The Second Sunday after Trinity – Sunday 18 June A✠D 2023
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 18:18b-19;18:1-2a, 27, 30a;120:1-2;7:11
✠ Lection: Proverbs 9:1-10;1 John 3:13-18;St. Luke 14:16-24
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The sense of urgency is a feeling that comes about in all people, even if it’s something small and simple as hurrying to straighten out the living room right before guests arrive, unloading the final bags of groceries as rain clouds loom and thunder rolls, or finally pulling the weeds when we notice that they now tower higher than our vegetable plants or flowers. But all urgency isn’t equal. It is no great tragedy if things are disarranged on the coffee table as friends visit, if we get drenched with water from above along with our cartons of eggs, or if a relationship-nourishing conversation with our neighbor causes us to forget those pesky weeds for another day or four. There are urgent matters about us, but most of them are related to people God brings into our lives, be they those visitors or next door neighbors or family members or long-time friends. First understanding our own urgency then equips and teaches us about the same for those around us.
In the Gospel, we hear Jesus say, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’” The setting of this wonderful meal that the Man has prepared has real urgency, because Jesus is teaching us more than just how to be polite and respectful when invited for a meal, be it on a common weeknight or for a very special occasion or holiday. This has to do with the urgency upon every human soul. The Master’s feast of salvation has been prepared with great effort and delight of He Who is providing it, and it’s a great supper to which many are invited. The request for guests has long since gone out even and ever since man turned on God in the garden and now His call is a hope that the guests will see what and Whom they have anxiously waiting for them in the present.
With this parable, Jesus was responding to one of those who sat at the table with Him who had said, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”. The man didn’t say “who eats bread” as in right then and there, as he sat in the presence of God Almighty in the flesh. The man said “who shall eat”, future tense, as in good things will come to us later most certainly, for what true value do we have in these evil days? He wasn’t wrong about the blessedness of the life to come, but his mind wasn’t on the present reality of what Jesus brings about. The man looked past the importance of his day and opportunity of eating at the Lord’s table. May our Sundays and other feast days never be cast aside because in each is priceless treasure unrivaled in all the world! Our resurrection and the feast awaiting us on that final day is a hope and a joy we can depend on. Yes, this is most certainly true. Anticipate it with great delight, dearly beloved in the Lord, but do not discount with Whom you regularly feast now. What is to come doesn’t diminish the significance and importance of what this very present day means, for what fool on his wedding night turns his attention toward his retirement plans? He wisely embraces and treasures the gift that God gives Him then and there. We cannot value the things of God only for future purpose or for the end of our lives. Such is contrary to a Christian heart’s desire. That heart cannot turn its face away from the invitation of its Savior Who is with His bride in the present.
The Master of the great supper, the great feast, the great banquet to come is the Master of today. Godly urgency, the utter dependence and desire for the blessings of God, draws His children to Him when He calls. They are discontent in being away from Him and His celestial feast. We must understand how great the gifts are that He gives in His house, but even more importantly, how critical they will always be throughout this life until we get to that heavenly feast awaiting us. It is one thing to know where forgiveness is given. It becomes highly desired when we understand how much we need it, all the time. The forgiveness in the Lord’s Supper, His supper that is urgent for us every time it is offered at this altar, isn’t like a coupon that we get for a free ice cream that that is carried home in the pocket, forgotten about by Monday morning as it makes its way through the laundry cycle only to be discarded as an unrecognizable, undesirable wad the next time the pants are put on. Every giving of the Lord of His precious Body and Blood is a satisfying feast that accomplishes more than we can ever understand, more than we can ever even hope, both forever and right now.
Prepare yourselves through self-examination before each Divine Service to help you realize more and more that you aren’t receiving a generic forgiveness that you may or may not need. No, in His body and blood, Jesus is feeding you specific forgiveness for those specific sins that you specifically commit. Your sins aren’t generic, but detailed, gruesome, and hurtful to yourself and those around you. But your Lord isn’t generic either. He forgives your hateful, lustful, and spiteful thoughts. He forgives your forked-tongued words about your neighbor, family member, or other church member that you don’t like. He forgives your specific sins when you repent of them and trust that He has the authority and the grace to forgive you. That’s how and why the Sacrament is so important and so important for you to regularly receive it. Face your sin, acknowledge it to yourself, and more importantly to God, and then come urgently to where you receive forgiveness on the Lord’s Day here at His altar.
Today, our Father in Heaven declares that He still has room for a great multitude to come from the east and the west to sit at the supper of salvation. He declares specific forgiveness of sins that is for you and your unbelieving family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. It is what they need to hear as God orchestrates opportunities for you to share with them in the lives that He gives you to live out together. He declares the invitation to all and calls out through the voice of those who fear, love, and trust in Him. There is urgency for the Last Day and for today, and every Lord’s Day, because He urgently waits for all sinners, the spiritually poor, crippled, blind, and lame as He sends out those in the ministry of word and sacrament to call you here. He sends out to the streets and lanes of the city, out to the highways and hedges, out to ends of the earth and out to you today. Remember this on Saturday nights and early on Sunday mornings. He awaits you in every moment to come to Him, and He especially awaits you on the Lord’s Day, the one day every week when you go to His house to hear His life-saving Word; the one day every week when you go to His house to eat the Eternal Meal at His table with Him, receiving the Body and Blood of the Son of God given and shed for you as you exclaim, “O Christ, Thou Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us..[and] grant us Thy peace.” Thanks be to God that He urgently comes to us on a regular basis, calling out to His children, His friends, His own beloved guests.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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