Trinity 2 Sermon 2020

 

Trinity 2 – Luke 14:16-24

 

In pity, Lord, Thou cam’st to me,

Thine arms to me extending.

I heard Thy voice, “Come unto Me!”

And rest and peace unending!

Immanuel

Loves me full well;

He saves my soul from death and hell,

In perils me defending.  Amen.

 

Jesus teaches the secrets of the kingdom of heaven in parables. Jesus told today’s parable at a dinner at a Pharisee’s house.  Right before today’s Gospel lesson, a Pharisee said to Jesus, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”  So Jesus explains the feast in the kingdom of God.   A man gave a supper and invited many.  God is the one who gives the Supper.  The Supper is feasting on Christ as our Savior from sin.  “All things are now ready” means that Jesus has fulfilled God’s word by doing everything that is needed for our rescue from sin and death and hell.  The invitation is the preaching of the Gospel.  Those who reject the invitation with all sorts of excuses are unbelievers, first the Jews who rejected Christ, but this also applies to all those who have heard the Gospel and reject the invitation to feast on Christ because of worldly cares and concerns.  The servant who was sent is all the preachers of the Gospel, from the apostles to the present time.  When the Jews or others reject the Gospel, God sends His pastors to the poor and the maimed and the blind and the lame, that is, to poor sinners, who know that they are sinners and need the feast to which they are invited.  They need Christ.  God sends pastors to the uttermost ends of the earth to find those who were far off, apart from fellowship with God and His Church, and they come in and the banquet is filled.  But those who reject the invitation to feast on Christ will never taste God’s Supper.  That is the summary.  Now by God’s grace, let us learn from Jesus’ parable to repent of our sins, to believe on Jesus in life and in death, and to grow day by in grace and holiness.

 

Wisdom cries out.  Wisdom is Jesus, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians (1:23-24),

 

We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

 

And again (1 Cor. 1:30), “Christ became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

 

Wisdom cries to the simple and those who lack understanding and sense.  Those who lack understanding and sense are those who place temporal goods above the spiritual goods that God gives us in Christ by His Holy Spirit.  Temporal goods are goods in time.  Taking care of a field that you bought, training oxen, marrying – these are all goods that God gives.  But they last only in time.  For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. (1 Tim. 6:7) 

 

It is the most foolish thing in the world to ignore the preaching of the Gospel because of worldly concerns.  The mass apostasy we have seen in the Church, the great falling away, is due precisely to people valuing temporal goods over the truth of God’s Word.  We have been seeing this for some time.  Look at how parents teach their children to ignore God’s Word by putting vacations and sports games or “family time” above going to Church to feast on Christ.  Look at how people spend more time and energy making sure they have money and success and leisure than in answering the invitation to hear the good news that Jesus died for their sins. 

 

They have goods, but they don’t have the true eternal good that lasts beyond the grave.  The reason people choose not to have children is because children take away their worldly goods.  And when they have children, they don’t teach them at home about God.  Why not?  Because they value the temporal goods over the eternal good.  When their children leave home, they do exactly what their parents taught them to do by their own example.  They despise the eternal good for temporal goods.  The most common excuse for students is that they have to study.  They place their education, their own knowledge, which as Paul says, will vanish away (1 Cor. 13:8), above the invitation that Wisdom gives. 

 

Those who are sick have traditionally been kept away from hearing the Gospel, so that they don’t infect others.  But pastors have always visited them and brought the invitation to them too, as Christ commands.  But even this has ended, with nursing homes in our state barring pastors from visiting and bringing the sacrament.  The messengers are forbidden to bring the invitation to the eternal feast for concern of temporal good.  And I don’t know how many, out of fear of infection, out of a concern for worldly good, though they are perfectly healthy, think it is wise to ignore the invitation to feast on Christ as their Savior from sin. 

 

It is a question of what you need.  Those without understanding are those who think they understand.  They have very good excuses that make sense to those who have to deal with this world’s goods. 

 

The first one to whom God’s servant brings the invitation says, “I bought a field and I have a need to go and look at it.”  A better translation might be, “I am compelled to go look at it.”  He is compelled.  His desire to take care of worldly goods compels him to ignore the invitation to feast in the kingdom of God. 

 

Beware of all manner of covetousness!  A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.  What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?  When your concern for your worldly subsistence is greater than your need for receiving the forgiveness of sins, then you are compelled to reject the invitation.  What forces you?  What compels you?  Unbelief.  And you know who rules in the children of unbelief (Ephesians 2:2).  The devil makes you think that you need this world’s goods more than you need life itself.  Your own understanding will make you think that you need wealth, work, success, health, and any number of things man covets more than the forgiveness of sins that Jesus bought with His blood. 

 

Think of this!  He is compelled to reject the invitation.  By whom?  By what?  By his own understanding.  But he is simple and lacks understanding.  Professing to be wise, he has become a fool, and worships and serves the creation rather than the Creator and source of all good. 

 

It is as if someone were to give you a gift, and you were to thank the gift instead of the giver of the gift.  Thank you, Lego set!  Thank you, nice sweater!  Thank you, 12 year-old Scotch! 

 

It is so foolish, but we are all prone to this.  This is the Old Adam.  This is our flesh.  We feel compelled to follow the desires of our hearts, and we clothe our love of temporal good with what appears as wisdom.

 

The second man seems to have a good excuse too.  You can’t let the oxen you just bought go many days without training them.  They need to be trained and mastered at as young an age as possible, or the harder it is to get them to learn how to plow and pull a wagon.  The invitation interrupts his very valuable work.  So the Gospel interrupts your work.  It always will.  Jesus doesn’t wait to send the invitation until you’ve got everything in order.  He doesn’t wait to bless you until you feel you are ready to be blessed.  He interrupts your business.  He lays a claim on your time and your presence and your whole life.  Now, what is your life?  Does your life come from your work, from school?  We need to be interrupted!  We need our foolish valuing of temporal goods to be utterly ignored by the God who sends His preacher to invite your soul to feast on what gives you eternal life. 

