"The Danger Of Missing The Meal!" Luke 14:15-24
Series: Trinity Season Gospel Sermons
June 18, 2023
Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
The Second Sunday After Trinity Forsake foolishness and live" (Prov 9:1–10). This is the call of the Spirit of Christ to believe the Gospel and to receive His saving gifts in the Holy Supper. Many make excuses and reject this invitation, even as the Jews did in the days of Jesus, yet the Master's house will be filled. The Gospel call therefore goes out to the lowly and despised, into the highways, even to all the Gentiles (Luke 14:15–24). For "you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Eph 2:13–22). In Christ, believing Jews and Gentiles are no longer strangers but fellow members of the household of God. The enmity of class and race is put to death through the cross. Having been reconciled in the one body of Christ, we are enabled to love one another (1 John 3:13–18) as we await the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which will have no end. INTROIT:(Psalm 18:18-19;1-2,27,30,49.) P: The LORD was my support in the day of my calamity C: He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me. P: I will love You, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress. C:For You will save the humble people, But will bring down haughty looks. P: As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the LORD is proven; C:Therefore I will give thanks to You, O LORD, among the Gentiles, And sing praises to Your name. Gloria Patri + Proverbs 9:1-10 + "Wisdom has built her house, She has hewn out her seven pillars; {2} She has slaughtered her meat, She has mixed her wine, She has also furnished her table. {3} She has sent out her maidens, She cries out from the highest places of the city, {4} "Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!" As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, {5} "Come, eat of my bread And drink of the wine I have mixed. {6} Forsake foolishness and live, And go in the way of understanding. {7} "He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself, And he who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself. {8} Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you; Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. {9} Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. {10} "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Gradual:(Psalm 120:1,2) P: In my distress I cried to the LORD, And He heard me. C:Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips And from a deceitful tongue. +1 John 3:13-18+ "Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. {14} We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. {15} Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. {16} By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. {17} But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? {18} My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth." Catechetical Responsive Reading: Luther’s Small Catechism P: As the head of the family should teach them in a simple way to his household. P: What is The Third Commandment? C: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. P: What does this mean? C: We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. P: What is The Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer? C: Thy kingdom come. P: What does this mean? C: The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also. P: How does God's kingdom come? C: God's kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity. P: Which is the great commandment in the law?" C: "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' "This is the first and great commandment."Matthew 22:37-38 Verse:(Psalm 7:17) P: Alleluia! Alleluia! I will praise the LORD according to His righteousness, C: And will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High. Alleluia +Luke 14:15-24+ {15}"Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" {16} Then He said to him, "A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, {17} "and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, 'Come, for all things are now ready.' {18} "But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.' {19} "And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.' {20} "Still another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' {21} "So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.' {22} "And the servant said, 'Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.' {23} "Then the master said to the servant, 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. {24} 'For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.'""
Episode Notes
The Second Sunday After Trinity 18-June-2023
Sermon Text: Luke 14:15-24
Sermon Theme: “The Danger of Missing The Meal” by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. The True Father longs to feast with His true children! “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” Tenderly He invites them Home. To us, who lack sense, He cries out, “Come, eat of My bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.” To feast is to share life. That’s why it is important for families to physically sit down at the table daily with no distractions and share meals together. Listening to each other, face to face, eye to eye. Children need to hear their father’s instruction and their mother’s wisdom.
From the beginning our Father longed to share His life with His creatures. Molding man form the earth’s clay in His own image on the sixth 24 day of the existence of all things around six millenia ago. Our Father Creator knelt down through His only begotten Son to breathe humanity alive by His Spirit through His Word. Listen! Your True Father is tenderly inviting you, “Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”
Hear His voice! Come to His Feast! Don’t walk in the way of your fallen father Adam! Learn from the Second Adam: “The Danger of Missing The Meal!”
Who do you invite into your home to eat at your table? A slob who eats too much and drinks all your wine? “A glutton and a wine bibber”(Lk 7:34). That’s the guest we find invited into the Pharisee’s home according to Doctor Luke’s extensive historical eyewitness research. Luke reports, “And as He went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, it happened that they watched Him.” (Luke 14:1 [MKJV]) A chief Pharisee invites Jesus to the meal in his home, not to hear Him. To watch Him! To see if He’d break their man made religious laws! Trusting in their own reason and strength they were certain that the Sabbath was a day to earn God’s favor by working hard to rest. They forgot the Scriptures teaching that the Father blessed them with the Sabbath to receive rest from Him through His Word and comfort by His Spirit in the Promise of the Messiah. “And behold” St. Luke reports the set up of an exhausted man suddenly ushered into the feast and plopped at Jesus’ feet. He is afflicted with dropsy. Luke uses the medical word referring to someone severely retaining water internally. It is no accident. It is a test. Will Jesus violate their rules of doing no work on the Sabbath?
