Maintenance Pastor
(Maintaining the Gospel and the Sacraments)
Luke 14:15-24
Trinity Evangelical-Lutheran Church Girard, IL
June 16-17, 2012
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In the Name of the Father and of the +
Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The parable of the Great Banquet is a
summary of Jesus Christ’s mission and ministry in the flesh. Three different
groups of people will hear our Lord’s message. The differing reactions remain
unchanged through time.
What great mercy our heavenly Father has
for His children! He prepares a great banquet and invites many to dine with
Him. When all things were ready, He sends His servant to call those invited to
the banquet.
When the Father calls His invited guests
to the banquet, they all begin to beg off. One says he bought land and needs to
see it. Consider the foolishness of someone buying land sight unseen. It’s
mind-boggling that someone would place viewing newly bought land over a great
banquet, especially a banquet that he was specifically invited to attend.
Another bought five yoke of oxen and
needs to examine them. Consider the foolishness of someone spending perhaps
$10,000 on ten oxen sight unseen. One would want to make sure the oxen would do
the work expected of them before one buys them. Yet he needs an excuse to get
out of a banquet he was invited to attend.
The other is a newlywed and needs to
spend some quality time with his wife. He was given an invitation to attend but
doesn’t want to go without his wife. This is in accord with Deuteronomy 24:5,
allowing a man recently married to be free of business for one year. However
this is a political law, not a moral one. This is no excuse for not attending
the banquet.
Aren’t
you glad you don’t have a foolish excuse to attend this Great Banquet? Or do
you?
The world’s foolishness is creeping into Sunday morning more and more. There
once was a time when it was wise planning not to schedule anything on Sunday
morning. That way, no one would have an excuse not to go to church. Times
change and so do schedules. The five-day workweek is now a six-day workweek, or
even seven days. Come Sunday morning, you have to go to work, make time for
family, make time for self, or make time for anything and anyone except God. Church
no longer fits into the tight schedules of the 21st century.
What
about you? How often have you placed what you see as important things over the
food and drink of the Word and Sacraments in this Great Banquet hall? What was once a
good habit of attending the Great Banquet frequently quickly becomes an
afterthought when the world barges into Sunday morning. All that the Church gives you, the fullness of salvation, the Means of
Grace, the Holy Sacraments, the whole kingdom of God, is a Great Banquet? What
is your response? What will happen to you if you think it’s okay to skip the
Great Banquet this week because it will be there when you need it and the Lord
Christ returns before that next time?
Repent. Stop the bad habit of neglecting
the Means of Grace before it turns into a cancer that spreads beyond your house
into the houses of your family, your friends, and your neighbor. Stop placing
God behind self, work, play, or anything else. It’s not too late. Even now He
calls you from your hiding place in the world.
You are the one found in the highways
and in the hedges. Out of darkness you are called into the marvelous light of
Christ to commune at the banquet table of the Church. Never consider it a
matter of course that you have been baptized a Christian. The kingdom of God welcomes
strangers like you and me to dine with the Father through His Son’s saving
death upon the cross. Jesus Christ’s cross and passion wasn’t for the Jewish
people alone. Jesus died for all mankind to pay for all sin.
The Lord found you hiding with Adam,
Moses, David, Elijah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Peter, and Paul. The smart money was not
on these guys. All of them ran from their place at the Great Banquet. Still
they forsake foolishness and lived, going in the way of understanding.
Lame excuses are buried in water. Sin is
drowned that God’s grace may cover you. Holy Baptism cleanses your soul and
prepares you for more of the Great Banquet that is Jesus Christ. The washing of
regeneration and renewal prepares you for receiving the true Body and Blood of
Christ in the Lord’s Supper.
But the Great Banquet isn’t just the
Lord’s Supper. The Great Banquet is that call and response dance we call the
Divine Service. God speaks to you. You listen to God speaking to you and
respond back to Him. Even then He gives you the words to talk back to Him. He
brings you in front of His holy altar to confess your sin and receive His
forgiveness through His called and ordained servant. He teaches you to praise
Him for all His goodness in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. He opens your
ears and mind and heart to hear and meditate on His Word proclaimed in both the
Old and New Testament. He hears you confess the faith into which you were
baptized. He applies His timeless Word to timely application through preaching.
He receives our sacrifice of time, treasure, and talent. He feeds us with His
Body and gives us to drink of His Blood. He pronounces His blessing over you
through His name.
This time together every Weekend is the
Great Banquet. Still there is room. Still His house is not yet filled. Still He
sends men to forgive sins. Still the Great Banquet is served even when men try
to distort, change, and defy His Word of forgiveness. Still He goes into the
highways and hedges. Still He invites the poor, maimed, lame, and blind. Still
He waits for His beloved Jewish children to repent of their foolish idolatry
and return to Him through His Son, Jesus the promised Messiah. Still He keeps
you under His umbrella of grace that the rain of curses may never soak you to
the bone.
Blessed indeed are you who eat bread,
the Bread of Life, in the kingdom of God at His Great Banquet in this place
called Trinity.
In the Name of the Father and of the +
Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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