Excuses, Excuses

We continue in Luke's Gospel now at chapter 14 and we're still at the Pharisee's house.
The Pharisee, the prominent Pharisee there where Jesus is having some table conversation
and in to some degree some uneasy table conversation with his table companions.
Let me pray as we open up God's Word together.
Father we thank you for your Word and we thank you each week for it and we know how important it is
for us as believers to come under your Word, to submit to your Word each day of our lives
and it is so good that we have this opportunity now on our Sunday mornings to come and
refresh our minds, refresh our hearts as it is spoken, as we learn together from your Word.
Let us be hearers of your Word we pray this morning, let it sink deep into our hearts and
let us apply the Scriptures to our life that we may be truly obedient believers
and fruitful Christians this day we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Annie and I share the same year of birth and so when we were about to turn 30 we toyed with the
idea of having a combined birthday party, a combined 30th but for whatever reason,
I can't even recall the reason now, whatever reason we decided against it.
But my mother-in-law instead decided that it simply wasn't good enough
and so rather belatedly she began organising a kind of surprise 30th for us.
Now as it turns out many of the people that were invited were not able to make it.
Our best and closest friends simply had something else on and they could not change their plans.
But the place had been booked and could not be cancelled without some substantial financial loss.
So my mother-in-law had no choice but to push ahead, not with a smaller sized party
but with a party filled up with guests who at best were mere or only mere acquaintances,
people that we had not seen or spoken to for years, people that we went to youth group with
10 or so years beforehand who were never really caught up since.
One such guest even asked me, what are we doing here?
And I replied rather undiplomatically, well actually I don't even know.
It didn't go down real well but that was the truth.
People came that we didn't even know, friends of friends rocked up to our 30th birthday party.
Now still it remains one of those most awkward occasions that I've ever been to,
especially when Annie's brother had an array of in-house type of jokes that only those close to
us would appreciate or even understand and of course this resulted in a smasher of uneasy
laughter and several moments of just pure cringe.
But it has to be said, at least they turned up, unexpectedly so perhaps.
Those without any appreciation of who Annie and Chris were,
those who had no shared experiences, those who do not consider themselves friends by
any stretch of imagination, they came, they ate, they celebrated our 30th with us
and it's still a very memorable occasion probably for the wrong reasons.
Now in our passage this morning Jesus tells a parable of a man who invited many people,
presumably his friends, to a huge party, a banquet.
But those invited couldn't make it, they had other things on.
So he invited others, those not normally invited to such a-lister events and they came.
And the occasion of this parable is a smaller dinner party at the home of the leading Pharisee
here in chapter 14.
The same occasion of course as last week's sermon as Vijay has just read.
Jesus just finished urging his host not just to invite those to dinner who can serve you
and who will give you a bit of social credibility but rather
invite those whom you can serve and who will not be able to pay you back.
And then after he had said that another guest in verse 15 declares with confidence,
blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.
Now it would appear that this man, likely to be a Pharisee,
believed that he would be feasting in the heavenly table with God at the end of times.
This was a typical Jewish thought, that the Jews would be eating with God in heaven
at the feast, the great feast of heaven.
But the question is should an invitation come his way?
Would he in fact accept it?
An invitation alone is not enough, is it?
So Jesus tells this story to his table companions that challenges this self-assurance.
That is, don't be so sure that you will eat at the great feast.
So let's look at this parable.
It begins with a man who sends his servants out to invite his guests to a great banquet.
Now it was the custom of the day to send out a first or an initial invitation for a banquet
of this nature, of this size, and then send out another invitation
telling the guests that the feast was ready, the food is ready.
Such a custom allowed the host, as you can imagine, to know how many guests were going to come
so he could prepare for that amount of guests.
And I'm told in my readings that if only one or two accepted the invitation,
then maybe a couple of chickens would suffice for the meal.
If five to eight, then perhaps a duck.
Ten to 15, a young goat.
15 to 35, a lamb.
And for a party of 35 to 75 or more, a calf.
And so it would go.
And of course, maybe there was an array of food at this banquet.
But the point is that the host needed to know how much to prepare for.
So that's why the custom was to send out one invitation
and then send out a second one to tell them now is the time.
So in this parable we read that a man gave a great banquet and invited many.
So perhaps there was a variety of animals, as I've said, that were prepared that day,
in addition to the wine that had been bought
and other necessities that make for a feast of this size.
And so we read,
come, he says, come, for everything is now ready.
The meat is cooked.
The wine is ready to be poured.
The flute and the lyre quartet are warming up in the corner.
So come now.
Start arriving now, today, this afternoon.
Now at this point, there's nothing out of the ordinary.
This is what we'd expect to happen in the first century.
All is unfolding according to the normal and expected customs of the day.
But then we read in verse 18, rather tragically, I think, for this host,
they all alike began making excuses.
And we're giving three examples of the excuses,
but clearly it's representative of all who refuse.
There were many that were invited, more than three,
and they all alike began making excuses,
all refused to come at the appointed time.
They were prepared to forgo this banquet, this great feast,
so they could have a look at what, the land that they've just bought,
some oxen, spend time with one's wife.
Some of your wives might identify with that.
That's not a bad excuse.
But really, the reality is they were all very flimsy excuses,
bad, pathetic excuses at that.
And where such excuses were a snub, a social snub to this host,
an insult to the one who had invited them.
These were his social peers.
These were his circle of friends.
These were his business and political and no doubt religious contacts.
So much so, such was the social snub,
so much so that I read twice in two different books this week,
that such an act was equivalent to an act of war.
We can't quite understand that.
But that's the level of insult that is occurring in this parable
and occurred in some parts of the Middle East, an act of war.
And so Jesus's dinner companions would have been astonished at the rudeness,
the outright rudeness of these guests.
Either way, it was a complete and calculated rejection of the host.
And Jesus's pain is really to show how insincere, insincere rather,
each guest was.
These guests simply do not want to go because they had better things to do.
They do not see the value of attending this great feast that has been put on.
Some would argue that Jesus is in fact poking fun at these excuses.
Not unlike the student who rocks up to school and says,
the dog ate my homework.
I'm not sure if he've used that excuse before.
I had never actually seen it used.
Until last week in my SRE class, I was waiting to come into the class
and sure enough, there I was over here and one of the students say,
the dog ate my homework.
And I thought it was quite funny.
The teacher didn't see the funny side of it.
Now it's clear to Jesus's audience that none of the reasons that were given are plausible.
None are credible.
They are in fact laughable.
No one buys a block of land, do they?
No one buys a block of land without first inspecting it.
In any case, the same block of land is going to be there the next day.
Surely this man could have waited one more night to check out this block of land.
If not laughable, it's just plain stupid, isn't it?
Likewise, no one would have bought a work animal before trying them out,
let alone five yoke of oxen.
That's 10 oxen.
A yoke is the pair of oxen together.
10 oxen, you wouldn't buy even one animal without making sure that it was okay,
that it was strong enough, that it was going to do the job.
As for the newlyweds, they should never have actually accepted the invitation in the first place.
The first invitation.
Knowing that they were to be married around the same time of this great banquet.
Again, it all smacks of insincerity, doesn't it?
Where the guests simply do not want to go to the party of this man.
They had better things to do with their time.
They were simply not interested.
And so no wonder, as we read in verse 21, the owner of the house was angry.
And most agree that Jesus is speaking here of the Jewish nation,
of the Jewish establishment in particular, as representatives of all of Israel.
Those invited in this parable are seen to be the Jewish nation who rejected
their Messiah in Jesus Christ.
They simply refused to accept the kind of king, the kind of Messiah that Jesus was.
They had forgotten that being a Jew did not automatically guarantee them
entry into the kingdom.
John the Baptist, back in Luke chapter 3, alluded to this rather strongly.
Verse 8, produce fruit in keeping with repentance, he says.