Jesus asks a simple question, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” Silent stares is all He receives from His host and the other Pharisees at table. The Lord of the Sabbath hasn’t come to prolong fallen mankind’s suffering. He takes the man. Heals him. Releases him from the labor of his illness. The Creator restores His fallen creatures that we find our rest in Him. Instead of shout of joy, they scowl. “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.” The Pharisees would gladly rescue a son or an ox that fell into a pit on the Sabbath for it profited them. They had no compassion on the “poor, crippled, blind, and lame.” “Whoever does not love abides in death.”
The True Lord of the Feast warns the guests against turning the meal into an empty outward show of popularity. Sit at the lowest place when invited to a meal. Humble yourself under the Father’s almighty hand that He might exalt you in due time. Turning to the meal’s host Jesus tells him to invite to his table the outcasts – “the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind.” Those who can never repay your charity. Trusting the Father’s grace to repay it in full through His Son at the resurrection of the Just by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ Words are Light and Truth. From our first father Adam’s rebellion, we long to puff ourselves up in sinful pride. To feast on evil wallowing in sin and receiving its payment of death. Pride is a mark of enslavement to self-destructive sin, not freedom. Satan takes us captive in our fleshly sins chaining us with the sinful delusion of pride. The world’s self destructive pride mocks Jesus and His cross. Correcting a sin deluded scoffer only brings abuse. Reproving a wicked man brings injury from the demonic cancel culture. The Light of Truth exposes man’s works of darkness. Jesus’ Words at the meal make the good Pharisees uncomfortable exposing the elephant of their sin in the room. One of the guests seeks to change the subject. (Lk.14:15) Shine the light away from me, my sinful heart, my foolish pride. Jesus, let’s talk about heaven instead. The blessing of eating bread in God’s Kingdom. A kingdom the Pharisees are certain they will establish by their rules. A kingdom those bond by Satan prideful boast they will bring about by silencing the preaching of Christ – the Truth!
Where is the Kingdom of God? Where is the Father’s feast full of life for His children? Listen! (Lk. 14:16-17) The Father gives a great supper through a “certain man.” He promises it. He issues His invitation calling all to trust and come to the meal He longs to share with you. He prepares the feast at His own expense. It is an expensive meal. The price? The holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death of His only begotten Son. It is the only way to bring us from death to life as the Father sacrifices Jesus for our sin, our pride, our death – that we may come Home to our Father to the great supper of Life.
Now the Father sends forth His servant tenderly inviting lost sinners to the feast! “Come, for all things are ready!” “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” preached the greatest prophet John as he stood baptizing sinners in the Jordan. Baptizing them for repentance, washing them forgiven, prepared them for the Great Supper in Jesus. Where is the Kingdom of God? And being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered and said, The kingdom of God does not come with observation. Nor shall they say, Lo here! or, behold, there! For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. (Luke 17:20-21 [MKJV]) The Kingdom of God is present in the Son of God in our flesh. Where the sin forgiving, death destroying, Satan defeating living flesh and blood of Jesus is present – the Kingdom of God is in our midst.
All is ready! “Come!” the Father joyfully calls us back to feast with Him at the Tree of Life! A father’s greatest joy is to sit at table with his children to provide for their nourishment in the protection of his home. (Lk. 14:18-20) His children refuse His love! The Father’s love, sacrifice, provision, gift is forgotten. They don’t need to find rest in His great supper. “I have!” “I have!” “I have!” they boast of their own accomplishments apart from their true Father. “Bought a field!” more property that “I own!” “Bought five yoke of oxen!” more technology to make work easier for me. More distractions so I don’t feel the hunger pangs of my soul. “Married a wife!” can’t bring my family to the meal – she might be offended. I have my own people, I don’t need the Father’s fellowship. I will do it myself, my own way, my own treasures will provide all I need for my body and life. Self-deceived from Adam we abuse the Father’s gifts as excuses for neglecting His great supper.
How does a father react when he is forsaken by his beloved children? Brokenhearted? Angry at their disrespect? (Lk. 14:21) The Father’s heart is broken. His anger is just. His children have chosen death over life. His love will not be thwarted. He sends out the invitation calling children from death to life in His Son. “Go quickly! Call the homeless in the city! Strangers and pilgrims in this world.” “Bring in the outcasts! The spiritually bankrupt who know they have no goodness in themselves. Those crippled by their sin. Blinded by the prideful lies of Satan. Those hobbling through life – who must be carried to the feast.”
