INTRODUCTION
In 1971, Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran gave a four-day celebration commemorating the Persian Empire’s its 2500th birthday. The focal point of the event was a huge banquet feast, the banquet hall being a gigantic silk tent lighted with $840,000 worth of colored lights! The guest list matched the occasion: the Shah invited more than 600 dignitaries from 69 nations. The cost to the Shah’s estate for this festival was $100 million dollars. It’s amazing to think about. We just don’t understand this concept of "feasting" anymore. The word is barely in our vocabulary. We barely have the time to eat together anymore. We nuke our individual meals and eat them in the car or in front of the TV. Fast food is the way of choice, sort of like pulling the car up at the gas pump. We want our food in sixty seconds or less. The same, sadly, can be said about our attitude towards our relationship with God, and our expectations of God. We want our forgiveness in sixty minutes or less. The Crystal Cathedral has drive-in slots. A clever company is now marketing individually packaged grape juice and wafers. Communion to go. Hermetically sealed for your safety, of course. What does this all mean? It means that we’ve lost the value God places upon the feast.
FEASTING IN THE BIBLE
Feasting in the Bible is food combined with fellowship, eating in the company of your fellow believers, and in the company of God. God loves a party, and the center of the party is His Son, the Lamb who was slain but lives. In today’s Gospel, Jesus describes heaven as a wedding party thrown by a king. In the OT, Isaiah looks to the day of God’s promise and likewise sees a feast. On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” That’s what we are going to talk about today: food and fellowship, celebrating our salvation, feasting at God’s table. And there is no better celebration of that feast of salvation than Martin Franzmann’s hymn, O Kingly Love, which rejoices in God’s love that spreads a banquet table as wide as His heart.
O kingly Love, that faithfully
Didst keep thine ancient promises,
Didst bid the bidden come to thee,
The people thou didst choose to bless.
The invitations were sent out long ago engraved by the hand of God, addressed by name to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to all God’s people. God’s invitation was written on stone at Sinai from the King to His chosen people Israel: "I will be your God, and you will be my people." At Sinai the 70 elders of Israel ate and drank in the presence of God. An Invitation Rooted in a Divine Promise. Israel was a people bound and bidden by God’s promises, ancient promises that reached back through the centuries to that first Promise God spoke in a Paradise shattered by Adam and Eve’s rebellion - "I will put enmity between you and the woman." God promised a Savior, a Deliverer, One who would defeat death and the devil. God made a people of His promise. He promised Abraham a homeland and descendants as numerous as grains of sand on the beach. He repeated his promise to Isaac and Jacob. He swore an oath on His Name that He would do it. He conceived His people in Egypt and gave them birth through the water of the Red Sea. He raised them in the wilderness and brought them to the promised land of Canaan where they grew and prospered. They were His chosen people - chosen for the sole purpose of bringing forth His Son. Time after time, God recalled His promises. He dusted them off and read them regularly to His People Israel through the prophets, the way lovers reread their old love letters to each other. "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make a feast for all peoples." God promised a feast of salvation, an eating and drinking that would take away death forever. The Passover lamb and the sacrifice meals were foretastes of the feast to come. God and man in communion, table fellowship, eating and drinking together. That was one way salvation was pictured in the OT. A lavish dinner party where God was the host and you were the honored guest.
COME AND GET IT! THE DIVINE INVITATION
An elderly Christian was very distressed as he lay dying. “Oh, Pastor,” he said, “for years I have relied upon the promises of God, but now in the hour of death I can’t remember a
single one to comfort me.” Knowing that Satan was disturbing him, the preacher said, “My brother, do you think that GOD will forget any of His promises?” A smile came over the dying man’s face as he exclaimed joyfully. “No, no! He won’t! Praise the Lord, now I can fall asleep in Jesus and trust Him to remember them all and bring me safely to Heaven.” Peace flooded his soul, and a short time later he was ushered by the angels into the banquet room of our heavenly Father. It is Jesus, the only begotten Son of the heavenly Father, who calls all people to fellowship with Him at this heavenly banquet table. In Jesus God had come to eat and drink with His people. Eating and drinking were so much the mark of Jesus’ ministry that His accusers said He was a glutton and a drunkard. He broke bread with Scribes and Pharisees and with the prostitute and the tax collector, with the religious and the non-religious, with the Republicans of his day and with the Democrats, with liberals and with conservatives, with the "in" crowd, and with those who were "out." He fed five thousand in the wilderness, and on another occasion he fed four thousand. Jesus came to be our Bread, the life-giving food for the world. He said, "I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst."