This is what he was preaching to the crowds.
And do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father.
We are Jewish.
We are in.
For I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham.
The axe is already at the root of the trees and every tree that does not produce good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
The key is fruit bearing, isn't it?
The key is repentance.
The key is a life reorientated towards God, expressed now in trust and in Jesus.
That is what's been missed with the Jewish establishment.
And by and large, the Jews do not see the need
to put their trust and their faith in this Jesus that's before them.
And because of that, they effectively forfeit the invitation,
succumb into a false sense of security.
Some want to rule out that those first invited refer to the Jews or more precisely the Jewish
leaders, but I think it's difficult to rule out in the context.
For starters, Jesus's table companions, his immediate audience, in other words,
are these Jewish religious leaders, these Pharisees, these teachers of the law.
And more often than not, as we look through the occasion of Jesus's parable,
more often than not, the parables are spoken to his immediate hearers,
even though there is wider application for others.
The first invitation then refers to the promises of the Old Testament,
promises fulfilled now in the Messiah, namely Jesus.
And through the prophets of the Old Testament, God had invited the people of Israel
to share in the blessings of the coming messianic kingdom.
They were expecting it.
They knew it was in the pipeline.
They were looking forward to it.
And now this kingdom is near.
Indeed, in Jesus, it is here we read later on.
It's present among them.
The great banquet is ready to attend.
And starting with John the Baptist and then with Jesus's own ministry,
Jesus now says, come, for everything is ready.
That was his message.
That was his preaching.
Come, now everything is ready.
The message is clear for these Jews, isn't it?
In Jesus, God's kingdom has come.
Those who here are invited to join Jesus in the kingdom, in this great feast.
It's not something then just to be celebrated at the end of time,
but rather one that can be attended now.
So come now, eat now, feast now with Jesus the King.
All the Jews had to do was accept Jesus as their Messiah.
And if they had done that, they could have then participated in this great feast.
Not something that is far off, but something that is present,
something that is tangible in Christ.
The King, their King had come.
Their Messiah had arrived.
But sadly they refused, didn't they?
They refused to act on the invitation that they had received.
The religious establishment was simply not ready
and not willing to accept this invitation.
They refused to believe.
Spurning the divine invitation to acknowledge Jesus as their King.
Spurning the invitation to enter this great feast.
And so we have an invitation extended,
an invitation rejected and flimsy excuses that have been made.
So back to the parable.
The original guests had said they would come.
The owner of the house had counted on them coming.
He had prepared the beast or two and possibly other animals
and he begins to roast them in preparation for this great meal.
What was he going to do now?
The meat's cooked or cooking.
What was he going to do with a meal with such a large number of people, of guests?
There's no refrigeration.
Meat would have had to be eaten within a day of cooking.
Such was a waste, wasn't it?
A waste of food.
Such wasn't the expense.
So what is he to do?
Notice in passing he doesn't attempt some sort of retribution.
He's angry.
Most of us would be quite annoyed if we were the host.
He's angry for sure but he doesn't plot the downfall of those who refuse to come to the feast.
He doesn't wage war as might have been the custom in certain parts of the Middle East at the time.
He doesn't do that.
No, instead he instructs his servants to go out,
invite those who would have been marginalised in society,
despised even in good Jewish society.
Those who would never have been invited to this man's house under normal circumstances.
Those who would never have thought to have a chance to attend such a feast.
They are now invited.
Those who would appreciate his hospitality.
And so he orders his servants to brin in the guests in verse 21.
Now in one sense that's just a turn of phrase, that word brin.
But there is a sense in which these guests needed help, didn't they?
Notice how that they are predominantly unable to help themselves.
A crippled person, a blind or a lame person could not ordinarily make it to such a party.
They would have needed assistance.
Brin them in, help them to come in, in other words.
In the cultural context these types are the very ones that the Pharisees and Judaism
in general thought were unworthy.
Unworthy.
They were the despised ones.
Unable because of various physical or mental defects to participate in the religious rituals
as a good Jew was able to do.
