Luke 14:1-14
12th Sunday after Pentecost (17C) • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction:
Could you imagine being invited to a wedding, going to the wedding, walking into the reception afterwards, and sitting where the bride and groom are supposed to sit? What about getting up and dancing beside the bride and groom during their first dance when everyone else is just watching? Pretty embarrassing right? Could you imagine interrupting the Best Man’s toast to give your own speech at a wedding that you just barely made the cut to be invited?? These actions are foolish. Hilarious. But foolish. It would be incredibly embarrassing to witness this sort of behavior.
Today Jesus tells us a parable warning against this sort of behavior regarding heavenly things. Jesus teaches us humility. He teaches us humility regarding our justification and our sanctification. First, let us turn to how Jesus teaches us humility regarding our justification.
A. Jesus teaches us humility regarding our justification.
All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Before we were brought to saving faith in Jesus, we were all the same. We were dead. We were blind. We were doomed. We were all condemned to eternal punishment and death. This was our lot. We had no hope.
But now, Jesus has come as God in human flesh. Jesus lived a perfect life according to God’s Law in your place. Jesus suffered under wrath of God for your sins. Jesus died the death you were meant to suffer. Jesus was put to death for our transgressions. He was also raised for our justification. This is what had to happen for you to be saved from sin, death, and the devil. We cannot be justified before God by our own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when we believe that we are received into favor, and that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight.
This is justification. For the sake of Jesus’ perfect life, innocent suffering and death, and His blessed resurrection, God in His judgement graciously holds and pronounces you actually and by personal application fully absolved from all guilt and punishment. God has given you faith by the Holy Spirit to believe this promise. By faith, all the merits of the Lord Jesus are truly yours. God declares you holy, righteous, forgiven.
It is because of God’s work of justifying you for Christ’s sake that you are invited to the wedding feast. It is ONLY because of God’s work that you believe, are justified, and invited to this wonderful wedding feast. You are no different than the person sitting to either side of you when it comes to this reality. Each Christian hearing the words coming out of my mouth at this moment are equally precious in God’s eyes and equally forgiven. Each one of you, before you were brought to faith by God’s work, were equally damned, equally blind, and equally dead. and 4 are all about this reality. We are all in the same boat. As Paul says in , “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”
This is the first way that the parable of Jesus today teaches us about humility. We have no right to claim the place of honor at the wedding feast. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a Christian longer than the people sitting next to you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you were as bad a sinner as they were before you were made a Christian by God. It doesn’t matter if you think you are less of a screw-up now. You are not the one that has the right to sit in the place of honor. Even if you know people here who have made terrible mistakes or committed terribly grievous sins (like those examples mentioned in our Epistle today: defiling the marriage bed, loving money, and failing to be hospitable to strangers)! Before God, without Christ, you are the same as the seemingly worst person here. You are the same as the biggest screw-up here. For there is no distinction when it comes to our justification before God. We are all equally guilty because, as says, “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”
There is only one who has a right to claim the place of honor at the wedding feast. There is only one who has power to heal the swelling body of a man suffering from dropsy. There is only one Lord of the Sabbath who silences naysayers with the authority of His teaching. There is only one God. There is only one Savior. And yet, the One who has every right to the place of honor at the feast doesn’t claim it for himself. Instead, “though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” ().
Jesus did this so that he could place all of y’all in the place of honor at the wedding banquet. Each one of you sitting here. Even the one who has defiled the marriage bed in word, thought, or deed. Even the one who has failed to be hospitable to their neighbor. Even the one here who has loved money and the things of this world more than God. Even the one who has looked around and thought that they were better, deserved a higher place, or were more precious to God because they don’t think they are as bad of sinners as someone who has committed adultery, murdered, or worshipped other gods! Jesus gave up the place of honor for each and every sinner who has lived or will ever live. That includes YOU. He gave up His rightful seat, and took the absolute lowest spot, not even at the banquet, to be despised and shamed in your place. In doing this, he has put you in the place of honor at the feast. You don’t deserve it. No matter who you are. And you can never repay Jesus for this. You don’t even deserve to be invited, but Jesus invites you to the feast and says, “Friend, move up higher” (). He was humbled. He was humiliated. For you. He was humiliated in order to exalt you. This is the message of Jesus about humility. This is humility regarding our justification.
B. Jesus teaches us humility regarding our sanctification.
Our Gospel lesson concludes with Jesus saying, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” ().
Jesus is actually making a promise and attaching to good works. To be sure, he isn’t promising that you will be saved if you serve the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. Eternal life is not earned by our works. He is making this promise to you who have already been washed of your sins and sealed in the Holy Spirit. You are a Christian. By faith, your good works are pleasing before God for Christ’s sake. We have heard this in our Epistle lesson from , “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Our works are pleasing to God. God even promises to reward us for our good works in this life and the next. This is what Scripture says multiple times. “Each will receive his wages according to his labor” (). “The Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done” (). “All the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works” (). It is true that we receive rewards from God for the good works we perform, by faith, for Christ’s sake. This is the life of sanctification. God works in us who have the Holy Spirit to make us more and more holy. This is the fruit of faith.
We must remember the parable Jesus tells us today when we speak of sanctification and rewards for good works as well. It is true that “God is so pleased with our good works that He rewards us richly for doing them. But this reward, so Scripture further instructs us, must be regarded strictly as a reward of grace. The kingdom of Christ is the Kingdom of Grace, and he who hands God a bill for his good works places himself outside the Kingdom of Grace. Even those works that we do now that are pleasing to God for Christ’s sake are tainted with sin. We don’t deserve a reward! God graciously gives us rewards for the these works for Christ’s sake alone. Recognizing this fact is the humility we must have regarding sanctification, our life of good works as believers.
Conclusion:
We are all poor miserable sinners. We are all in the same boat. Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins and the sins of the whole world. We have peace with God by the blood of Jesus. We are all in the same boat. We may each bear the fruit of good works in different quantities. Some may bear fruit and yield a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Some are given five talents and make five more, some are given two talents and make two more. No matter the amount of fruit we bear, we must never forget that it is only by God’s grace that we perform any good works. It is God’s work alone that justifies us. It is God’s work alone that sanctifies us and makes us grow in faith and good works. He has placed us in the place of honor by humiliating himself on the cross for our sins. Humility in justification. Humility in sanctification.