The Father’s love is super abundant in Christ Jesus! (Lk. 14:22-23) There is still room in the Father’s House. Tenderly He sends out His servant into the countryside. To those who live in the wild like animals – scour the hedges and highways. Don’t take no for an answer – compel people to come to the great supper – for the Father’s love fills His House with poor miserable sinners who look only to Jesus crucified for their sins and raised to fill us with the peace of sins forgiven and the joy of everlasting life and salvation places upon our lips in His flesh and blood at His great feast! Here in time and hereafter in eternity.
What excuse do you have for missing His meal? (Lk. 14:24) Satan, sin, and pride deceive many – they are certain they will eat bread in heaven when they refuse to eat the Bread of Heaven the Father feeds us every Sunday through His Son calling us by His Holy Spirit. It is dangerous to neglect the Father’s invitation. The Son serving you His flesh and blood in bread and wine. The Holy Spirit comforting you daily and richly with cross won, empty tomb certified forgiveness within the Father’s Home – Christ’s Church.
Father’s Day. Father’s long to feast with their children. The True Father – God longs to feast with you dear sinner. He calls, gathers, enlightens, and strengthens you through the Feast. He sends you to compel and invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind to come Home here with you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Sermon Text: Luke 14:15-24
Sermon Theme: “The Danger of Missing The Meal” by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. The True Father longs to feast with His true children! “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” Tenderly He invites them Home. To us, who lack sense, He cries out, “Come, eat of My bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.” To feast is to share life. That’s why it is important for families to physically sit down at the table daily with no distractions and share meals together. Listening to each other, face to face, eye to eye. Children need to hear their father’s instruction and their mother’s wisdom.
From the beginning our Father longed to share His life with His creatures. Molding man form the earth’s clay in His own image on the sixth 24 day of the existence of all things around six millenia ago. Our Father Creator knelt down through His only begotten Son to breathe humanity alive by His Spirit through His Word. Listen! Your True Father is tenderly inviting you, “Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”
Hear His voice! Come to His Feast! Don’t walk in the way of your fallen father Adam! Learn from the Second Adam: “The Danger of Missing The Meal!”
Who do you invite into your home to eat at your table? A slob who eats too much and drinks all your wine? “A glutton and a wine bibber”(Lk 7:34). That’s the guest we find invited into the Pharisee’s home according to Doctor Luke’s extensive historical eyewitness research. Luke reports, “And as He went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, it happened that they watched Him.” (Luke 14:1 [MKJV]) A chief Pharisee invites Jesus to the meal in his home, not to hear Him. To watch Him! To see if He’d break their man made religious laws! Trusting in their own reason and strength they were certain that the Sabbath was a day to earn God’s favor by working hard to rest. They forgot the Scriptures teaching that the Father blessed them with the Sabbath to receive rest from Him through His Word and comfort by His Spirit in the Promise of the Messiah. “And behold” St. Luke reports the set up of an exhausted man suddenly ushered into the feast and plopped at Jesus’ feet. He is afflicted with dropsy. Luke uses the medical word referring to someone severely retaining water internally. It is no accident. It is a test. Will Jesus violate their rules of doing no work on the Sabbath?
Jesus asks a simple question, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” Silent stares is all He receives from His host and the other Pharisees at table. The Lord of the Sabbath hasn’t come to prolong fallen mankind’s suffering. He takes the man. Heals him. Releases him from the labor of his illness. The Creator restores His fallen creatures that we find our rest in Him. Instead of shout of joy, they scowl. “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.” The Pharisees would gladly rescue a son or an ox that fell into a pit on the Sabbath for it profited them. They had no compassion on the “poor, crippled, blind, and lame.” “Whoever does not love abides in death.”
