St. Luke 14:15–24
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the First Commandment, God says: You shall not bow down to idols or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God (Exodus 20:5). I know hearing God call Himself “jealous” is uncomfortable for us. But part of the reason for that is we don’t fully realize what jealousy means. We treat jealousy and envy as synonyms, but there is a difference. Envy is coveting—it’s the sinful desire to possess something that rightfully belongs to someone else. When you gaze at another woman or man with lust, you are coveting, you are envious of that person’s husband or wife. But jealousy is the feeling that someone else possesses something that you rightly deserve. To be jealous of what is rightly yours means you are vigilant in keeping it or guarding it. You would be right to be jealous for your children, because you don’t want them to love and listen to some other person more than you.
So, the Lord is indeed a jealous God. He is jealous over us, because we rightly belong to Him. He created us, He redeemed us by His blood, and He is jealous to keep us and guard us in His kingdom. And He burns with hot anger, when He sees us turn away from Him and subject ourselves to other gods, to other desires besides a desire for Him alone. This is why the man in our parable today became so angry when the people he called refused the invitation to his banquet. He swears: I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. In Matthew’s version of this parable, the man giving the banquet is a king, and when the people refused His invitation, the king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city (Matthew 22:7).
This man or king represents God the Father who has prepared a great banquet of salvation for mankind in the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. And the people who reject Him represent the unbelieving Pharisees and Jews. Then the poor and lame would be the lowly Jews who do believe in Jesus. And finally the people gathered in from the highways and hedges, far out in the countryside, these are the Gentiles. But let’s back up to the first group that rejected the invitation. Have we not all done this in some way? By our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds we reject His invitation to be with Him and to receive His mercy and love.
But if God is so merciful and loving, why is God jealous? How can He react in such a violent manner to those who reject Him? Because, as I said, we belong to Him. The Lord God has created us, redeemed us, sacrificed His own dear Son for us. All on His own, without any effort on our part, God made us His free and holy people. So, He will not sit back and let some other gods take us from Him. Most importantly, God is jealous for us because there is life nowhere else. He knows that without Him, we would be nothing but dust and death. He is jealous and does not want to see us bowing down to idols, or having any fear, love, or trust in things besides Him, because He knows that nothing else can save us from sin. None of our loves—whether it’s money or family, sex or pride—none of these things will give us life. Only the Lord our God can do that—that’s why He is jealous for us, jealous to keep us for Himself, and jealous to keep us in His life.
This is also why He becomes angry and will punish if we go against Him. Without God’s life there is only death. So also, without God’s grace in Christ there is only wrath. There is no middle ground. So if you go against God’s grace, you automatically enter into His wrath. If you refuse the banquet that your God has prepared, then He will destroy you. Because rejecting His invitation is far worse than offending the host or appearing ungrateful. Rejecting the salvation that He has prepared for you in Christ means that you are stealing yourself away from Him. You are denying what He has done in creating and redeeming you. Turning down God’s grace means you are denying His ownership, and claiming your independence from Him.
And there is the lie that makes us so uncomfortable when we think about our jealous God. God’s jealousy—His desire to have us for Himself and not share us with anything else—that makes us uncomfortable because we still think we don’t really need Him. We believe the lie that we can be independent from Him. But the truth is, we are not gods. And if we insist on having things our own way, then the true God will answer our rebellion with His anger and punishment.
Still, Jesus died for our sins. He sacrificed His own faithful and obedient life in the place of ungrateful rebels. His holy blood atoned for every envious thought, every greedy action, every rude and uncaring word. There is not a single sin that can condemn you because Jesus has answered for them all.
This means the only way you can get God’s wrath is if you insist on keeping your sins. If you deny your sin and tell God that His Law is wrong, only then will you be held responsible. If you continue with your sins and think that you’ll have time to repent later, only then will you have to answer for them. This then, is the first point of the parable—the point illustrated by the people who rejected the invitation. The banquet is prepared. Everything is now ready. It is finished. But they didn’t want it. They wanted other things. They thought there was time for the banquet later. That is what brought judgment crashing down upon them.
But the parable’s main point is that Jesus is reaching out to you. There is still room. It’s not too late. Repent and accept His invitation anew. The Lord who looked with compassion over the city that condemned Him, the Lord who prayed for the forgiveness of those who crucified Him, He is not angry or disgusted with you. He wants you. He is jealous for you. His invitation is not half-hearted, nor does it come from a sense of obligation. The invitation to His salvation comes from His very heart. You belong to Him and He has pledged Himself to you. There is nothing He would not do for you, nothing that He has not suffered in order to spare you.
And no matter how you appear to the world or to yourself, no matter if you’re deformed and mangled by your own sins, or shamed and dirtied by others’ sins against you, that does not matter to Him. He loves you more purely and fully than you can know. He is ready to receive you again. He does not begrudge the cost of your salvation. He is glad to receive you, to forgive you, to love you forever.
Now, you have come to the Lord’s banquet today. In His presence, you have already begun to receive the salvation He has prepared for you. You have been fed by His Word that forgives your sins and nourishes His life in you. And soon you will taste His love for you in the bread and wine that is His very body and blood. Rejoice and be glad. It’s time to feast.
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
