A Timely Table

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February 28, 2016 - Third Sunday in Lent

Luke 14:15-24

15 One of the dinner guests, on hearing [a parable], said to Jesus, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. 17 At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ 19 Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ 20 Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ 22 And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ 23 Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

Sermon: A Timely Table

People will go to extraordinary lengths to get out of doing what they just don’t want to do.  A hilarious example of this is a list of real-life excuses given for missing work, according to CareerBuilder.  Here are my favorites:

I can’t come to work because I just put a casserole in the oven and don’t want it to burn.

My plastic surgery needs some tweaking to get it just right.

I accidentally got on a plane.

I had a gall stone I wanted to heal holistically.

An honest one: I woke up in a good mood this morning and didn’t want to ruin it.

And, my very favorite excuse for missing work:  I put my uniform in the microwave to dry, and it caught fire.

I feel like we could easily add the excuses given in this parable of Jesus to the list.  He’s teaching that same dinner party as last week about hospitality and humility, and describes a great dinner.  Many people are invited, but they each, in turn, give excuses for why they’re too busy to come, including:

I bought a field and need to go stare at it.

I bought some oxen and need to take them for a spin.

I am married.

Don’t you just hate when you have to tend to your oxen and so miss out on a nice dinner?

The host of this parable is not impressed by their excuses.  He decides to widen the invitation, and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.  These folks, who actually might have reasons to decline because they can’t walk or see, don’t hesitate.  They accept the invitation immediately. 

People who have very little understand the meaning of giving and receiving hospitality in ways we privileged folks simply don’t.   I’m reminded of an experience in Broken Bow, Oklahoma years ago.  I went there as part of a campus ministry group on a mission trip to work with our Native American Presbyterian sisters and brothers.  (There are actually a lot of Native American Presbyterians!) 

We spent a week with Choctaw people.  Their story was a common one in our country, as they forcibly migrated on the Trail of Tears, and settled in that beautiful area.  Soon, white immigrants also settled there, and challenged the Choctaw understanding of land ownership – a belief that each individual Choctaw could use land for their benefit, but that no one actually owned the land.  Eventually, a government allotment program was adopted, white folks began owning the land, and the Choctaw people mostly descended into poverty. 

The Choctaw Presbyterian church we worked in was an example of that: deteriorated floors, lack of accessible sidewalks, worn and weathered pews.  We worked at replacing flooring for them and making other much-needed repairs, and on Sunday, we worshipped with them.  These Choctaw Christians, who had so little, fed us with incredible extravagance and generosity, piling tables with the wonderful food of their people.  They, like the second group invited to that dinner party in our parable, knew the meaning of hospitality given and received, and immediately responded with grace.  The grace to give and receive blessing.

Wealth sometimes seems like a blessing.  People who have it often call it that.  This parable reminds us it is not.  In fact, wealth can stand in the way of God’s blessing.  It can distract and divide, and make us forget that we need one another.  After all, the landowner missed that great dinner party because he was too preoccupied with his land.  The ox owner missed it because he was too preoccupied with his newest possession.  Even marriage in those days was something of a financial transaction between a father and a husband.  Money got in the way of people immediately accepting that gracious invitation.  It often gets in our way of responding to God’s call. 

But here’s the good news: after those on the margins of society were brought in to that great feast, there was still room.  Reflecting the abundance of God’s heavenly kingdom, the servant was sent out once more to draw people in.  The host has him do this for a very simple reason:  “so that my house will be filled.”

Here’s where this text gets really exciting!  (At least for your nerdy preacher.)  That word filled is so very telling about what this dinner party parable was all about.  This word is only used in this way eight times in all of the New Testament.  And if you explore those, you begin to see what kind of “fullness” Jesus was talking about:

This word is used when the purification pots are filled to the brim with water at wedding of Cana.  Jesus’ first miracle.

This word is used when the disciples are in a boat with Jesus and a storm comes, filling the boat with turbulent water, until he awakens from his sleep and calms the storm.

This word is used when fragments of a boy’s lunchbox fill enough baskets to feed 5,000+ people.

This word is used when Jesus was given a final drink on the cross: a sponge filled with vinegar.

And finally, this word is used in the book of Revelation, when incense and prayers of the saints fill heaven at the altar of God, and when the temple is filled with the smoke of God’s glory.

“Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.”

Do you begin to get a picture of what kind of fullness we’re talking about here?  God’s vision of a dinner table is one where fullness happens, not just a stuffed tummy after too many rolls, but a radically full house, where the suffering servant Christ is the host, where miracles happen, where food and grace are in such abundance that there’s even some leftover when all have been fed, where overwhelming moments are calmed with a word of peace, where prayers and holiness swirl around and within everyone there. 

This fullness stands in direct contrast to the fullness we often try to purchase for ourselves.  It can’t be bought with money or status or power or privilege.  This fullness of Christ is a gift of grace alone – something those on the margins seem to grasp in ways we comfortable people often do not. 

In Christ, we are invited to an abundant feast, not just in heaven, but here, now, this day.  But we cannot serve God and wealth.  We cannot wait or make excuses any longer.  God’s vision of a full house will happen whether we accept the invitation or not – after all, the dinner party still went on.  But how tragic it would be to miss communion with Christ and those on the margins because we don’t think we have time for it!  There is still time.  There is still room.  The household of God is not yet full.   I have a feeling it never will be.  Amen.