1 John 3:13–24
St. Luke 14:15–24
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. The invitations went out. It was marked on every calendar. All the preparations were made. This would be a night to remember. And at the time for the banquet the Master sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ The big night had arrived. And all the great man needed now was his guests, his friends, to come celebrate with him.
But they all alike began to make excuses. You know, most people would beg to be invited to a great party like this, or at least would be hoping they might snag a last minute invite. But these people beg not to come! “I got a field… I got cows… I got married… I know this party is a big deal and we’ve known about it for a while, and I’m sure it would be great… But, you know… Life gets so hectic sometimes… There’s only so many hours in the day… We’re trying to simplify at our house… Maybe when things have calmed down a bit… We’ll call you.”
To these people, the Master’s generous feast is nothing but an imposition, an obligation. They want to be relieved of their “burden” of being invited—as if it’s such an imposition to go to a party, as if being the guest of a great and wealthy man is such a burden. But they are concerned with more pressing matters. They think they need something else.
Do we ever think of our Master’s Feast in this way? I’m afraid we do. Not only do we think of the Lord’s Day and the Lord’s Service as an imposition, but then you add on the “burden” of the Lord’s Supper, and the excuses start rolling in. The Lord gives a great banquet and invites many. He sacrificed His own body and blood on the cross for our sins, to satisfy God’s wrath, to defeat death and the devil, to cleanse us and make peace between us and God. All the preparations were made. And now He sends servants to say to those who are invited, “Come, for everything is now ready. Here is that same body and blood, now risen from the dead, and given to you in this great banquet, as the proof of your salvation, as the gift of eternal life itself.” And we start coming up with reasons not to go: the Lord’s Supper is inconvenient, it’s uncomfortable, it’s unnecessary.
Let’s consider these objections. It’s inconvenient—when you have the Lord’s Supper church takes too long. Are we really prepared to tell God that we can’t give Him more than 60 minutes per week? Are our lives really that important, that when He says He’s got a whole day planned for us, we feel no shame in limiting Him to an hour? A couple months ago we had extremely brief, 20 minute Communion services. This was obviously an emergency measure due to a national crisis. This was obviously not the ideal. At least that should be obvious to any Christian. But if we liked it because we could check church off the list after just 20 minutes and then get on with the rest of our day, then the clock really is our god, or whatever it was we wanted to be doing instead.
Or maybe we want to be excused from our Master’s feast because the Lord’s Supper is uncomfortable. This is mostly felt on the issue of closed communion, when we are unable to share the Lord’s food with other Christians who do not hold the same confession of faith we do, and they should not be sharing it with us. So, we might be tempted to avoid the Lord’s Supper so that we can avoid this thorny problem. But we can’t deny the Lord’s great gift just because other people do. Jesus wants unity in His Church and at His feast. He expects us to have His Supper and have it seriously, even if it is uncomfortable.
If we want to remove or limit all the uncomfortable things about being a Christian, then we might as well give up the whole thing. Christianity is uncomfortable. The Bible is an uncomfortable book. But it’s necessary. It’s the Truth. And sometimes it’s the hard truth that people need to hear, including us. Christianity is the crucifixion of our sinful flesh and mind and desires. It’s supposed to sting a bit—that’s how you know it’s working. And Christianity is also the resurrection to a new life, a new of doing things, a new way of thinking—that is thinking, doing, living like God. So, having the Lord’s Supper and practicing the Bible’s doctrine of closed communion is really one of the best ways we can speak the truth in love to those Christians in churches that hold false beliefs. After all, we want everyone to be able to come and receive the Master’s feast in the right way, God’s way.
But sometimes we might still think the Lord’s Supper is unnecessary. “I’m good. I’m fine for now. I don’t need it that often. And you know, if I don’t really need it every Sunday, then why not every other month? Why not just a couple times a year? Why need it at all?” Or, we might think, “We’ve got the Word. Do we really need the Supper too?” But if we follow this thinking, we’ll eventually conclude that really we don’t need any of it. If we think we don’t need the Lord’s Supper or Baptism because we’ve got the Word, then we might not really have the Word either.
