Month: October 2021

By Larry Short

As Elim moves into the next season, God has been directing us to focus our attention on “rolling out a red carpet of Gospel hospitality.” Pastor Ryan even pivoted his sermon this past weekend away from Ecclesiastes and into the scene at the Last Supper where Jesus “showed the full extent of His love” to His disciples by taking on the role of a humble servant and washing their yucky feet—and then urging them (and us, by extension) to do likewise to one another, showing God’s love by serving each other in humility.

While reflecting on this topic of Gospel hospitality, another parable of Christ’s has been demanding my attention. In Luke 14, we find Jesus at the home of a ruler of the Pharisees, invited to a fancy dinner. This was “ordinary hospitality”—invite someone to dinner, and perhaps you will get something out of it: a return invitation, a chance to learn and observe, etc.

But Jesus was also observing. He saw many of the guests vying for the best seats at the table, the seats of honor closest to the host. He warned that in doing so they risked getting displaced by someone the host deemed more important than they and forced to sit shamefacedly in a lower position. He encouraged them instead to seek out in humility the low position, with the possibility that the host might then raise them up.

This principle of humility is one that of course syncs well with Christ’s teaching about washing His disciples’ feet. But it’s the very next thing Christ said, the parable of the great banquet, that really caught my eye:

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.’”

I realized that the part of this parable that begins with Jesus’s words “A man once gave a great banquet” is less parable and more an actual prophecy. Because Scripture tells us of a coming day in which Christ Himself, the Bridegroom of the Church, will indeed throw a great banquet, which Revelation 19 calls the “marriage supper of the Lamb”:

 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;

it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

A couple of things that jump out at me about this end-times great feast. First of all, while all may be invited, not all will accept the invitation. The original invite list in Christ’s parable was full of people who sadly allowed “ordinary life and business” to get in the way of accepting the Master’s invitation. “Please have me excused,” they begged, and the Master did, even though it caused him distress to do so. God will never compel us to accept His invitation.

And if we do accept it, we must learn the lesson of humility. We cannot seek to seat ourselves at the place of honor, or else we risk being put in our proper place. It is far better to humble oneself than to be humbled.

In Christ’s final great wedding feast, we see that humility in the way the Bride has prepared herself. “It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.” That fine linen, we are told, is “the righteous deeds of the saints,” but those saints have been freely granted the privilege of attendance, as that righteousness comes not by our own doing, but at the cost of the blood of God’s sacrificial Lamb, the Bridegroom of the feast.

It takes true humility to realize that we are invited to the wedding not because of how holy we are, but because of how God (at His own expense) has made us holy. And the proper response to such an act of grace is deep gratitude and highest praise!

The third and final aspect of our response (humble acceptance and gratitude and praise being the first two) is shown clearly in Christ’s closing words to His listeners. Once we have accepted God’s Gospel hospitality in humility and thankfulness, we must extend it to others. The Master’s command in Luke 14:23 was to “go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.” But God never forces people to accept His invitation. The basis of their acceptance will be love! Thus His mandate in John 13:34 is that we must “love one another just as he has loved us.” It is only and precisely this love and service that will make Christ’s love compelling to others.

Elim is on a journey to learn how to roll out a red carpet of Gospel hospitality to all in our community. Humble acceptance, thankfulness, selfless love, and service will be required of each of us in this priesthood of believers in order to fulfill Christ’s purposes for Elim. Are you on board?

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