Parables of Grace: The Parables of the Great Banquet and the Prodigal Son | Guest Speaker: David Russ

So, do you remember Tarek and Michelle Salahi?

Not the flipper-flop couple.

This is a different couple, okay?

Almost 10 years ago, President Obama had a banquet at the White House.

It was to celebrate a state visit from the Indian Prime Minister.

And Tarek and Michelle Salahi attended the banquet, got their picture taken with Joe Biden and Katie Kirk and many other dignitaries.

But it turns out they weren't invited, okay?

This couple who's described themselves as aspiring reality TV stars, they just walked up, went through all the layers of security, and crashed the party.

It was kind of a kind of a scandal, a little bit of a scandal.

The White House was embarrassed, the Secret Service was no doubt horrified.

It's a huge scandal when the wrong people attend a banquet.

So the two parables we're going to look at today, they have in common a banquet where the guest list is top of mind.

The first parable that's not that well known is called the Parable of the Great Banquet.

And yeah, each of the parables has to have a name.

This one is the parable of the great banquet, okay.

The second parable we're going to look at, almost everyone has heard of, is the parable of the prodigal son.

And what these two stories illustrate are two specific ways in which God's grace is unexpected.

The sheer size of God's grace is unexpected.

Think of that as the principle of incredible grace.

And then God's grace goes to people who are unexpected.

Think of that as the principle of scandalizing grace, incredible grace and scandalizing grace.

And these two parables we're going to look at today interact with those two ideas of incredible grace and scandalizing grace in very different ways.

We're going to try to take a step back and see if we can try to hear these parables the way Jesus' listeners would have heard them.

And then we'll see how these principles of incredible grace and scandalizing grace kind of come out in the stories.

So let's dive into the first parable, Luke 14, 15 through 24.

Jesus is a guest at dinner.

He did that a lot.

He ate with sinners and with Pharisees.

He's made the point that the Pharisees should invite the undeserving people, the blind and lame and crippled, the people that can't repay them, and then they would be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

Now, as you can imagine, you're in this dinner party with all these rich upstanding people, and when Jesus says, you should invite a bunch of like lowlifes to your banquet next time, that's not a message they really want to hear, okay?

And one of the guests, seems like he's trying to change the subject.

One of the guests says, Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.

In Isaiah chapter 25, there's a description of a banquet at the end of time.

Isaiah 25 · chapter mention

And he's saying, Blessed is everyone who's invited to that banquet that's going to be at the end of time.

And Jesus responds by telling a story, a parable, about who is invited to the banquet and who will attend the banquet.

And it turns out those are two different groups of people.

Okay?

So in this story, there's this guy, presumably he's wealthy and upstanding, and he invites a bunch of people to his banquet.

He wants to have a very big banquet.

And in those days, uh, when it came time for the banquet, you would actually send your servant out to greet each person that's been invited, and the servant would escort that person back to the banquet.

It was a courtesy to have the servant escort the guest back to the banquet.

So the servant gets to go out and he gets to find the invitees and he gets to say, Come, everything for the banquet is now ready.

So far, so good.

Then it gets weird.

The story really gets weird.

The invited guests, for no apparent reason, make up these excuses why they can't attend.

And not just any excuses, like transparently lame excuses, like dog eat the homework excuses.

I have bought a field and I must go out and see it.

You don't buy a field without seeing it.

And by the way, even if you did, it'll still be there the next day.

How is that a reason for not attending a party?

I've bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them.

You don't buy five yoke of oxen without examining them.

I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.

Now this one's a little bit more clever.

Under Jewish law in Deuteronomy 24, 5, a person was excused from military service or any business for the first year of marriage to bring happiness to his wife.

I see Alex back there.

That'd be a good deal, huh?

That'd be a good deal.

But that means freedom from business or war, not freedom from attending parties.

That's crazy.

So the person giving the feast understands these people are lying.

He gets it, and he is furious.

They've come about as close as they can in their culture to saying, we don't want your stupid banquet.

So the master, he wants a full house for the banquet.

So he tells the servant to go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.

The servant says, There's still room.

So he says, Go out on the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.

