READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Proverbs 9:1-10
1 John 3:13-18
- St. Luke 14:16-24
Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Savior. (Titus 1:4)
Who speaks to you today, saying:
“A man once gave a
great banquet and invited many”
Thus far from God’s Word, written that we may hear of God’s
great provision to us. Not just the food on our own tables, but that He has
provided us with heavenly bread for our salvation. This should point us to the
complete work in Jesus, for us, that we may then share that news with our
neighbor, instead of a laundry list.
Notice how our Great Banquet invitation did not go out to
everyone, in the Gospel today. We usually gloss over this point and, in our
minds, replace it with the word “all”. That the invitation went out to all,
because that’s the kind of Jesus we worship.
Though He says things like this in other places, such as one
of my favorite verses in St. Matthew 20:28, “just as the Son of Man did not
come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”,
He also seems to confuse when saying, “who desires all men to be saved and
to come to the knowledge of the truth” in 1 Timothy 2:4.
Now, just to put your minds at ease, ransom and desire for
salvation go together, so no worries, ok? But really that is just a secondary
point. In the end, it doesn’t matter if God came to save many or save all. What
matters is that He came.
Jesus shows up. This is the point I wanted the VBS students
to take home, if they took home anything from the week. That Jesus has to come
to us. We cannot rise to Him.
Moses was day 1, in VBS. Moses the infant. Moses the
helpless. Moses the fugitive. His only crime was he was a first born male in
the Egypt that wanted to murder males born to the Hebrews. “Toss them in the
Nile”, the Egyptians demanded.
But the midwives disobeyed their government. Moses’ mother
did toss him in the Nile, but it was in a basket, a little Moses Ark, which
floated among the reeds. Left to himself, Moses would not have survived. With
crocodiles constantly prowling, along with Pharaoh’s men, Moses was toast.
Jesus shows up, though not Himself. He sends Pharaoh’s
daughter, the daughter of the murderer of His people, to rescue Moses and draw
him up out of the water. Good thing, too, or the first five books of the Bible
would be non-existent.
Day 2 VBS was the entire book of Ruth. Imagine trying to
read that to your children…
We got through it
Anyway, if you remember Ruth, it starts out as tragedy. All
the husbands die, leaving the women homeless and penniless. The day is saved
when a Redeemer shows up to give Ruth a son who, as one of the VBS students
pointed out, is the 27th great-grandfather of Jesus.
Day 3 was Zacchaeus, who would have had no reason to climb a
tree or return all he stole, if Jesus had not been there. Day 4 was part of the
Easter story where, had Jesus not shown up again, the Apostles would have sat
in that upper room and died from fear.
Day 5 was interesting. It was the Conversion of Saul. There
Jesus shows up, knocks Saul off his high horse, and blinds him. Yes, Jesus
shows up, but after three days of insomnia and fasting, Jesus doesn’t come
back. He does show up, but now He shows up in the way that He shows up to all
of us, in these latter days: through His sent man.
The take-home point is, God decides. Moses is not rescued,
Ruth is not redeemed, Zacchaeus is not saved, the Apostles do not go out, and
Ananias does not forgive, baptize, and feed St. Paul except Jesus decided it
was so. Jesus must come to us first.
And here is our space to repent. We breeze through those
stories feeling inspired, but we seldom think of Who is inspiring us. When we
believe the inspiration comes from ourselves, we immediately set off on our own
quest, praying and hoping to achieve what Moses and the rest did, in front of
God.
On our own. You see once our heart is moved, we claim it. We
believe we have ownership of those thoughts and feelings. So much so, that we
look for Moses moments. Such as his encounter with the burning bush. He was so
inspired, so blessed to have that chance from God to change his life. If only
it could be that way for me.
Our VBS story was Moses as an infant. You skipped to
adulthood. Why? Because infants are boring and dependent. Adults have free
will! How exciting.
But free will only gets in the way. Remember Moses tried his
best to get God to choose someone else to go to Pharaoh. In his sin, he
believed God was doing wrong.
That will needs regeneration. It needs to be cleansed of the
thoughts and feelings that God did it wrong. Here, Ananias, from Paul’s
conversion, is our teacher. He, too, like Moses, refuses to go to and give
forgiveness to Saul, but he goes anyway.
Why? Because God is passing out invitations. Ananias, in the
faith he was given, knows what to expect from God, because God told him. He
knows that the Lord is not doling out punishment and he knows God is not angry.
Because Jesus has come, Ananias is free to confront Christianity’s biggest
opponent, in Christ’s Name.
On earth. This is the other offensive part of Jesus’s
parable in the Gospel today. It is accomplished on earth, with earthly people,
and earthly things. Jesus does not go back to Saul to forgive, baptize, and
commune him. He sends a man, inspired and ordained by the Holy Spirit, to do
that work.
God chooses us and decides to follow us, giving us all good
things, now and for all eternity. It is God’s choice to rescue Moses out of
water, so we could remember that when St. Paul gets baptized, and then look for
our own heavenly baptism, on earth.
It is God’s choice to give Ruth redemption through a son, so
that we could remember our heavenly Father’s Son, born to redeem us with His
Body and Blood. It is God’s choice to show Himself and His salvation to
Zacchaeus, without cost or merit so we could be on the lookout for the free
forgiveness of sins in Jesus, as well.
And on Easter, it was Jesus’s choice to go rescue His
Apostles out of the fear and darkness of sin and death, in order to inspire
them with His Holy Spirit and with the thoughts and words they used to preach
the Gospel to the whole world.
And all of this is expected. Jesus is expected to do all
these good things for His people, because that’s Who He is. He sets the feast
and it will be filled to capacity, at His Word. For them and for you.
And the best place to remind us of this is God’s Word.
Specifically, the Lord’s Prayer. There we see God not waiting, but giving us
the words to say, even. And the Lord’s Prayer is all about what God does for
us; what we are to expect from Him. Not that we tell Him, but that He reveals
it to us, His Father’s heart of goodness.
So I tell all my catechumens to turn to the Lord’s Prayer in
the Small Catechism and write at the top of the first page, “What to expect
from God”. And right away, with the Introduction to the Prayer, “Our Father Who
art in heaven”, we confess and believe that He is our true Father and that we
are His true children. And that He has decided to follow us, to be our God and
to give us all good things, in Christ Jesus.
Make no mistake. The Word of God goes out to everyone. To
the ends of the earth, is the promise. The work God comes to do through His
only-begotten Son is also accomplished for everyone. Moses as an infant and
adult, could not escape this love. Ruth was not forgotten. Zacchaeus was not
overlooked. The Apostles were not left alone and St. Paul would not be left in
his sin.
Some refuse the invitation, but that does not lessen the
love and power behind it. Jesus has come to finish salvation, to perfect it,
for all. Not a thing is missing. Not a place at the Table out of place. Jesus
has accepted you into His heart. He has chosen you as His personal sinner, to
seek and save.
Amen.
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