The True Lord of the Feast warns the guests against turning the meal into an empty outward show of popularity. Sit at the lowest place when invited to a meal. Humble yourself under the Father’s almighty hand that He might exalt you in due time. Turning to the meal’s host Jesus tells him to invite to his table the outcasts – “the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind.” Those who can never repay your charity. Trusting the Father’s grace to repay it in full through His Son at the resurrection of the Just by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ Words are Light and Truth. From our first father Adam’s rebellion, we long to puff ourselves up in sinful pride. To feast on evil wallowing in sin and receiving its payment of death. Pride is a mark of enslavement to self-destructive sin, not freedom. Satan takes us captive in our fleshly sins chaining us with the sinful delusion of pride. The world’s self destructive pride mocks Jesus and His cross. Correcting a sin deluded scoffer only brings abuse. Reproving a wicked man brings injury from the demonic cancel culture. The Light of Truth exposes man’s works of darkness. Jesus’ Words at the meal make the good Pharisees uncomfortable exposing the elephant of their sin in the room. One of the guests seeks to change the subject. (Lk.14:15) Shine the light away from me, my sinful heart, my foolish pride. Jesus, let’s talk about heaven instead. The blessing of eating bread in God’s Kingdom. A kingdom the Pharisees are certain they will establish by their rules. A kingdom those bond by Satan prideful boast they will bring about by silencing the preaching of Christ – the Truth!
Where is the Kingdom of God? Where is the Father’s feast full of life for His children? Listen! (Lk. 14:16-17) The Father gives a great supper through a “certain man.” He promises it. He issues His invitation calling all to trust and come to the meal He longs to share with you. He prepares the feast at His own expense. It is an expensive meal. The price? The holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death of His only begotten Son. It is the only way to bring us from death to life as the Father sacrifices Jesus for our sin, our pride, our death – that we may come Home to our Father to the great supper of Life.
Now the Father sends forth His servant tenderly inviting lost sinners to the feast! “Come, for all things are ready!” “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” preached the greatest prophet John as he stood baptizing sinners in the Jordan. Baptizing them for repentance, washing them forgiven, prepared them for the Great Supper in Jesus. Where is the Kingdom of God? And being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered and said, The kingdom of God does not come with observation. Nor shall they say, Lo here! or, behold, there! For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. (Luke 17:20-21 [MKJV]) The Kingdom of God is present in the Son of God in our flesh. Where the sin forgiving, death destroying, Satan defeating living flesh and blood of Jesus is present – the Kingdom of God is in our midst.
All is ready! “Come!” the Father joyfully calls us back to feast with Him at the Tree of Life! A father’s greatest joy is to sit at table with his children to provide for their nourishment in the protection of his home. (Lk. 14:18-20) His children refuse His love! The Father’s love, sacrifice, provision, gift is forgotten. They don’t need to find rest in His great supper. “I have!” “I have!” “I have!” they boast of their own accomplishments apart from their true Father. “Bought a field!” more property that “I own!” “Bought five yoke of oxen!” more technology to make work easier for me. More distractions so I don’t feel the hunger pangs of my soul. “Married a wife!” can’t bring my family to the meal – she might be offended. I have my own people, I don’t need the Father’s fellowship. I will do it myself, my own way, my own treasures will provide all I need for my body and life. Self-deceived from Adam we abuse the Father’s gifts as excuses for neglecting His great supper.
How does a father react when he is forsaken by his beloved children? Brokenhearted? Angry at their disrespect? (Lk. 14:21) The Father’s heart is broken. His anger is just. His children have chosen death over life. His love will not be thwarted. He sends out the invitation calling children from death to life in His Son. “Go quickly! Call the homeless in the city! Strangers and pilgrims in this world.” “Bring in the outcasts! The spiritually bankrupt who know they have no goodness in themselves. Those crippled by their sin. Blinded by the prideful lies of Satan. Those hobbling through life – who must be carried to the feast.”
The Father’s love is super abundant in Christ Jesus! (Lk. 14:22-23) There is still room in the Father’s House. Tenderly He sends out His servant into the countryside. To those who live in the wild like animals – scour the hedges and highways. Don’t take no for an answer – compel people to come to the great supper – for the Father’s love fills His House with poor miserable sinners who look only to Jesus crucified for their sins and raised to fill us with the peace of sins forgiven and the joy of everlasting life and salvation places upon our lips in His flesh and blood at His great feast! Here in time and hereafter in eternity.
What excuse do you have for missing His meal? (Lk. 14:24) Satan, sin, and pride deceive many – they are certain they will eat bread in heaven when they refuse to eat the Bread of Heaven the Father feeds us every Sunday through His Son calling us by His Holy Spirit. It is dangerous to neglect the Father’s invitation. The Son serving you His flesh and blood in bread and wine. The Holy Spirit comforting you daily and richly with cross won, empty tomb certified forgiveness within the Father’s Home – Christ’s Church.
Father’s Day. Father’s long to feast with their children. The True Father – God longs to feast with you dear sinner. He calls, gathers, enlightens, and strengthens you through the Feast. He sends you to compel and invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind to come Home here with you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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