Jesus at this point slips into the first person in telling the story.

He says, For I tell you, none of these men who were invited shall taste my banquet.

It's almost like Jesus himself is saying, This is my banquet, and he's personally passing judgment on these people who don't want to attend the banquet.

The story itself doesn't say why these people rejected the invitation.

But think about the context.

Okay?

The Pharisees who were at this dinner party felt that like they were entitled to an invitation to that banquet at the end of time in Isaiah 25.

They felt like they earned their invitation to that banquet.

But then when Jesus came, they rejected that invitation because they found out it involved lavish grace to the unwashed masses.

This touches on the idea of scandalizing grace, okay?

That God's grace to the undeserving is scandalizing to people who feel deserving.

The Pharisees, by wanting to deal with God on the basis of merit, of earning a place at the table, of being entitled to an invitation, had cut themselves off from God's grace.

And their counterparts in their story, they're left out of the banquet.

And about the idea of incredible grace, this parable shows the breadth of God's grace.

The people hearing the story would likely have understood the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame from inside the city to be talking about people inside the community, that is, Jews who couldn't keep the ritual laws of purity.

That's how they would have understood those people.

And the people in the highways and hedges outside the city, the people hearing that story would have thought of them as Gentiles, okay?

And while it's dangerous to apply rigid logic to a parable, think about this for a second.

What portion of humanity is covered by the categories of inside the city and outside the city?

All right?

And the answer is all of it, all of humanity.

The servant, excuse me, the master at this point feels free to send his servant to anyone, anyone in the world.

That's the breadth of God's grace.

Now, why does the master tell the servant to compel folks to come in?

Most likely because they would definitely have refused a mere invitation feeling they were unworthy.

It would have just been out of context to get invited to this rich dinner party if you were a beggar or whatever.

So the master knows they won't feel worthy.

He's not going to ask.

He's going to make sure they attend without asking if they want to.

Now, what does that look like?

Well, hold on to that thought.

The next parable makes it clear, I think, what it means to be compelled to come to a banquet.

And we'll touch on that in the next parable.

And about the servant.

While I think the servant inside the parable is Jesus, it's also true that we are God's servants.

And this is a beautiful picture of evangelism, okay?

We get to run out into the world and we get to say, come, everything for the banquet is now ready.

What a great job assignment.

Tony Campolo is a pastor from Philadelphia, and he tells an absolutely true story that I think beautifully illustrates the principles of this parable.

Tony Campolo was invited to a uh a conference in Hawaii, and he flies out there, and thanks to jet lag, he's awake at 3:30 in the morning, okay?

And he's like, okay, now what I'm gonna do.

And he all he can find is his greasy spoon diner, and he goes in his greasy spoon diner, and he's sitting there, and uh what he says is this while he's there in the greasy spoon diner taking in a coffee and a donut, he says, In marches, eight or nine provocative and boisterous prostitutes.

It was a small place, and they sat on either side of me.

Their talk was loud and crude.

I felt completely out of place and was just about to make my getaway when I overheard the woman beside me say, Tomorrow's my birthday, I'm gonna be 39.

I've never had a birthday party in my whole life, why should I have one now?

When he hears that, he makes a decision.

And he goes to the uh, after after the prostitutes leave, he goes to the owner, a guy named Harry, and he has this idea.

And he and Harry conspire together, okay?

The next night, Tony Campolo comes back at 2.30 in the morning and he brings with him all the party decorations he could find.

And they decorate this diner from one end to the other, and word spreads, and all these people come, including what felt like every prostitute in Honolulu, and the place is just packed, okay?

And then at 3:30, uh the door swings open and in walks the guest of honor, Agnes.

And everybody shouts, Happy Birthday! Campolo says, Never have I seen a person so flabbergasted, so stunned, so shaken.

Her mouth fell open.

Her legs seemed to buckle a bit.

As we came to the end of singing Happy Earth Day, Happy Birthday, her eyes moistened.

Then when the birthday cake with all the candles on it was carried out, she just lost it and openly cried.

Okay, she's so moved by this display of love that she can't bring herself to eat the cake.

She picks up the cake and just walks out and takes it home.

