Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - Luke 14:15-24

The Savior’s teaching that the unsavory of society should be treated like human beings was pretty revolutionary and the situation became awkward. JTC suggests that one of the people there at dinner was trying to lighten the mood when saying, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” It makes sense, I can imagine someone breaking an awkward silence with “and that’s what she said!” type of comment trying to make people more comfortable. I did think it was interesting that JTC was perceptive enough to catch that. Like the teachings we studied yesterday, the parable he gives next needs some context before we can understand it more fully. The parable is of a man who makes a feast, just like we talked about yesterday, and the people that he wanted there couldn’t come. So he became angry and instead invited the poor and sick to enjoy the meal with him in their place.

This is a difficult parable for me to understand because of context. It is implied that the man had invited these other people to the feast and they had accepted his invitation. It doesn’t say that in the scriptures, but apparently that was the ancient custom so it is implied. When first reading this, the man’s anger at his guest for not coming seems misplaced, after all, it was his own fault that he planned a feast and he can’t expect everyone to stop everything they are doing and go to him. But if we consider that they probably had already RSVPed that they were coming, and then when the time comes, they decline, that’s pretty rude, so we can understand that. JTC comments, “to arbitrarily allow personal affairs to annul an honorable engagement once accepted was to manifest discourtesy, disrespect and practical insult toward the provider of the feast.”

Surely things come up, and if there was a family emergency, then if course no one would expect you to leave your obligations to attend a party. But let’s consider the excuses given to the man of the house for his guests to not go to his party. The first man says, “I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.” JTC points out that inspecting a piece of property that you bought was a high priority endeavor, but given that it was probably closer to night time, the man couldn’t have inspected it in the dark and could have gone to the dinner. The IM is much less forgiving suggesting that there was no way that a man would have bought a piece of property without inspecting it first, so this man was clearly lying.

The second man said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.” Again, JTC gives this guy the benefit of the doubt but says that the oxen could have waited until the morning. The IM is more scathing, indicating that there is no way that a man would “purchase… five costly teams of oxen without having tested them.” We could say that maybe the man had his servant buy the land and the oxen, so he still needed to do those things, but again, both things could have waited until the morning.

The third man’s excuse is “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” The IM says, “The third guest’s excuse, that he had recently married, seems more legitimate, but it foreshadows the Savior’s teaching in Luke 14:26 that even one’s spouse should not take priority over the Lord.” JTC says, “the newly married man could have left his bride and his friends for the period of the supper that he had promised to attend.” Because all of these excuses could have been dealt with later, the message was loud and clear, these people didn’t want to go. I can understand that, I am old and there are many times when I have committed to doing something and I just don’t want to do it when the time comes. I want to stay home and go to bed early, so I can understand where these guys are coming from. But when we consider what the message of the parable is later, we will see how this isn’t so much of an “I’m old and tired and want to stay home” things as it is “don’t bother me right now, Lord” thing.

What is most telling about the excuses given is told to us via the IM by Elder F. Burton Howard, saying, “If the Lord is providing his own commentary on the parable of the great supper- and it seems that he is- then it is frightening to note that those who declined the invitation were those more concerned with temporal problems- for example, a piece of ground, a yoke of oxen, or a wife who did not understand the significance of the supper. As we look at the part riches play in this parable, we can see that there is great risk in them- risk that concern for material things may cloud our view of what is eternally important.”  

At this point we can read a little bit into what this parable is teaching, the man who is having the feast is Heavenly Father, the servant giving the people the notice that it’s time to eat is Jesus and the prophets, the feast is the gospel, and those who had previously accepted the invitation and are now declining are the Jews at the time of Christ. It’s most interesting to me that the gospel is a feast. When we think about church, most times it is associated with either neutral feelings of negative feelings. We think about guilt, we think about sitting for three hours a week, we think about obligations for callings, prayer, scripture study, etc. And since people just want to do what they want to do all the time, then these activities associated with church is more like nails on a chalk board then a feast. I am guilty of this myself, trust me. If we view the gospel as a feast, we have a great time with our friends, who are fed, we are happy, we feel special and valued. I’m going to have to think about this more.

Now the man has this huge feast that he’s made and none of the people who agreed to come are going to come, do what is he supposed to do? Honestly, some people would just pack it up and send it out to their friends. These days I’d put it in the fridge and eat it as leftovers for the next couple of months. You could give it to the animals. Then there is the option to give it to those less fortunate, and how exactly do you do that, of course, you pack it up and take it to them, right? Not this guy. He has the same servant who went to the prestigious people, “go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.” The man doesn’t want to food taken to the people, he wants the people to come to his house, and he wants them to enjoy the food and friendship this place offers. Essentially, he is replacing those who declined with those who are less fortunate, and we can assume that those who declined, are more socially acceptable and well to do than the others who end up coming to the feast. This parable is not only a lesson about the gospel but about treating other people like human beings, humility, and brotherhood.

The servant returns with all the other people and says that there is still room, so the man tells him, “go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.” This makes the man sound petty and unforgiving, which the Lord isn’t. I wonder if another way to consider this verse is to take it to mean that none of those men will choose to come to the dinner. Or it could be thought of as “give everything to the new guests and don’t bother saving anything for the other guys in case they come, because they won’t be coming.” This can also go back to the psychology of motivation, the Lord has to let people know that this isn’t an all you can eat buffet that’s open 24 hours a day, the longer you wait to choose righteousness, the more suffering there is going to be on your way back. When the man says out into the highways and hedges, he means to go get the people that are outside of the city, those considered to be country bumpkins, those who were probably considered even less desirable then those who were sick or maimed.

This parable is Jesus’ way of saying to the Jews, “hey I brought it to you first, and you declined, so don’t be mad when everyone else in the world get it, even those you consider to be unclean.” The IM quotes Elder F. Melvin Hammond as teaching, “we often must make significant changes in our lives in order to attend the feast at the table of the Lord. Too many of us put those changes off, thinking there is no urgency. Perhaps this parable could be called the ‘don’t bother me now, Lord’ parable. We try to excuse ourselves in various ways. Each rationalization comes from selfishness and almost always relates to something temporal. For some it is the Word of Wisdom. For others it is the law of tithing. Perhaps it is a reluctance to live the law of chastity. Whatever the reason, we who reject or delay our response to the Savior’s invitation show our lack of love for Him who is our King.”