“THE GREAT SUPPER: WEEKLY & MORE”
Saint Luke 14. 16-24
2nd Sunday after Trinity: 3 July Anno Domini 2011
Fr. Watson S.S.P.
The Lord does not make you a supper because He's hungry. He makes you a feast because He loves you, knows how desperately hungry-famished you are, and delights in serving you nourishment, flavor, and joyous banqueting. He IS hungry, desirous, of your presence not just at His table but at & in His royal family! Why? Just because He IS LOVE and He loves you. That is what Grace IS and what Grace DOES.
He does not love you because you are perfect and sinless. He loves you because you are His. He made you and He loved you in the "heart" of the mysterious and sacramental Trinity before time & space (and you) even existed. He loved you even when He could foresee with His omniscience that your first parents would fall, and that you would be fallen creatures-falling every day in what you do and say and think.
It is not a snack, a brunch, or a casual buffet. It is not physical or spiritual junk-food. It is not a mere good supper (though it is good) but a "Great Supper." In this parable Jesus is talking about His Father and yours-the "certain Man." The supper is Life Eternal itself. The supper is the fruit of Christ's Bloody Suffering and Death on the Cross. The supper is the total forgiveness of sins, and your righteousness!
When Jesus says "the Lord bade many" He is speaking about the universal atonement of John 3 "for God so loved the world." It is God's desire and fervent wish to have all His created sons and daughters at His head-table of eternal refreshment and vitality.
It has been "supper time" ever since the Lord skinned the first animals to cover the naked Adam and his wife; ever since the Lord fed them "their meat in due season" and most importantly, ever since He worked faith in their heart by His Holy Ghost to believe in the Gospel of the coming Messiah! God's "servant" who says "come; for all things are now ready" is of course the Word of God Himself spoken and preached through the mouths of His patriarchs, judges, priest, fathers and prophets. From the mouths of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Zechariah, and John Baptizer comes the full counsel of Christ to Repent & Believe! The Lord desires all to turn from the poisonous swill of self and to dine on the finest of wines on the lees, and of the finest fat things full of marrow [Is. 25.6]. Every pastor is a servant of this "certain Man" who is certainly the God/Man Himself. Every Christian is likewise a servant in his own family, neighborhood, workplace and vocational settings!
But the non-believers, some for a while, and some forever do not believe. These sated pigs have glutted themselves on the devil's pods.
"They all with one consent began to make excuse." Some will wind up worshiping their own mammon be it money, talent, youth or other possessions. It is not their land, their ground, or their acreage, it is but quicksand leading to the pit of fire.
Do not let your earthly goods keep you from putting the Good One first and His Great Meal at the very center of your whole earthly existence!
Some will wind up indulging themselves with their "own" works and doings: "I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them…" Oxen are beast for work and labor. Five is the number of Moses' Books of the Law. "I" is the singular number for the solitary confined soul in hell who seeks to work his way right with the world.
Do not let your fallen nature lead you to justify yourself with your own blackened sense of goodness and industry. It is not your oxen that plow, plant, and work your way to crops, food, meals, and life. It is only the meek Lamb Who kept the Law perfectly to the very "letter." It is not the Five Books of the Law that feed you, but the Four-fold Evangel of the Three-in-One God!
Some marry a "wife" of their own choosing and thus are preoccupied with the false religion of man and not the Holy Arranged Nuptial Wedding of GOD. These strumpets and whores go by many names: atheism, Islam, pantheism, Hinduism, Scientism and Judaism.
Do not let your sins take you into a shot-gun wedding with the World for she is a Jezebel that will lead you to the same devouring dogs that ate the Biblical Jezebel's body and bones. The Holy Spirit has birthed you at the womb of Mother Church so that you might be wedded to Christ Jesus your Godly Groom. Like a bride should, you have been given and you have taken His name for your new name. He and you, the Church are the honored guests at the "Great Supper."
While God is angry with both sin, and rejection, it is always a righteous and just anger. He does not punish you for your trespasses because He instead punished the Christ. The Lord Jesus willingly and gladly suffered for all your daily wrongs. But the Lord DOES not force the rejectors against their free will to attend a repast that they "would not" go to. Instead, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, over the heathen, and over your sins. The merit and inestimable value of His tears were washed on to you in your own + "washing" for dinner. The Lord did not just scrub under your fingernails; He scrubbed away all your guilt.
Those who reject Jesus' love and brotherhood, His love and family adoption, His love and Wedding Bliss, are to be sure the Jews of His own day and all succeeding days. But the stiff-necked and obdurate scoffers of His Feast are also all gentile non-believers as well. Ethnicity and ancient blood lines mean nothing. Only Christ's Blood means everything.
Even as Jesus Himself went through the streets and lanes of the cities of Galilee and Judea; even as His dozen Royally-Appointed Ambassadors went into the streets and lanes of Samaria, Asia Minor, Achaia, Rome, Spain and beyond; even as His servants today go to the end of the earth the "poor, the maimed, the halt and the blind" that Jesus wants will be found!
There is still room! There is room here in this parish; there is room in His Holy Church Catholic for all those whom He has predestined to eternity through Grace-Worked Faith and the application of His forgiveness. It will be done. Soli Deo Gloria!
"Come for you shall taste His supper"
In the Name of the + Father and of the Son and of The Holy Ghost