Okay?

And the door closes and there's this awkward silence.

And so Tony Campolo does what every pastor's gonna do when there's an awkward silence, he leaves everyone in prayer for Agnes.

Okay.

Campolo says, When I finished the prayer, Harry leaned over the counter, and the trace of hostility in his voice said, he said, Hey, you never told me you were a preacher.

What kind of a church do you belong to?

And one of those moments when the right words just came, I answered, I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.

Harry waited a moment, and then he almost sneered as he answered, No, you don't.

There's no church like that.

If there was, I'd join it.

I'd join a church like that.

The parable we've just discussed proves that this actually is the kind of church Jesus came to build.

And the story that Tony Campolo tells says that we don't often show this side of God's kingdom, the sheer breadth of God's grace and the unexpected people that God shows grace to.

Well, as in your face as this first parable is, in some ways it's made clearer by comparison to the second parable, the parable of the prodigal son.

Now, there's not much about this parable that hasn't already been said, but that's not going to stop me.

I'm going to keep going anyway.

So let's dive into the second parable, the parable of the prodigal son.

Starting in Luke 15, 11, there's this fairly well-off landowner, and he has two sons, and the story starts on a jarring note.

The younger son asks for his share of the inheritance in cash.

To the listener of the story, that's like saying, I wish you were dead.

Now, the father, who probably should have punished the younger son, certainly the listeners of the story would have thought the younger son would have had punishment coming at that point.

The father grants the wish, he sells off part of his property, and he gives the cash to the younger son.

And what happens next is what any of us would expect, and I'm sure it's what the listeners would have expected.

Check out the downhill progression.

He goes far away from parental oversight and he wastes his money.

And then he's out of money and there's a famine, okay?

And in his desperation, he clings to some foreigner who, probably trying to get rid of him, gives him a job feeding pigs, which is about the worst occupation for a Jew.

And even the pig food looks good, and he can't have any.

Okay, does it get any any worse off than that?

And you can tell the people listening to the story are probably like, yeah, he had that coming, right?

And the younger kid, uh finally he comes to his senses.

I mean, if that doesn't bring you to your senses, what will, you know, and he and he has this little three-part speech planned.

Um, I've I've sinned against God, and you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired servants.

And he decides he's gonna, he's just gonna go back because he's gonna die where he is, so might as well just go back.

What happens next in the story would absolutely have blown the minds of the people in Jesus' time who were listening to the story, okay?

While still a long way off, the father sees the son and has compassion on him.

What can this mean, except the father was watching for the son?

Okay?

The father runs, okay.

That's that's humiliating, that's shocking.

To this day in the Middle East, it's it's considered humiliating for a man to show his legs, and it's considered humiliating for a man to be seen running.

Back in the in the 90s, when they showed Bill Clinton jogging, okay, on TV or whatever, in the Middle East they just laughed.

They thought that was the silliest thing they'd ever seen.

Okay, it's humiliating for a man to be seen like that.

Um the father falls on his son's neck and embraces his son.

This is the son who smells like pig poop at this point.

The father embraces him, okay?

And while the father embraces the son out of love, there's an additional reason you need to know.

Under Jewish law in Deuteronomy 21 through 18 through 21, the father not only had the option, but the obligation to bring the prodigal son out into the town square and have him stoned as an example to others.

The father is falling on the son's neck to keep the town from stoning the son.

Okay?

The father, um, the son starts his speech, his little three-part speech, and the father cuts him off.

The father brings out the best robe and puts it on the son, which, by the way, the robe covers the pig poop.

Um, the father brings out the ring and the sandals, okay?

The ring and the sandals show that this is not, he will not be considered a servant.

He will be considered a son.

Servants don't wear rings and sandals, only sons wear rings and sandals.

And then the father brings him home and he throws a party, a banquet.

Okay, and you kind of feel like maybe the story's done at this point, but the story keeps going.

Okay?

The older son's in the field and he hears the party, and he finds out why there's a party.

His wild kid brother has come home broke, okay?

And the older son doesn't want anything to do with the party.

He wants nothing to do with it.

