“The Table is Set!”

There are plenty of people in this world, most certainly, and more than there ought to be of those who are considered a part of this congregation, especially… to whom God is continually extending the unheeded invitation to the benefits of His visitation and of His majestic grace. There are many (because of all too worldly pursuits) who can’t seem to spare the time in order to render God praise for all His gifts or to set aside some quiet time to ponder His love for us, or to keep His third commandment and remember His Sabbath.  To such I must say – for those who cannot endure God’s “little whiles” with us now, don’t expect to be entering into God’s long whiles in heaven later on. 

Sad to say, many who need this warning are not present among us, and several of them have been absent for some time. Still, this parable causes us, who are regularly in the pews to hear God’s Word, to take to heart the import of our own serious and continued participation in the divine service, preaching and teaching, and in the Lord’s Feast, even as we see the Final Day approaching!

Right now, the invitation is going out to those who bear His holy name to “come to the feast,” nothing is lacking, the best of all is being offered, and the tables are set but not yet filled to capacity. Now, He has offered us His undeserved love for our lives and in answer to our sinfulness.  He is not, in any respect, treating us as we deserve… for the king has every right (and our every expectation) to hob-nob with His equals; at royal occasions where we expect royalty to attend.  He doesn’t have to make any beneficial agreements with underlings and unworthys. To all of lesser status… He remains the Lawgiver – judge and jury – over all who would transgress the Word of the King.

In the royal weddings of William and Kate, or Harry and Meghan, the masses could watch… from a distance… but the sanctuary was reserved for family, close friends, fellow heads of state, celebrities, and dignitaries.  And that’s just what we’d expect from folks of such stature.  There is no reason why you or I would have gotten a prime seat at the solemnities or the subsequent celebration.  We are common people and apparently, a distance must be maintained as proper pomp under the circumstance.

But these things hold no water in the throne room of the Most High God!  He even condescends to our level to the point at which the Prince of Peace becomes a pauper, living out our lives, living in our flesh, walking… with sandaled feet… in our footsteps, and dying – by our hands – for crimes He never committed.  Now there’s the kind of God, Lord of the Universe, who would invite us to His palace, into His banquet hall, to saunter up to His table, and the feast He has prepared, and He invites us, without the proper pedigree, to eat from the royal menu the same as the Prince! 

Today’s parable is set at the end of two other pertinent parables which deal with God’s grace and our response.  Earlier two sons, members of the same family… having the same Father…  are asked to do the Father’s bidding but one serves Him in word only and walks away from the promised task.  The other vacillates… at first, he balks… and then obeys, and we are asked, “Who is really the faithful one?”  Whether Gentile, or Jew, the one who is faithful is always the one who takes the Lord at His Word! Or as St. Luke says, who hears the Word of God and keeps it!

In the second Parable, the tale of the tenants of God’s vineyard is offered, which puts Israel in such bad light, with its history of killing the prophets of God and getting such a fill of Jesus that they are presently thinking of ways to be rid of Him, that when Jesus says that the Son will come at His Father’s bidding to gather the Father’s rightful due as landlord… the tenants will kill Him in order to garner for themselves the inheritance.  The leaders recognize that their hidden wishes have been found out.   Judgment, the most dreadful of judgments, awaits all who would silence the Father’s Son and any of His delegated spokesmen.

Yes, in ever increasing ferocity, while God – in ever increasing intensity – extends the offer of grace to the undeserving, judgment is meted out where rejection has been the people’s response.  I might remind you that “complacency” as well as “complicity” is deserving of condemnation!

It is my job to make you uncomfortable enough…  to squirm just a bit…  to prod you to reconsider how seriously in the here-and-now you are taking God’s commands and promises, His judgments and gifts, His status versus your own and all that not doing His Will implies.

When He extends an invite, we have no option but to receive what He is freely offering.  It’s not like you are going to get something better by the sweat of your own brow, because you’re not!  Even this bread and wine feast offered today is seen by the eyes of true faith and humble hearts as better than steak and potatoes because steak and potatoes will fill our stomachs for a time and then we will be hungry again, but only that feast of bread and body, wine and blood, satisfies for an eternity with the promise of eternity.  You can’t afford to view what we do any other way!  To discount what happens here, in the pew or at this altar, is to despise God’s invitation.

So, then to ignore the invite is to ignore the king or rather the God who offers it.  To decline the feast is to decline the grace and goodwill of the meal maker and the host of that feast.  To forego the “garment” the king provides is to say that your own rags, your own “filthy rags,” are good enough, which is a fragile delusion soon enough proven woefully, regrettably, and eternally wrong.  That attitude is to diminish the cost at which the king’s provisions were purchased. 

