30. The Great Feast

“A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.” Luke 14:16

In the ancient Middle East, a feast wasn’t planned by a simple trip to Costco or a call to the caterer. On the contrary, the planning involved an incredible amount of resources and labor. Preparing meat required an enormous amount of work—only kings and the most wealthy ate meat daily. In planning a feast, a host had to determine what animal(s) to slaughter based on how many people he was feeding. The animal was then slaughtered and butchered. Fuel was needed for a cooking fire, which had to be closely tended as the meat cooked. Additionally, there were side dishes, bread, water for washing and wine for toasting. Preparing and hosting a feast for one’s friends and neighbors was an incredibly costly business and an invitation was offered as a generous gift. Before a host set about preparing, he would have sent his servant out to offer an invitation to all those invited. Then, after many days of preparation and many hours of labor, his servant would return to each house to inform the guests that the much-anticipated time had arrived.

This is exactly what our host does in Jesus’ parable of the great banquet. And yet, rather than coming at the expected time, the guests choose to humiliate the host by making ridiculous excuses and refusing to come. The first man claims to have bought a field he has yet to see. This sort of thing was unheard of. Buying a field was a long, drawn-out process and no man in his right mind would have bought one without first meticulously inspecting it. Similarly, a yoke of oxen means a pair of oxen and before any man bought even one pair, he would have watched the pair work for hours to be certain that the two animals had the same strength and stamina. If they pulled unevenly, the pair was worthless. This man’s excuse would be similar to telling your good friend that you can’t come to her sixteenth birthday party because you just bought five used cars and you need to take them to the mechanic immediately. Finally, a wedding followed a year-long betrothal and would not have been something happening unexpectedly. All three of the men gave lame and insulting excuses. The host had offered them an extravagant and costly gift of love and each of them chose to reject his invitation. 

How does the host respond? He had every right to seek revenge against the men who rejected and insulted him. Yet, he chooses instead to redirect his anger toward grace. The men invited first represent the Pharisees and the religious experts. These are the men who were with Jesus, yet continually rejected His invitation—an invitation to His Father and His Father’s kingdom. They were the first invited, those who everyone would have expected to be the honored guests at the feast. The next group of people invited are described as the poor, crippled, blind and lame of the city. By saying “of the city,” Jesus was indicating that these were Israelites, but they were the outcasts of Israelite society. If the religious law experts were the “cream of the crop,” these folks were the “bottom of the barrel.”

After the servant brings in all the Israelite outcasts, there is still room at the feast. The final group invited are those “in the highways and hedges,”—these are the people outside the city. This means that they are the non-Jewish foreigners, the Gentiles, the true outsiders in the eyes of the Pharisees. These were the last people the Pharisees expected to be invited into God’s kingdom. The servant had to compel this group of people to come. This wasn’t because they didn’t want to come. It was because they couldn’t possibly believe that they were actually invited. They needed to be convinced that the host really wanted them there, in spite of how deeply unworthy they felt. They needed to be taken by the hand and led with kindness and gentleness into the place of extravagant goodness that the host had prepared for them.

An invitation to a feast is an invitation into relationship. It’s an invitation to a place where our deepest needs are met—our needs for connection and nourishment. It’s an invitation to flourishing. The table is the place where we share our lives with each other, both knowing others and being truly known. This is the kingdom of Heaven. And it’s available to all of us, here and now. And there is plenty of room at the table—everyone is invited. But it’s up to each of us to put our hand into Jesus’ outstretched hand and accept the invitation to His Father’s house. And once we have, we each have the opportunity to extend that invitation to those around us. The host, our Good Father invites us to partner with Him in living lives of deep love and grace that compel the outcast and outsiders to accept the invitation to come home and join in the great feast of His presence and His goodness. This is true life, and everyone is invited.