And the father, just as he had done for the younger son, the father does the same for the older son.

He comes out to the son.

He comes out to the son to plead him to come to the party.

And the older son is clearly dealing on the basis of conditional love.

And he's offended that his father is showing forgiveness to the wild younger brother.

And so the father shows grace to the older son.

He says, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

We've heard every week here at Redeemer that God shows grace to the undeserving, and that's that's you and me.

This parable also shows that God shows grace to the unforgiving, and all too often that's also you and me.

Um it's mind-blowing as it is that the that the father showed grace to the wild younger son.

I think it's just as mind-blowing that the father shows grace to the unforgiving older son.

Now, circling back to the idea of incredible grace for a second, the first parable shows the breadth of God's grace.

This parable shows the depth of God's grace, just how far God is willing to go, even to the point of humiliation, to show grace to his sons.

Remember the servants compelling the wretched masses to come to the banquet?

Remember, we we we talked about that?

In this story, we see what it looks like, okay?

The younger son would no doubt have refused an invitation to the father's banquet.

He's already said, I'm undeserving, I don't deserve this.

So the father's not gonna not gonna ask.

The father sees the son uh uh a long way off.

The father sees the son a long way off, he has compassion on him, he runs to him, he embraces him, he puts the best robe on him, he puts a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, he takes him uh effectively by the arm and takes him to the banquet.

That's what it looks like when the father compels the son to come to the banquet.

That's what it looks like.

Okay.

And about the idea of scandalizing grace, uh, it's interesting.

In the first story, the expected people don't want to attend the banquet, and so the father invites the undeserving.

In the second story, the father invites the undeserving, and so the expected people don't want to attend the banquet.

They're actually kind of mirror images of each other.

But there's a key difference between these parables, I think, offers us hope.

In the first parable, the ungrateful invitees are rejected with a chilling finality.

But in the second parable, the father shows mercy to the ungrateful invitee and shows forgiveness and shows him grace.

When God is your father, he can show grace even even in your unforgiveness.

Now, where are you in these stories?

Where am I in these stories?

As I look at the different characters in the story, I think I see myself in a lot of different places in these stories, okay?

At times I feel like I'm the poor and the needy and the crippled and the lame when it comes to the things of God.

When I'm in this state, uh I'm unwilling or unable to acknowledge God's presence.

And when I'm in that state, I'm not deserving of God's grace.

And so what happens?

The master and the person of the servant comes to me and compels me to come to the banquet.

At times I feel like I'm the prodigal.

At times I feel like I just want to turn my back on the things of God or run from God or push him away.

I get tired of following the rules of uh thinking the right thoughts, of, uh, and I feel like doing things my own way, solving problems in my own strength, saying what I really feel.

I think we all feel that way at some time.

And what does the father do?

He runs to me and compels me to come to the banquet.

And at times I'm the judgmental pharisical older brother.

I'm offended at the thought of showing forgiveness or grace to someone clearly undeserving.

I think we're all that way at some point.

And the father comes to me and compels me to come to the banquet.

If you want to be closer to God, and I think you do, and if God's running after you, and I think he is, then all you have to do is stop running.

Stop running and let the Father catch up to you.

He wants to clothe you in the robe of his favorite son.

And when he does, he's gonna throw a huge party that I'd love to attend to come and everything for the banquet is now ready.

Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you that you are the father, that you are the father who has sons that run from you, sons that are unforgiving.

And we thank you that the story doesn't end there.

We thank you that you are willing to uh humiliate yourself, you're willing to humble yourself, you sent your son to earth to die for your sons.

We thank you that you come to us, that even in our crippled state, in our running state, you still come to us, and you show us grace, you clothe us in the robe of your favorite son, you say that we are now your sons, and we thank you that you treat us as sons even in our unfaithfulness.

We pray that your grace, your unexpected grace, your incredible grace, your scandalizing grace would melt our hearts, help us to live close to you, help us to celebrate with you, and we thank you for the joy that's in the kingdom of God, the joy of a banquet.

And we pray that we would be feasting with our brothers and sisters in Christ, feasting on your word and feasting in the joy that comes from knowing you.

In your Son Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.