The garments we would wear for standing before the eternal tribunal – and to remain standing – were cleansed in the blood of the lamb, and in divine theology and throughout Biblical history “the blood of the lamb” forestalls death, restores life, absolves sin, and marks us as God’s own “unique” people called out of darkness into light and out of death to life. 

On that great and terrible Day of the Lord, no one will be able to offer a word of excuse, or any defense, for wrongheaded misconceptions harbored in one’s faulty heart as self-conceived spiritual insight. My charge and vocation, as “ambassador,” are to see to it that you have been warned and subsequently supplied with godly hope that will not leave you speechless on the last day but rather that on your lips as your only justification will be the name of the Son of God as the Lamb who has borne your sins away.

You are called!  The feast awaits!  The invite has been extended… repeatedly.  The Son has done His part.  The Father has prepared what He wishes us to enjoy… all to exacting detail. 

Those who have not considered themselves worthy (because they are not listening to God’s Word but rather to the devil and their own deceived hearts) still will not be able to say that God came up short in any respect to their needs.  But neither will they be able to claim special status and reconsideration on account of who their ancestors were or from what sort of people they originated.  God shows no partiality!  God does not judge on an outward basis only, but He thoroughly knows our thoughts and our loyalties!  You who are among the “chosen” know who you are and it will be finally confirmed that only through true faith in Jesus, by true confidence in His righteousness, in the diminishing of ourselves and in the exaltation of our Lord and Savior, will we, the humble, be exalted as He has promised.  Only by the meekness of Jesus, which we may claim as our own through faith, will we, the meek, inherit the earth!

As the time of this-worldly existence draws to a close, as the time of the Church militant draws closer to its culmination as the Church triumphant, and as we look more steadily and longingly toward the final revelation of the sons of God, if you are truly God’s people in Christ, you will neither ignore the signs of the times or the invitation to the feast. I can assure you that even if God’s invite to that feast is ignored by every inhabitant of this planet, it will not be God who is left with egg on His face.

So, I invite you to take more seriously God’s Word and its application to your present time.  I invite you to seriously consider your sin and sinfulness and to deal with it in God’s way and not your own.  I invite you to look steadily on the whole life and the cross of Jesus and there to find the foundation, the substance, and the zenith of your whole being. I invite you to enter into the heavenly places and eternal life by the only way possible… relying alone on the One who is Christ our Lord, the Son of God!

For forty years now, I have been pointing out that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts by nature, that His ways are higher and better than our own.  It is from God’s end that the good things come. We have no good to offer Him by which He becomes better, but He has an abundant goodness to share with us by which we get better.  So, return to the Lord!  Even as He has had mercy… He will have mercy on you.  By the Spirit of our ever wise and exalted God, you must become wise.  While these days are evil, and our flesh has been evil in these days, the Lord will abundantly pardon those who turn to Him while there still is time, while the invitation is still being issued.  That presupposes that there will be a time when it is otherwise too late!  So then, nowIS the time!  Reevaluate! Redeem the time!  Repent!  And be restored and seated at the banquet table of the king.

A rabbi once summoned the townsfolk to meet in the town square for an important announcement.  The merchant resented having to leave his business… and so his profit-making.  The same for the farmer at his plow.  The housewife protested leaving behind her chores and getting way behind.  Still, obedient to the call of their spiritual leader, the townspeople grudgingly gathered to hear the announcement their teacher was to make.  When all were present, the rabbi said, “I wish to announce that there is still a God in this world!”

That was all he said… but they understood!

While they observed the required ritual and recited the requisite prayers, their actions, for the most part, did not comply with the commandments of God, nor were they motivated by His grace and heavenly love.  Their daily bread was sought and taken with little to no thought of and reverence for God. 

Plain and simple… these are the ways of our present reality.

We may not openly deny God.  We may even presume we are giving Him His due in this brief hour of the 167 hours He has given us this week.  We ought not try to confine God to some remote corner of heaven or of our lives apart from our daily doings, associations, experiences, joys, heartaches, or any commonplace things. 

Remember, God’s grace has not yet come to an end. It must be in that undeserved love and mercy that we find all that we lack, and surety for a blessed future at the feast with Jesus… all because of Jesus! 

The invitation has been extended, no excuses will be accepted, and no RSVP is needed.  So long as there is time remaining, by grace – through faith in Jesus alone – your place at the table is guaranteed!  Don’t look away!  Don’t pursue any other path!  Don’t substitute foolishness for His wisdom from above!

Instead, remain at peace in His most precious name! Trust in His irrevocable promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation!  Drink deeply of His holy Word! 

Come, and continue coming, to the Feast!  In the blood and merit of our Savior, your spot at the banquet table, nestled under the tree of life in Paradise, is reserved… These are heavenly riches never worth exchanging for popularity, profit, or power in this life! 

Yes, rather in possession of the promise and peace He won by His perfect sacrifice be constant… be comforted… and be content! 

Amen.