Luke 14:15-24, Proverbs 9:1-10

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

In today’s Old Testament reading it is written, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  That’s a Scripture verse you don’t hear much any more.  It certainly doesn’t fit in with the contemporary worldview.  But it is absolutely foundational to a proper understanding of the Christian faith and our relationship with God.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

To fear the Lord first of all means just what it says, to have a healthy fear of Him who is your Judge, who holds your life and your destiny in His hands.  Jesus once said, “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (namely God).  Too often God is conceived of as nothing more than a permissive grandfather, the nice old man in the sky.  It is true, He is the God of love, but for those who insist on living outside of His love, He is the God of great and dreadful wrath. It is written that our God is a consuming fire.  A proper fear of His wrath is the beginning of what makes a person wise.

But just as importantly, to fear the Lord means to have a proper reverence and respect for Him, to recognize the awesomeness of who He is as the Creator and Preserver of all things, and to bow the knee to Him for it.  Someone who fears the Lord looks to the Lord for help and trusts that He will be gracious to us as He has promised.  A God-fearing person believes that the consuming fire was directed toward Jesus on the cross in our place; God’s wrath has been appeased by Jesus’ death, and the Father is now merciful to us for Jesus’ sake.  To fear the Lord, then, also means to love Him for all He has done for us and to worship Him, as the meaning to the 1st commandment states, “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”

Only a person who fears the Lord like this has even the beginning of wisdom.  No matter how well educated, no matter how smart or intelligent someone may appear, if they don’t fear God, they are fools before Him.  We can see little evidences of that around us as the cultural elites publicly flaunt their ungodliness as somehow being good and wise, or in the way even the average person thinks he can live more or less according to the feelings and dictates of his own heart with no sense of divine consequences.  As the fear of God decreases, those in authority are no longer properly honored.  We see much less respect shown to parents in the home and to teachers in school and to police and other authorities, and much more defiance and disrespect.  We think we’re getting so much smarter all while disorder grows and institutions crumble around us.  There’s no fear of the Lord, no belief in His judgment, no reverence for who He is as the Creator and Redeemer.

Where there is no fear of the Lord, people make excuses.  That’s what we hear in today’s Gospel reading.  The invitation to the divine banquet of salvation has gone out.  But it is written, “They all with one accord began to make excuses.”  They all were looking for ways to get out of this Gospel invitation.  They had other things they thought were more important to do.  Honoring the Giver of the feast, being with Him and sharing in the joy of His meal was low on the priority list.  It was something they could live without.

The first man’s excuse is that he has bought land–and the idea here is of a large estate, a big farming operation, or ranch. He will have workers, men under him, and he will have dominion. This was the first sin: man, who was given dominion of the earth by God, instead sought to grasp that dominion apart from God.  Delighting in his own power, he could not bring himself to submit to the greater power; this is at the heart of Lucifer’s fall as well: the desire to wield the power yourself, to become like God.

The next man has bought five pairs of oxen. This would be very expensive, and a typical family farm would only need one pair, not five.  So we can see excess here.  The number five is often used also of the senses, seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling; and many of the senses come in pairs like the oxen: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two hands. Now what do oxen do on a farm? They turn up the earth; so we can see in this man a devotion to earthly things, a devotion to what his hands can touch and what his eyes can see.  God who is spirit, and beyond being apprehended directly by man’s senses, is disregarded and ignored.

The last man, pleading marriage, puts his family, his bride, before God, and even the desires of his flesh first. Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”  So we can sum up the three men then as being overwhelmed by pride and a spirit of domination, a love of earthly things, and the idolatry of family and a devotion to fleshly desires.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “This would be a good message for so-and-so who isn’t here today.”  He or she shouldn’t have made an excuse not to be here and miss out on this feast.  And that may be true.  But look in the mirror. Do you not see pride and a desire to control in your actions? Do you have an oversized love of earthly things? Are you devoted more to your family and your fleshly desires than to God?

Repent. Give up your need to control others and get your way. Look beyond what your eyes can see and what your fingers can touch and the lusts of your heart. Care less about what your family thinks and more about what God thinks and what He gives.

Jesus told this parable to the Pharisees, but Luke recorded it for you and me.  Through it the Holy Spirit wishes for us to turn from our inverted priorities and to come to Him with holy fear.  For Jesus said to the Jews who refused the Lord’s invitation to the feast of salvation, “None of those who were invited shall taste my supper.”  That is a fearful thought to ponder.  They thought it was based on their own merits when it was solely about the graciousness of the Host.  You do not deserve what the Lord offers, but He gives it freely anyway, without money and without price.

In the end the only ones taking part in the feast are beggars and foreigners.  For only they  were given to see their need for what the Master had to give.  This is what you also must become before God: a hungry beggar, a needy foreigner.  You must be brought by God to see that of yourself you are spiritually empty, wasting away, with nowhere else to turn but to Him.  The divine Law must expose your desperate need so that you will crave the Bread of Life.  Only then will the great supper be not just another thing on your to do list.  It will be the One Thing that you cannot do without, the very source of your life.  For the meal is Christ, who is the Life.

Our Lord Jesus offered up His body on the cross to be “roasted” in the flames of judgment, that consuming fire.  He literally suffered hell in our place at Calvary.  Having rescued us from sin and Satan by His holy death, and being now raised from the dead, Jesus offers Himself to the whole world as heavenly food that we might receive His saving gifts and be nourished by them.

The Gospel cry rings out to you today, saying, “All things are now ready.”  God has done all things for you.  He has taken up your flesh, lived and suffered, died and rose for you.  He has endured hell’s fury and fire in your place.  He has left the enemy spent and dead on his own sword.  He has crushed the serpent’s head and dissolved the chains of guilt and shame that held you.  He has flung open wide the gates of heaven and removed the guards.  The flaming sword keeping man out of Paradise has been doused in the Blood of the Lamb.  The angel of death passes over.  You are safe. There is no one to accuse you, no one to keep you out, nothing to stop you from this victory and joy given for free from on high.  God Himself, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit loves you and invites you to come to the feast.  He wants you there.

So fear the Lord, but do not be afraid.  Do not think yourself unworthy or dwell upon your past sins.  They are gone.  They are forgiven.  If you are weary, heartbroken, lonely, wracked with guilt and uncertainty, hear the words of the Lord:  Come to the feast.  It has been made ready for you to heal and restore you. The greatest and the least, the outcasts and the popular, the cool and the uncool, the wealthy and the poor–everyone is invited!  Leave behind the love of temporary things.  Dwell upon the love of Christ who has loved you beyond all telling.  The highways and hedges of this world are not your home.  He brought you here this day to His House and to His Feast.  The God who is a consuming fire gives you to do the consuming now.  The banquet table is laid before you, His flesh and blood which give you life and the resurrection of the body.  Partake of this holy, life-giving food.  Fear the Lord, which is to say, love and trust in the Lord with all due reverence.  You are reconciled with God and righteous in Christ.  Believe in Him and be saved.  Receive the foretaste of the feast to come.  For blessed is He who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.  And the kingdom of God is here.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to Christopher Esget and David Petersen for some of the above)