Today I am beginning the first of a four part blog post about the Parable of the Feast. Studying Scripture is foundational to growing in Christ. Let’s walk this together and learn how consumerism, busyness, and romance often fill voids that are meant to be filled by God.
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Scripture often talks about huge banquets and feasts as examples for spiritual things. Jesus uses them as examples all throughout the gospels to teach people about him and his father.
He does this because back then, a feast or banquet were huge ordeals. They were spectacular things that sometimes lasted weeks. Wedding Banquets were often a week of great festivities.
At this time and in this culture a banquet or feast was like having a coronation for the future Queen or having a lavish Thanksgiving celebration that lasted a week.
One of these parables is The Parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14:16-24). Jesus tells this parable to a group of Pharisees and religious leaders while dining with them.
He tells this story because he knows they can understand picture the setting and understand the context of what is going on, but the Pharisees miss the whole point.
The parable Jesus tells starts with a man who has prepared an extravagant banquet. In this parable, the man represented here is God and the banquet that is being talked about is presumably Heaven.
Once the banquet is prepared, the man sends his servant out to tell all the guests it is ready. The servant in this case is Jesus. God sent him out to tell all of his people that the time has come, the messiah is here, and they are all saved.
When the servant, or Jesus, returns to where the banquet is being held, no one is with him. The servant delivers the excuses each guest made and their regret that they will not be attending the banquet.
When the man hears this, he becomes very angry and tells the servant to go into the streets and find anyone who is willing to come.
The servant does exactly what he is asked. Those who end up attending the amazing banquet are the poor, the cripple, the blind, and the lame.
Remember, Jesus was speaking the Pharisees and in this parable, the invited guests are the Pharisees (and other Jews of the day). Jesus, God in human form, is standing right in front of them and inviting them into the Kingdom of God but they aren’t entering. The place marker at the table that reads their name is being filled by someone else.
So often, I find that we as Americans especially are being offered a place at God’s great banquet and for some reason or another we’re not accepting it…
To read the rest of the post visit my new blog.