They were considered to be unclean.
They wouldn't participate in the wider society.
They were the outcasts.
An outcast that we often meet in the gospels.
These are the ones whom Jesus had more often than not compassion for.
These were the ones who were healed and restored by Jesus.
And it's these ones in the parable that do accept the invitation.
They come.
They come.
But we read there is still more room at the table.
So again the owner of the house instructs his servants to go out to now the roads and
the country lanes further out from the city.
We read in verse 23.
But now there's a little bit more force here.
The servants are told, make them come in.
So says the NIV.
Now some of your other translations and I think it's right that this word is best
understood as one of compelling.
It's a much nicer word too of compelling.
That is they are not being forced in any way.
But the servants are there to urge and to persuade these folks now to come into this
great party.
Perhaps here they needed some persuasion and convincing.
This sort of thing doesn't happen.
The Jews don't generally extend their invitations to the people who live in the country lanes.
Those who would not normally fit in there within their social and the religious network.
They never get invited to a Jewish meal, let alone an A-lister party like this one.
So they need to be compelled.
But notice that they also come.
They don't spurn the invitation.
They come.
He's prepared a feast and now he wants his house to be full.
And in doing so here he breaks all social customs of the day, doesn't he?
But he's got a house full.
He's got a party.
He's got the feast that he wanted.
Now this third round of offers most likely referred to the Gentiles.
A people who are more despised and shunned than outcast Jews were in the first century.
And under normal circumstances these two groups had little chance to, as in the second two
invitations, those the outcast Jews and now the Gentiles.
These two groups had little chance to ever participate in God's kingdom.
They were effectively cut off from being able to share in the blessings that were for the
people of God.
And sadly this was done, this cutting off was done by God's very own people who made
it increasingly difficult to convert to Judaism of sorts.
And so this Jewish religion had become an exclusive affair.
Not one where there were any longer the light to the Gentiles as they were instructed to
be.
That light had long gone out.
That light had long been extinguished.
But that was their role, wasn't it?
To be a light to the Gentiles.
To woo them in.
To worship the one true God.
But they failed to do that.
But what we find here in this parable is that those Gentiles are now invited in.
They were once far off but now they are brought near as Paul will declare later in his letters.
It's a great picture of God too, isn't it?
He's not bound by social custom or status.
He's not constrained by tradition.
No, his grace extends the invitation, extends the invitation to all, doesn't it?
No longer the in-group.
His grace extends it out.
And we see this in Jesus' own ministry right through the Gospels.
His ministry is to those who needed his help, irrespective of social background or status.
And we have to wonder, won't heaven be full of sinful undesirables just like you and I
because of God's grace, because of this wonderful extension of the invitation.
No longer to just one nation, now all nations.
And so we see in this parable at the end of the day,
those who never thought that they would be invited, they come.
They fill the house.
They party and they celebrate.
They eat and drink at the great feast.
But for all those who refuse to come, well, they won't now be able to get in.
Verse 24, the host says that not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.
The door has been shut.
Once rejected en masse as Israel did her Messiah,
she can not now return and knock on that door of that house.
Not that individuals can't come, of course, through faith in Christ,
but as a nation, she can no longer welcome her Messiah.
They have missed the opportunity to accept Jesus as their King.
The Jews were told right from Old Testament times to be ready for their Messiah.
The invitation had been sent, which they accepted at first.
They said, yes, we want to be part of this new kingdom.
But when the time came, they spurned the invitation, didn't they?
Blinded by preoccupation with their own lives, their own traditions, their own religion even,
they refused to enter the great feast.
That had been made ready for them.
And now, and now it is too late.
And there are two things I think worth noting from this parable of Jesus.
And I know I run the risk of being a little bit repetitive,
as we've seen some of these points made over the last couple of weeks.
But I think the importance is too great to let them slide by.
Firstly, we see that God still extends his invitation to the many.
However, we take this parable and the import that it was
to Jesus's first original audience, namely the Jewish leaders,
the fact remains that God still graciously extends his invitation to the many.
