Banquet for all

Read > Luke 14:1-24

His master said, “Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full” (v. 23).

Recently, my wife and I got a mortgage on a small two-bedroom house. Being a young couple with very little money, this was no simple task. We had to receive a loan from my wife’s parents before the bank would even consider our case. Her parents did this very cheerfully so as not to make it awkward for us to accept their help. It was still humbling, however, to recognise just how dependent we were on them and how helpless we were on our own.

It’s the type of humility we experience when we grasp God’s invitation into His kingdom. A humility that recognises we have nothing to bring to God and that we’re totally empty-handed before Him.

In Luke, it’s the people who are content in their own lives that do not enter into God’s banquet (14:18-20). They don’t feel they need to accept His invitation. Their response is a warning to us. If our lives are too busy to make time for God, or other things become more important than Him, then we’re mirroring the lives of the Pharisees. They set their hope and pride in themselves and therefore thought they didn’t need Jesus (vv. 7-9).

But Jesus, in this parable of the Great Feast, states that it’s the helpless and the broken who receive God’s invitation. The “poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (v. 13) are in the story to represent us as we really are. We’re powerless to enter God’s banquet on our own. We need God to bring us in. And all are invited (v. 23).

As helpless people, let’s praise God that He has generously offered us places at His banquet table – though we’ve done nothing to deserve such a wonderful gift! – Chris Wale

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Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent” (Luke 5:31-32).

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How do you view yourself before God? What will you choose to do with your invitation to the feast?