And so Martin Franzmann’s second stanza declares
O lavish Love, that didst prepare
A table bounteous as thy heart,
That men might leave their puny care
And taste and see how good thou art.
The king in todays parable was a gracious host. His table was rich, filled with His lavish love. No expense was spared in preparing this feast for his son’s wedding day. There were the finest marbled meats and rare, vintage wines - "a feast of fat things full of marrow, with wine on the lees, well refined," said Isaiah. Maybe that description doesn’t sound terribly appetizing. Before we became obsessed with fat grams and calories and cholesterol, we might have thought of premium prime rib, with all the trimmings, accompanied by a fine Mondavi Cabernet. Who could say "no" to such a meal as that? Who would say "no" to eating and drinking such a meal in the presence of the king and His son? C. Perrin tells the story of how in the late 1700’s an aged Indian
“half naked and famished, wandered into one of the Western settlements, begging for food to keep him from starving. While eagerly devouring the bread given by the hand of charity, a bright colored ribbon, from which was suspended a small dirty pouch, was seen around his neck. When he was asked about it, he said it was a charm given him in his younger days; and opening it, displayed a faded, greasy paper, which he handed to his host. It proved to be a regular discharge from the Federal Army, entitling him to a pension for life and personally signed by General Washington.”
THE AUDACITY TO SAY “NO”
It is amazing to think of someone missing out on great wealth of provision simply out of ignorance. But what is far more incredible is the fact that many of the first invited guests in Jesus’ parable missed out simply because they said "no." Some were indifferent to the invitation. Other were too busy. These people were too preoccupied with their own cares and concerns to take the time to attend the feast. One went to work on his farm. The fields needed tending, chores had to be done. Another went off to take care of his business. Those who are in business for themselves know that there is never an end to your work when you are the owner. Their cares were too great to take the time to relax at the king’s table. Maybe another time. Still others were more hostile in their rejection. In thier hearts the opposed the king and his rule. So they killed the king’s servants for offering them such an invitation. Incredibly, many still say "no" to God’s feast of fat things today filling the time for worship with work or play. We have our excuses, we are busy, we have our farms and businesses too. We give our reasons for not accepting the invitation, but they ring hollow compared with the richness of God.
It’s not that we have no interest in good things. Think of the excitement when a new food fad hits, especially one that promises health benefits. Oat bran, olive oil, wheat grass, soy protein. Once the word gets out, grocers can’t keep them on the shelves. Imagine if there was a food that would cure cancer, heart disease, AIDS. Think of the commotion that would happen if there was a food and drink that promised to cure death. There is such a food and drink, and it’s here for us. Jesus said, "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." Think of the clamoring there would be for that food and drink, if people believed that.
O seeking Love, thy hurrying feet
Go searching still to urge and call
The bad and good on ev’ry street
To fill thy boundless banquet hall.
The king in our parable is persistent, driven to fill his banquet hall. He sends his servants into the town to invite everyone, "as many as you find, the good and the bad." When the respectable refuse, the king invites the disreputable and despised. When religious Israel rejected Christ, God went to the Gentiles. The king sent his servants into the highways and byways, into the alleyways and darkened doorways, the boarded up tenement buildings and crack houses. He invites those who had never been invited to his house before, and what a party that will be!