God’s gifts don’t compete with each other. Baptism gets us connected to Jesus and His Word. The Word teaches us and brings us to Jesus and His Supper. And the Supper is how stay connected to Jesus and His Baptism and His Word. They all go together, and they all confirm each other. All together God’s gifts are the Gospel. And the Gospel causes our hearts to desire the one thing we really, truly need. We don’t need fields or cows, not forever. We don’t need family events, not ultimately. We don’t need time or comfort. Our Master knows best what we need. And He says we need His Gospel. He says we need His feast. He says we need Jesus. We need His body and blood, His mercy and love.
So, if you hear the Master’s invitation and love it, but you still don’t feel worthy to come to this feast, you feel too sinful to take this great gift, then listen to this: You are those in the streets and lanes of the city… the poor and crippled and blind and lame. You are those far off on the highways and in the hedges. Let this Lord of love compel you into His house, bring you in, because He wants you here at the banquet He has prepared just for you.
The Lord Jesus only died for sinners, and this holy food is only for sinners. The Supper does not depend upon our worthiness. We go because we are poor, miserable people in need. We go exactly because we are unworthy of it, and still we are invited to it. So, the only people who are actually unworthy to receive the Supper are those who want to stay away; those who think they have better things to do, those who don’t feel their weaknesses and don’t want to be considered sinners.
But, let me say this now for any of those people: If you hear the Master’s invitation but you don’t think you really need to come to His Supper, if you don't recognize or feel the full depth of your sin; well then, that is just proof of how sick you actually are. If we don’t feel our weakness and need then that just makes things worse. That’s a sign that our sinful flesh and mind and heart can't rightly feel anything. It’s like cancer, growing silently, without us knowing it, until it’s too late. So, the less you feel your sins, the more reason you have to go to the Supper to get help. The Lord’s Supper is His cure for you.
Either way—whether you feel unworthy to come or you think you don’t need to come—either way, you’re listening to your heart, and your sinful heart is wrong. But whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart. That’s from 1 John 3, and it might be the best Bible verse nobody knows. Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart. When your heart says, “You’re too sinful. God can’t love you. God doesn’t want you.” God is greater and He says, “Take and eat, this is for you.” When your heart says, “You don’t need that, you’re fine on your own.” God is greater and He says, “My Son died and shed His blood for you, and I want you to have this gift for yourself.” God is greater than our hearts. The Lord’s Supper is greater than our hearts. Jesus with His body and blood is greater than what we think we need, greater than anything we could ever need or want.
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. So, what pleases God? What’s our Lord’s command? “Take, eat, drink. Believe, eat, drink. Join Me in this feast of My love for you.” Whoever keeps this commandment abides in God, and God in him.
See, you are invited to abide in God, to live in God—in the one God who is three Persons, the perfect society of love. You are invited to join them. They want you in on it! And in the Lord’s Supper you get Jesus Himself—body and blood, soul and divinity—so with Jesus, you enter into that loving community of the Holy Trinity. That’s why we call it Communion, after all. It’s the banquet, the never-ending feast of the community you share with the Father, Son, and Spirit, and with all our brothers and sisters. It’s where we go now to actually take part, join in, and love that community. And it’s where we’re headed, forever.
Our Hymn of the Day is a prayer for this communion, this banquet the Master calls us to. And the last stanza especially sums up what I’ve been saying today. We pray that we would obey His call, His command, to come, take, eat, drink. We are invited by His love and we requite Him with our love. That means we try to repay God’s love with our love for Him and for His Supper and for others. And if you could measure God’s love, this feast would do it. The Lord Jesus, our treasure, gives His very self to you. You are His honored guest, now and forever.
Jesus, bread of life, I pray You,
Let me gladly here obey You.
By Your love I am invited,
Be Your love with love requited;
By this Supper let me measure,
Lord, how vast and deep love’s treasure.
Through the gift of grace You give me
As Your guest in heaven receive me. (LSB 636:8)
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
