The Great Banquet
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Scripture: Luke 14:15-24
15 One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to Him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Read more…
Scripture: Isaiah 25:6-9
6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
This is my 11th birthday party.
Birthdays in my family were always a big deal. We invited a limited number of friends. There was cake. There were games. My dad did some storytelling. We dressed up (have a look at that frilly, pink, satin number I was wearing). The only reason a friend wouldn’t come would be if she was sick. What hurt would I have felt if I’d invited my friends and they hadn’t come? I imagine I would have felt pretty rejected, unloved, unimportant.
Jesus told a story about a person who decided to throw a huge party – a banquet. He sent out the invitations. He planned the menu. He decorated the great hall. And one after another his invited guests told him they weren’t coming. They weren’t sick; they just had ‘better’ things to do. He obviously wasn’t important to them. Or maybe they’d been to so many banquets at his house that it wasn’t special anymore. Regardless of the underlying reasons, none of them showed up. But rather than letting all the food and decorations and planning go to waste, he sent his servants out to invite whoever they could find. And he filled his banquet hall with people who’d never eaten food like that before – who’d never before stepped foot into such a grand residence.
Jesus told this story when someone in the crowd of listeners exclaimed, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” He told this story in part to shine a light on the fact that not everyone who’s invited to ‘eat bread in the kingdom of God’ (a.k.a. to attend the banquet God has prepared) will be as impressed by the invitation as the anonymous speaker seems to be.
On Sunday we’re going to be considering this story about the banquet and the guests who both didn’t come and did come. What was it that made them decline or accept the invitation? Do these reasons parallel the reasons people decline or accept the invitation to be part of God’s kingdom? to be a friend and follower of Jesus? As friends of Jesus ourselves, how often are we invited to something great that God is doing, only to decline the invitation because we have something more pressing or more important to do?
As you prepare for Sunday, perhaps spend some time remembering invitations you’ve received that you accepted and that you declined. What made the difference? How does your experience speak to the questions raised by Jesus’ story of the great banquet?