THE INVITATION THAT BECAME A JUDGMENT
Notice that by the end of the parable, there is no one who is not invited to the son’s wedding feast. And that’s the point of the parable. When God throws a party, it’s the biggest bash in town, and there isn’t a single person who is left off the invitation list. When Jesus died on the cross and was made sin for us, no one was left out of His death. Only our own indifference to that death, only our own stubborn refusal to be fed, only our hard-hearted rejection of God’s gifts leaves us out of the feast, and then it’s entirely our own fault. God’s will is to fill his banquet hall with guests. If we refuse to come, if we wind up weeping and gnashing our teeth in hell, it’s entirely apart from God’s will to save us. God wants to throw a party, and he’s invited the world. He’s prepared it all, if we will come.
O holy Love, thou canst not brook
Man’s cool and careless enmity;
O ruthless Love, thou wilt not look
On man robed in contempt of thee.
When the king entered the hall, packed with guests, he spied a man who was not properly dressed for the occasion. Remember that the king had been pulling people off the streets to come to this party. Imagine what all these street urchins looked like. There are still today restaurants that required a coat and tie. If you don’t have a coat and tie, the restaurant will supply something for you from the lost and found, though not necessarily matching or in style. Let’s suppose for a moment that the king decided that he wanted a well-dressed crowd at his son’s wedding. But instead of handing out used coats and ties, he started handing out Armani suits and Halston dresses at the door to everyone who came to the party. Now you understand his disgust when he sees some guy lurking at the corner table wearing a dirty t-shirt and ripped up jeans. He had the opportunity to be washed and dressed in the finest robes of the kingdom, but he didn’t. He figured what he had was good enough. I suppose the scenario sounds a bit foolish. But it is no more foolish than appearing before God in the resurrection clothed in the filthy rags of our own righteousness, boasting of our "good works" which are never quite good enough, and bragging about all the good things we’ve done for God all our lives. And the result is the same. Those who despise God and show their contempt for Him by clothing themselves in their own works will find themselves bounced into outer darkness where there is eternal weeping and grinding of teeth. Not a pleasant thought, but the outcome is entirely unnecessary.
GOD CREATED THE FEAST & GOD SUPPLIES THE CLOTHING
Speaking again of God’s promise the prophet Isaiah God proclaimed: “he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, a d as a bride adorns herself with jewels”.
God dresses us anew, he covers us with the perfection of His Son. "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." God clothes us with Christ in our baptism. He wraps us in His righteousness. He covers us with His perfection. Christ is our wedding garment, his seamless and spotless robe is our covering. Jesus’ death is yours. Jesus’ life is yours. His perfect keeping of the Law is yours. God gives it all for free in Holy Baptism.
Better than an Armani or a Halston, we have Christ in our Baptism. And we dare not come to the Lord’s party dressed in anything less than Christ. We come to the feast God’s way, or no way at all. We’ve come to the end of the parable. It is a parable of God’s kingly love, that keeps His promises. Of His lavish love, that prepares a rich feast of salvation. Of His seeking love, that goes into the highways and alleyways, inviting the good and the bad to come and be fed. Of His ruthlessly holy love, that does not look upon our sin but covers it with Jesus. At the end of the parable everyone was invited to the party, but only a bunch of riffraff from the streets end up in the king’s banquet hall wearing Armani suits and Halston dresses eating prime rib and sipping Mondavi cabernet. Salvation was won for all by Jesus’ dying and rising, but only broken hearted beggars take him up on the invitation to be clothed and fed by Christ. "Many are called but few are chosen." That isn’t an explanation; it’s an observation. Another way of saying it is: All are invited, but few wind up at the table. Why? It wasn’t the king’s fault. And it certainly isn’t God’s fault if we refuse to be fed. His feast of salvation is for all, but He forces no one to eat and drink. If you miss out on the party and go hungry, you have only yourself to blame.
CONCLUSION
Jesus Christ died for you. He rose for you. He reigns for you. He clothes you in Baptism. He forgives you in His Word of forgiveness. He feeds you with His body and blood in His Supper. The banquet hall is here, and you are the honored guests.
The feast is ready.
Come to the feast,
The good and the bad.
Come and be glad!
Greatest and least,
Come to the feast!