The Parable of the Uninvited Guests

This particular story takes place at a dinner—the same dinner we were talking about last time. In Luke 14, Jesus is invited to the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, and all the attendees watch Jesus closely to see how he behaves.

If you read the context, Jesus is committing one of the socially unforgivable sins at a social function: he’s making it really awkward. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a dinner where somebody makes it awkward. If you haven’t, you might be the one making it awkward. Because it definitely happens.

Jesus started out by watching people take their seats. He reprimands them and says, “You’re taking your seats wrong. That’s not where you should be sitting.” Then, in verses 12-14, he complains about who the host has invited. Essentially, he says, “You invited the wrong people. You shouldn’t have invited your neighbors, friends, and relatives. You should have invited poor people, sick people, crippled people—people who cannot possibly give you anything in return.”

Jesus says all of this out loud at the dinner table. He doesn’t say this to his disciples privately after dinner. No, he says it all right in front of the host and the gathered guests.

So what do we do at a dinner table when someone makes it awkward? When that awkward conversation gets started, I’ll say something like, “How about them Sooners?” or, “The weather has been really nice lately, right?” You try to do anything you can to pivot to another subject.

That’s what the man does in verse 15. Jesus has been making it awkward, and one of the people at the dinner table tries to bail everybody out. He says, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” He’s trying to pivot the conversation away from Jesus rebuking everyone at dinner, toward something pleasant and agreeable.

Background: The Kingdom Feast

But what is he talking about? Why say that out of nowhere?

In Jewish thought, especially in the first century, it was understood from the prophets of the Old Testament that someday God was going to make everything right. All the wrongs of the world would be set right. That was “the kingdom of God” — God’s rulership being seen over the affairs of men, the kingdom of heaven arriving on earth.

The prophets described it in vivid images. And one of their recurring pictures was this: When that day comes, we’re going to party. We’ll celebrate with a feast.

Here’s an example in Isaiah 25:6-9:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.… And it will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

This is the picture: someday, instead of war and chaos and misery, we’ll have a feast. God will defeat even death itself. And when he does, we’re going to party.

That’s the banquet of the kingdom.

So, back to the dinner.. Jesus is making everyone uncomfortable, criticizing the seating and the guest list. This one brave fellow tries to change the subject: “Wouldn’t it be great to be on the exclusive guest list for God’s feast? Won’t it be great when we’re at the big feast, and none of this matters?” It’s just a way of saying, “Let’s talk about something else.”

The Parable of the Uninvited Guests

But Jesus won’t let it go. He begins to tell a parable and says, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.” Notice the difference already. The man at the table was thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great for me to be on the guest list?” He had in mind an exclusive banquet with a select list of names.

But Jesus begins his story with “many were invited.”

It’s not just a few. It’s not Jews instead of Gentiles. It’s not Pharisees of one group instead of Pharisees of another group. It’s not some being included and most excluded. Instead, the story is one of self-exclusion.

Luke 14:17–20 reads:

At the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”

They were supposed to RSVP, and maybe they had. But when the time came, they all began to make excuses. Why do we offer excuses? Why not just say, “I don’t want to be there”? Because we’re embarrassed. We don’t want to insult the host. So we dress it up with a reason.

Let’s take a look at the reasons: 

These excuses aren’t silly. They’re life events. Buying a field. Testing oxen. Getting married. These are legitimate. In fact, they echo Old Testament exemptions.

In the book of Deuteronomy 20, God prepares Israel for going into Canaan. They will face warfare, and all the men of a certain age will be conscripted. But there were exemptions:

It’s a fascinating list. And notice how similar it is to the excuses in Jesus’ parable. These excuses in the parable were not flimsy excuses. They were reasonable ones—biblical even!

The Master’s Anger

With that background in mind, let’s go back to Luke 14. The servant reports the excuses to his master, and the text says: “The master of the house became angry.”

If someone cancels on you for a silly reason like, “I just don’t feel like it,” you might get mad. But if someone says, “I have the stomach flu” or “My car broke down,” you don’t get angry. You understand and reschedule. A reasonable excuse doesn’t provoke anger. But in the parable, the master reacts to good reasons as if they were bad ones. Why?

In terms of the kingdom of God, reasonable excuses are no longer acceptable excuses.

When you give an excuse, you’re saying, “This thing in my life is more significant than what you’ve invited me to.” The master of the banquet is angry because there is nothing more significant than the feast of God’s kingdom.

So what does the master do when the invited guests make their excuses?

Luke 14:21 says, “The master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’”

The feast is going to happen anyway. The banquet won’t be canceled just because some declined.

The servant obeys. He goes out to complete strangers. He invites them. Some of them say yes. He comes back and says, “Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.” The master replies, “You’re not done yet. If there’s room, there are still invitations. Go back out. Don’t just walk down Main Street. Go into the back alleys. Go behind the dumpsters. Go to the highways and hedges. Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”

Declined invitations do not hinder the feast.

The victory of God is not subject to your calendar. The banquet of the kingdom is not rescheduled because you’re unavailable. It’s still happening. The only question is whether you will be there.

And to that point, Jesus ends the parable with a sharp statement: “For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet (Luke 14:24).” Not a single one of the original invitees will get even a taste. Others will feast in their place.

Remember how this all started? The man at dinner tried to change the subject: “Wouldn’t it be great to be on the guest list for the feast of the kingdom?”

Jesus replies: “All of you are invited. But not all of you are going to show up.”

This isn’t a new idea. When we read the Old Testament prophets carefully, they already said the same thing about the feast.

Isaiah 65:11-14 says:

But you who forsake the Lord, who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny — I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter, because when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame; behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit.”

Isaiah had said that a huge feast was coming, and God had invited many. But already, he warned, some of you aren’t listening.

When we hear God’s invitation and turn aside, when we close our ears to what he is calling us to do, we become the uninvited guest. The question isn’t whether the guest list is exclusive. The question is whether we are going to show up.

A Prayer for Obedience 

Father, 

We pray that you would forgive us for all the many times when we have heard your invitation and turned aside from it.

Defeat all of our excuses. Help us recognize them for what they are and that nothing we are doing in life is more significant than what you have in store.

Teach us to hear you call and answer—whether that is an act of repentance, kindness, or stillness. Help us to hear what you would have us do and respond to your invitation.

In Jesus’ name, amen. 

Dr. Benjamin Williams is the Senior Minister at the Edgemere Church of Christ in Wichita Falls, TX and a regular writer at So We Speak. Check out his books The Faith of John’s Gospel and Why We Stayed or follow him on Twitter, @Benpreachin.