Banquet Lessons and Cross Carrying

INTRO

This week, we’re jumping right into the banquet at the beginning of Luke 14. Luke 14:1–24 contains the scene of a formal banquet at the home of a Pharisee.

TEACHING

Luke 14:1–6: On the Sabbath, Jesus went to eat at the house of one of the leading Pharisees. The other Pharisees were watching Jesus carefully. They brought out a man whose body was swollen with fluid, possibly from dropsy, which was a disease produced by the accumulation of water in various parts of the body. The disease was very distressing, painful, and commonly incurable. There is a chance this man was a relative of the leading Pharisee. The man just sat there. The people at the banquet kept looking back and forth between Jesus and the man.

Jesus asked the experts of the law and the Pharisees if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, but they didn’t respond. So Jesus healed the man and sent him on his way. It was an awkward, bizarre, and wonderful moment. Jesus asked the Pharisees if their son or ox fell into a well on the Sabbath, would they pull their son or ox out of the well? Again, they had no answer. Can’t you feel the uncomfortable tension permeating the room?

Luke 14:7–11: So much of the interaction in Luke happens around the table. Jesus took this awkward, uncomfortable moment and told another parable, this time giving them advice. He used a wedding banquet, which was used in both Old Testament and New Testament as a visualization of the expectation of the end times. He told them that when they entered the banquet, they should not take the best seats at the table because someone more distinguished might come later and they would have to move down the table and be humiliated. Instead, it was far better to adopt a position of modesty and wait to be invited to a better seat. The underlying message was that God exalts the humble and shames the proud—those who try to gain honor for themselves will be left humbled and humiliated. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (v. 11).

Luke 14:12–14: Then Jesus turned to the host—a leading Pharisee, the one who had invited Him—and told the host how to throw a party. Jesus told the host to invite everyone and then the host would be blessed and repaid at the “resurrection of the righteous” (v. 13–14). Jesus was not condemning holding a party with one’s family or friends - He went to such parties Himself (John 2:1–11). Jesus was condemning the attitude of doing good for the sake of a tangible, earthly reward. We should do good to those who cannot give us anything in return and leave the question of a reward to God.

Luke 14:15–21: One of the other guests at the table said, “The one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God is blessed” (v. 15). Jesus responded with another parable to say, “Yes, you admire the ideal, but you are not prepared to act on it.” Jesus told of the double invitation given to guests, something that was characteristic of ancient practice. The invitations were often R.S.V.P, and the invited guests had already confirmed they were coming. When they received the final invitation with the announcement that the banquet was ready, the invited guests began to give excuses as to why they couldn’t come. These excuses for not coming would have sounded very lame to Jesus’ audience. They might even have enjoyed the humor of the story—until they realized that, in Jesus’ eyes, this was how they were treating God’s invitation to them.

In the first excuse, the guest said he needed to look at a field he had already bought. In reality, he would have examined the land before and may even have been legally obligated to go to complete the purchase. But late notice would be heard as a weak excuse that would serve as a grievous insult to the dignity of the host. Another excuse was the guest needed to try out the five yoke of oxen he had bought. First, five yokes of oxen meant the man was a wealthy landowner. It would have been inconceivable the guest would have done the work himself, rather than one of his servants. A third excuse was the guest had just gotten married. This one is closer to being a legitimate reason. Deuteronomy 20:7; 24:5 says that a man during the first year of marriage, he was exempt from going to war, but not for skipping the feast he had promised to attend. The statement, “I ask you to excuse me,” is better understood as, “I am telling you that I am excused.” The first excuse was about

possessions, the second about having to work, and the third about personal affections (three things people still prioritize above the kingdom today). Jesus basically said, “Your excuses excuse you.”

Then the host’s servant was sent out to bring in everyone they could find off the streets—the seedy, the sleazy, and the beggars. This was unheard of, but the image is what makes Jesus’ parable so powerful. Jesus’ message was exposing that the people of the street—the shamed and the disreputable—were not invited to the kingdom’s table.

Here are banquet realities I want you to hear today:

1. God offers His banquet to ALL, and He sends His servants out to invite and bring them (v. 23). People have a choice to come to the banquet or to turn it down. Have you looked at your excuses to the Master lately?

He calls us to love Him more than anyone else. Verse 27 uses the word “hate,” but it’s best understood as “love less” or “to renounce” in terms of primary allegiance (Luke 6:27). The love for Jesus must be greater.

We can’t carry our own cross. His audience understood that reality because crucifixion was a common event. “Carry his cross,” literally means to be ready for martyrdom. Those who heard understood the level of commitment. Jesus told two stories to help them grasp it (vv. 28, 31).

First, how foolish is the builder who couldn’t finish a building project because he ran out of money? In A.D. 27, a poorly built amphitheater had collapsed, causing an estimated 50,000 casualties. His audience remembered that. Second, how foolish is an army commander who didn’t calculate strength of his army before engaging a stronger foe in battle? Jesus’ point was that one must recognize the cost to being a disciple of Jesus. Herod Antipas had recently lost a war with a neighboring Roman landholder, so Jesus’ audience understood the image of a foolhardy war.

There is a cost to accepting His invitation, and it may cost dearly (v. 33). and it may cost dearly (v. 33). We are to be controlled by Jesus’ ongoing call on our lives, not by things or circumstances. This is God’s plan to mature His people and church, and it has eternal implications.

CLOSING

This is both a command and a process. It’s a personal commitment to go beyond the conversion experience and to walk with Christ and others in order to fulfill the mission of the church. In a sense, Jesus was saying there are no guarantees except the promise of His presence in our lives. What cost must you pay to be a disciple of Jesus?

1 Earl Radmacher, Ronald B. Allen, and H. Wayne House, eds., Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 1263.