offended many of those who heard it. If the host’s primary reason for including Jesus in his dinner party was to come away with something he could use against him, no doubt he came to the end of the evening feeling like he had some really good raw material to work with.
To understand the point that Jesus was making with this story, you need to know a little bit about how dinner parties worked in his day. For one thing—an event such as this was a much harder thing to pull off then than it is now as they didn’t have refrigeration … electricity … running water … grocery stores … Costco. How did someone figure out how many to prepare for—how many animals to slaughter and how to time things out so none of the food spoiled? There were lots of logistical challenges. So what the host would do was issue a two-part invitation. Initially there’d be a blanket invitation where people would say, “Count me in” or “count me out” with the understanding that, if you gave you your word that you’d attend, you were duty bound to follow through. This would give the host a number as to how many to prepare for and then, a few days later when everything was ready—when all the animals had been slaughtered, the produce harvested, the bread prepared, and the wine secured—the host would dispatch a servant to say, “Hey, we’re ready to go. Now’s the time to come.” When that second invitation came, it was expected you’d drop what you were doing and show up. In that honor-based culture, to not show up when you’d said you would was considered a slap in the face.
That helps us understand what’s going on here. Here are three people who responded to the initial invitation and then, when all the prep was completed and the party was ready to go, said, “Sorry—I’ve got other stuff I need to attend to.” And their reasons, while they may seem acceptable and legitimate to us, were actually pretty offensive and insulting. First—the process of buying and selling land in that day was so involved and complicated—it required such a level of due diligence—that for someone to say, “I’ve got to go check out this land I just bought” came off as lame. Second—for someone to say they had five oxen and needed to try them out would be like me saying to my wife, “Honey—I just bought five used cars sight unseen off Craigslist and need to see whether they have tires and if they’ll turn over and crank.” No! And third—weddings in the ancient near east were planned months in advance and involved a party and reception that lasted up to a week. They weren’t sudden and unforeseen things. So, the “I’m married and can’t come” excuse is the equivalent of someone saying, “Something unexpectedly came up” when you know they’re just making it up. In each case, the reason offered had the feel of “You need to understand I have other stuff I want to do with my time, and those things are more important to me.”
There’s some obvious symbolism here that everyone present would have immediately picked up on that helps us understand Jesus’ main point. The recipients of the host’s initial invitation were the Jews. Many years earlier, God had established a covenant with the nation of Israel. He invited them to be his special people—a nation that could serve as a beacon to the rest of the world as to the reality, character, and goodness of Yahweh. The Jews were His chosen people. When God extended this invitation, they signed on and indicated they’d be glad to be in covenant relationship with Him. But over time, their chosen-ness gave birth to feelings of superiority—to being favored … preferential … better than others. And when it came to upholding their side of the covenant—when it came to living according to the guidelines needed for this covenant relationship to function the way it was meant to—they were full of excuses as to why they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do it. So God, represented by the host, says if they’re not going to come to the banquet, then open it up to whoever wants to be there. If they’re going to offer up an array of excuses as to why they don’t want to live in covenant relationship with me, then expand the invitation. Open it up to whoever.
If we’re not careful, we can misapply this story and conclude that what Jesus is teaching is that making the gospel available to the Gentiles is his Plan B … that because the Jews failed and came up short in their efforts to live out the implications of their covenant with him, He had to reluctantly devise an alternative arrangement and those of us who are not of Jewish origin are the fortuitous recipients of this backup plan He grudgingly forged. No! For while it is true that God initially started with the Jews—that’s where He began in the process of revealing Himself to humanity—His plan from the very outset was the whole scope of humanity. His hope was that the Jews would live winsomely different lives and be a witness to the world—that the example and character of how they lived would fascinate and attract the rest of the world and open them up to the reality of who God was to where they’d want to connect with Him. But it didn’t work because the Jews failed to uphold their end of the bargain.
What I believe Jesus was doing with this story was two-fold. First, he was calling out the arrogance and spiritual presumption of many of those in that room. Having lost sight of the responsibilities that accompanied their covenant with God, they pridefully believed that they, as God’s chosen, were good to go spiritually “just because”. He was calling out their pride which caused them to overvalue and distort their true spiritual condition. And second—I think he was also providing a rationale for why He spent so much time with people most of those sitting around the table considered undesirable riff-raff … why he hung out with the despised, the outsider, the overlooked, and the outcast. As he said, “It was the sick people that needed the doctor—not the healthy!”. Because the Jews had rejected God and were full of excuses, he spent his time with those that were receptive and open—the tax collectors … the prostitutes … the pariahs of society.
Where I think you really get the point of this story is when you compare the two groups that received invitations. The recipients of the original invitation were people you’d describe as self-assured, self-sufficient, and satisfied—people who believed they were worthy. They were the religious folks; they showed up at the right times and did all the supposedly right things. But they were the group that, in Jesus’ story, was full of excuses; they had other stuff going on and were preoccupied with other matters to where, when it came to doing what needed to be done for the covenant to work, they couldn’t be bothered. So … an invitation was extended to a second group—people that were needy … broken … handicapped … had lots of baggage … folks who knew they weren’t worthy. They were much more open to the invitation. And they responded.
Here's the challenge for us. Many of us in North America resemble those in the first group. We live respectable, contented, satisfied lives. Not to say we don’t have problems but we, for the most part, have it very, very good. But we need to recognize that when it comes to salvation and being a part of God’s family, none of us is worthy or deserving. Yes, grace is free—it comes to us as a gift! But just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s without cost. In fact, quite the opposite. It was tremendously costly! Jesus paid an unbelievable price to extend to us the invitation to be in relationship with Him—a price none of us is deserving of. So, we must never become so prideful and presumptuous that we assume we’re good to go. Cause that’s not how it works. The banquet isn’t prepared for those who think they’re worthy; it’s offered to those who know they’re not. We must never forget where we came from and lose our humility … as it is the foundation for how the Kingdom of God operates. It is pride that goes before a fall, but God gives grace to the humble.