 

The third man simply says, I married a wife, and I can’t come.  He doesn’t even asked to be excused.  He thinks it’s self-evident that he can’t come.  He has a honeymoon to attend to.  So it is with those who worship pleasure.  They don’t ask to be excused.  They think it is obvious that their own pleasure is worth more than anything else.

 

 So beware of the desires of your flesh.  They will make you think that you don’t even need an excuse.  They will make you think that there is nothing greater than what you feel.  These are the thorns and riches and cares and pleasures of this life that choke faith to death, so that when the invitation comes, you don’t care about the forgiveness of your sins.  You care about sin.

 

Every temporal good that God gives is to be enjoyed with thanksgiving.  But whoever puts temporal goods above the eternal good of hearing the Gospel and receiving the sacraments is not thankful to God.  He is not enjoying what God gives with thanksgiving.  How could he?  He is ignoring God giving him something greater than field or cattle or wife and children.  It is like a master giving his slave good food and clothing, and the slave singing the master’s praises, but when the master gives the slave his freedom, the slave simply ignores his freedom, and talks how much he loves his master who gave him some good food and clothing.  In cherishing only the food and clothing and rejecting his freedom, he shows that he has no love for his master at all.  He loves only food and clothing. 

 

God is angry when we reject His invitation to hear and believe the Gospel.  The man who called those who were invited was angry.  God has a right to be angry at us when we focus on things that will pass away and ignore His words which will not pass away even when heaven and earth do. 

 

Life is good because God who gives life is good.  But life is not good when your life ends only in the grave.  Life is not good when you think it consists of the abundance of your possessions or your hard work or your family or anything that is good in itself, but you make it evil by placing it above God Himself.  Breaking the third commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy;” Despising, looking down on, ignoring the preaching of God’s Word is a serious sin.  It is greater than rebellion against your parents and murder and adultery.  That is why the third commandment is above these others.  What good do you parents who die do for you if you don’t have God’s Word that saves you from the sin you inherit from them?  What good is even life, if life is overtaken by judgment against you?  What good are pleasures and property and honor and anything if you don’t have what you actually need?

 

But God knows what you need.  That is why He sends pastors to preach the Gospel.  They tell you, “Come, all things are now ready.”  What is ready?  All things.  Jesus said it.  “It is finished.”  The feast is not a potluck.  Don’t bring anything.  You say you are not worthy, and God knows that.  He invites the poor and the lame and blind and maimed.  He invites sinners to feast with Him.  If you are a fool, God has made Christ to be wisdom for you.  All things are ready.  If you are a sinner, God has made Christ to be righteousness and all good for you.  All things are ready.  If you are weak, God has made Christ to be your sanctification, your holiness, your strength when you have none.  If you see yourself bound by sins that have overtaken you, God has made Christ to be redemption for you, release from all sins.

 

You have no greater need.  The Holy Spirit teaches you this.  When the master of the house says, “Compel them to come in!” He is not saying that God forces you to believe.  His talking about the God showing you your need.  Your need is not to look at your field, not to look at all the things you have to do and take care of.  Your need is not to make sure your business is going well or you are doing your job.  Your need is not to take care of your spouse.  Your need is not to eke out as much pleasure from this short life as you possibly can.  Your need is to come to the feast that God has prepared for your soul.  It is a rich feast, a feast that satisfies.  Hear the prophet, “Come and buy without money and without price!”  You shall be satisfied with the fullness of God’s house, with pleasures greater than your understanding can measure or your flesh can feel. 

 

You will be satisfied with Christ.  He has heaven’s goods and He sees you in need, and so He invites you.  He invites the whole world, all nations.  And so He invites you.  Don’t say your sin is to great, because this feast is Christ’s blood shed for the forgiveness of your sins.  Don’t say you can’t bring yourself to come.  He brings you to come.  He brings the lame who can’t take a step towards God, but they find a place at His table where they are healed and walk in the way of mercy and truth.  Don’t say, “I can’t see where to go.”  He invites the blind, and makes us see God not in our works, but in this simple truth that all things are now ready.  There is nothing for you to do.  The feast is ready.  God is pleased with you, a sinner, because Christ has died for you.  He has carried all sin and guilt and shame, and at the feast you taste and see that shame and guilt and sin and death are no more; you taste, you learn to believe from the Gospel and sacraments, that the Lord is good to you in far greater a way that your worried heart imagined good could be. 

 

His good is never ending.  It changes your heart so that you no longer love the creation more than the Creator.  You love the one who loves you.  And you see the purpose of this world’s goods. They aren’t to enamor your heart.  They are to give to those in need.  They are to offer to help the poor and maimed and lame and blind.  They are to support the church, which is the house of the living God, where the feast is, from whom the invitation goes out as it goes to you today again, and you come, who once were far off, alienated from God by sins that you thought had pushed Him away forever, but He found you.  He calls you with the same love by which He laid down His life for you; with the same love by which He rose from the dead for you.

 

When you come to the Supper today, you have nothing to fear.  There is no fear of disease or death here, because Christ’s body and blood did away with all that.  There is no regret that you didn’t do enough or bring a life that is better than it was before.  There is no need to understand how everything will work out in your short earthly life.  There is only your need to hear this truth.  All things are now ready.  All things.  You have only one need, and here it is fulfilled in the forgiveness of your sins.  Eat, drink, taste, and see that the Lord is good.  Amen.