But the many is no longer, as I've just said, no longer just one nation,
but many nations to all people.
The invitation to share and to participate and enter his kingdom is still active, isn't it?
And that means it's active for you and I.
You have your wall and having been in this church for a while now,
have heard the gospel being preached in one way or another.
You've heard the need to trust in Jesus.
You've been invited, in other words, to participate in God's kingdom.
And Jesus says, come, come, everything is ready.
Everything is ready.
Jesus in death made it even more ready than what the Jews had in the first century.
Everything is ready.
And thus we have no excuse, do we?
We have less excuses than the Jews of Jesus's day, no excuse whatsoever.
Jesus extends his invitation to the many and the many include you and I.
But as we've seen in previous weeks, there still remains a degree of urgency to this.
A couple of weeks ago, Jesus spoke of the narrow door,
meaning the door of opportunity to enter this kingdom,
to enter this great feast is closing.
The door is becoming more narrow each day.
So get in while you can.
Enter while you still have breath.
And the day will come when that invitation,
when the gospel invitation to trust in Jesus Christ will need to be acted on,
or will need to have been acted on.
And so the question is, what about you this morning?
Perhaps you were sitting there and saying, yes, I want in.
But when it comes to that time to commit to Jesus,
when it comes to truly submitting to Jesus,
then all of a sudden you have a change of heart.
All of a sudden you have more interesting and important matters to attend to.
Yes, yes, you say, I want to follow Christ, but first I need to start a career.
I need to start a family.
I need to put effort into to secure my future.
I need to live a little, you might even say.
Code for living on the wild side
before I settle down to a lifestyle befitting a Christian.
But you cannot simply say, yes, yes, I agree with you.
I believe all there is about Jesus and what he has done.
Yes, yes, I know that Jesus died in my place.
I know that he's the only way to God and eternal life and so on
and do nothing about it.
He can't do that.
Fence sitters do not get into heaven.
Procrastinators do not and will not enjoy the feast of being
in God's kingdom for eternity.
The bottom line is you need to act today.
You need to accept his invitation today before it is too late.
Even today, many will reject God's invitation to enjoy salvation in Christ Jesus.
Many will have excuses that are simply inadequate.
I don't like Christians.
All Christians are hypocrites.
Church is boring.
I don't have time.
I have too much living to do.
I've been hurt by Christians.
I'm good enough to get into heaven.
Why do I need to trust in Jesus?
Science proves that God doesn't exist.
So they forget about it.
I'm doing fine.
Life is good.
Why do I need God?
And I'm sure you could come up with a dozen other excuses.
Excuses that you may even be using today.
But whatever excuse you have, a time will come when it will be simply too late.
Because there is simply no excuse that is credible.
None that will be acceptable before God.
And if today you are still making excuses for not following Jesus, then know this.
A day will come when all excuses will seem like a bad joke.
For no excuse is worth eternity without God, is it?
No excuse is worth spurning eternal life with Christ Jesus.
And the bottom line is this.
The invitation has been sent.
But will you be at the party?
Will you be at the party?
Let me pray.
Now, Father, it's very hard to read the Gospels.
It's very hard to read Jesus' teaching even over the last couple of weeks
and not have a sense of urgency.
Not have a sense that today is the day of salvation.
Today is the day that I need to repent.
Today is the day that I need to put my trust and my life into the hands of Jesus.
Father, I pray that for each one here that has not done that,
I pray that they would not simply put the invitation of eternal life back into the envelope.
Put it up on the bookshelf and say, I'll get to that another day.
Father, I pray that there'd be a deep sense of necessity
to be able to respond to that invitation before it's too late.
Help us to forget about making excuses.
Help us not to think of all the things that we think in our own sinful minds
that are more important than put in our faith in Christ Jesus.
Father, help each one today to take these things seriously,
to have a sense of urgency and to one day participate in the great feast of heaven.
In Jesus' name we pray it. Amen.