Luke 14:12-24--The Parable of the Great Banquet

Luke 14:12-24
English Standard Version

The Parable of the Great Banquet
12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

​15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

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While the names of this parable and the last parable are similar, their teachings are different.  Jesus transitions from the Parable of the Wedding Feast where the main point was "he who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted" by telling the Pharisees and the rich, upper-class socialites in attendance that they should be inviting the poor, sick, and disabled to their parties and feasts--the ones that could never possibly repay them by holding a feast and inviting them.  This is counterintuitive to those in attendance because nearly every decision they made was calculated by what they could get out of it and how they could put someone in their debt or get out of someone else's debt.  They would never imagine hosting a party for those whom they viewed as being "unclean" (to have them over for a party might pollute them and their house).  This is why I think the man with dropsy being at the party in the last passage was probably a setup as it would be unlikely they would have invited such a man to one of their parties out of the goodness of their hearts.  Jesus promises an eternal reward for those that act in this way towards those who could never repay you.

The response to what Jesus says is for one of those in attendance at the party to say “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”  The man has apparently missed the meaning of what Jesus is saying and assumes that he's got it made and that Jesus' point was to tell them that God saw their good deeds and was storing up rewards for them in heaven when in fact Jesus was telling them that they were proving through their actions and attitudes that they were not at all citizens of His kingdom.

Jesus then responds to this statement by teaching them with another parable.  While a wedding feast is an important event that you wouldn't miss, this banquet being thrown by the master (probably the king) is something no one would ever refuse an invitation to--in fact, there would be no choice to RSVP with your regrets.  This is your master, so it's not really an invitation....your presence is "requested," but it's not really a request.  Refusal to appear at such a banquet could lead to consequences such as death or exile (see Esther chapter 1 to see what happened to Queen Vashti when she refused to appear at the king's feast when summoned).  It would not only be an honor to be invited, but you would be expected to set anything and everything else aside and rearrange your entire life to be there if you received such an invitation.  Keep this in mind when you hear some of the excuses those who were invited make.

The king make his list of people to invite to the wedding and sends out his servants to pronounce the invitation.  Yet, every person that Jesus speaks of here who was invited rejects the invitation which is a rejection of the one that they call "master" or "lord" or "king" proving that they really do not see this person as their "lord" or "master" or "king."  Now there are others that did respond correctly--not everyone refused the invitation here, but the focus here is that there were many who were invited and refused to come for a litany of poor excuses.  We are to assume that those who were invited were the well-to-do socialites like those at this party.

Jesus then says that the master of the banquet will not be satisfied to have prepared such a large banquet and not have his banquet hall filled, and he will be angry about the excuses that were made by those who he had honored by inviting them to his banquet, but he will now cancel their invitation and forbid them from coming in and instead give their seat to someone else--someone these socialites would deem undeserving.  In fact, the master of the banquet will no longer ask for time is short and the banquet won't be delayed--no, this time he will tell his servants to compel the poor and crippled and blind and lame to come and sit at his table so that his banquet hall would be full.

When we studied this passage in the book of Matthew, I pointed out that every person who rejected was sent an invitation.  We don't see anyone in this parable that was meant to attend the banquet who wasn't there because someone forgot to invite them.  No, many were invited who rejected the invitation and there are also many who were compelled to come, though they may not have received a formal invitation., yet I forgot to mention at that time that there were some who freely responded to the invitation that was sent to them and did come, though the parable does not focus much on them for the master does not say that the banquet hall is empty when he sends his servants back out, but just that there is still more room because of those that have refused their invitations and their seats were given to another.  So then we see God using both man's free will and His sovereignty to accomplish His perfect plan to save a remnant unto Himself.

We didn't really take much time to examine the excuses here because everyone in Jesus' day would have understood these excuses to be poor excuses.  The first excuse is probably the worst out of the lot when the man says that he has bought piece of land and has to inspect it that day.  Who buys land without first looking at it and inspecting it?  It happens, but that is not very wise and it's no reason to refuse an invitation to the master's banquet.  If you own the land today, you will own it tomorrow as well and can inspect your purchase some other time.  The second likewise is a poor excuse only this time instead of land that isn't going anywhere, this man bought livestock without first examining them.  I don't think it's by accident that both times Jesus indicates that the men here didn't examine the value of the thing that they are making excuses for before buying it.  The things that people have given their hearts to are vein and worthless upon real inspection.

Now the last excuse might be the one that seems to hold some merit where the man says that he has just gotten married and it is time for him to be devoted to his wife.  This sounds well and good, but whose wife would make a man refuse an invitation from his lord and master.  She too should be there tomorrow.  There are no second chances when it comes to responding to the master's invitation but in every case, whatever was holding the man back, even if it was intimacy with his newlywed wife, it could be deferred.  The banquet would not wait for anyone nor would it be canceled or rescheduled.  The time and date are set and the banquet will be ready for the guests at that time and the banquet hall will be filled with those who responded correctly to the invitation and those who were not originally invited but were compelled to come when the master sent his servants out a second time.

So then Jesus is making the point that some of those who imagined they will eat bread at the Lord's Table in heaven will not be there because they have refused the invitation and some of those they imagined would not be invited (not just the poor and disabled, but also the Gentiles) would take their place.  See Romans 11 where Paul talks about this idea of wild branches being grafted in where the natural branches were cut off.  Yet in Romans 11 there is good news that the natural branches can also be restored.  God still loves the Jewish people and the gospel is always to go to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile.