What is a parable?
The Gospel of Luke contains more than 20 parables. Over the next few weeks we’re going to explore four consecutive parables in Luke chapters 14 and 15. It’s helpful for us to begin by asking: “What is a parable?” A parable consists of three things. (1) It is a short story about something ordinary. The four parables we’re going to explore tell ordinary stories: about seating arrangements at a wedding feast; building a tower; a lost sheep; and a wayward son. Ordinary, everyday things. (2) Every parable has a twist or a shock, some disruption to the normal order of things. This disruption makes a point. (3) The parables told by Jesus show us something about God and His kingdom. Parables don’t sound religious, they’re just stories about ordinary things. So we let them through our defences. They stick in our imagination. Then boom! Like a time bomb the stories explode and we realise the story is about God. God has reached inside our hearts and disrupted our lives.
Author Eugene Peterson says the following about parables:
As people heard Jesus tell these stories, they saw at once that they weren’t about God, so there was nothing in them threatening their own sovereignty. They relaxed their defenses. They walked away perplexed, wondering what they meant, the stories lodged in their imagination. And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. … He was talking about God; they had been invaded! (Eugene Peterson, 1989, The Contemplative Pastor, Word Publishing, pg 42.)
Let us pray. Heavenly Father: send us your Holy Spirit to open our ears to hear your preached Word. May these ordinary stories that Jesus told enter our hearts and disrupt our lives. May your Word change who we are and comfort us to life everlasting. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
A typical wedding reception in Australia
I imagine most people have been to a wedding reception. While they come in different shapes and sizes, most modern Australian wedding receptions follow a few general social rules. The guests arrive. There’s typically a bar for guests to grab a drink. There’s food. The first course might be finger food as the guests mingle. Then the guests are seated in a main room with tables. There’s usually a seating chart or name tags on the tables. The seating arrangements can be contentious: you might get stuck with people you don’t know, or people you know too well and dislike. You might get put near the kids table, or a table up the back with Aunt Betsy, far from the head table with the happy couple and VIPs (very important persons). There’s toasts and speeches (hopefully short and funny, not too longwinded!). The meal is served. The cake is cut. There’s usually entertainment such as a band or DJ and dancing. The bride and groom might dance. Then, after much food, drink, and laughing, the couple is farewelled.
(1) The ordinary story
One day Jesus was meeting in the home of a Pharisee for a meal after church (it was the Sabbath). As he was watching people find their seat, and he told a parable about a wedding feast. A simple story about an ordinary thing: the seating arrangements at a wedding feast.
Now a wedding reception in Jesus’ time is different to a modern Australian wedding reception, but much is the same. The host would invite to his house friends, brothers and sisters, relatives and well-to-do neighbours. There was food and drink; music and dancing. A number of low tables would be setup. About 10 people would sit on sofas or pillows scattered around each table. The houses were small and sometimes these tables were in different rooms.
But these feasts didn’t have seating arrangement charts or name tags like we often do. It was left to the guests to find their own seats. Much like Australian wedding receptions, the host would sit at a head table. The VIPs would sit with him, or on nearby tables. Those considered less important would sit at more distant tables, perhaps even in another room. The social pecking order was determined by who you were related to, what you’d done, how much money you had, how much honour you had gained in the eyes of others.
(2) The twist
Then comes the twist. Jesus says, “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honour. For someone more distinguished than you may have been invited. So the host will say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ That’s humiliating. Not only do you have to move, but you’ll end up in the least important seat, the only one left. Instead, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honoured.” (Luke 14:7–10). What!? Take the lowest seat!?
Likewise, when Jesus addresses the host, saying, “When you give a feast, do not invite your friends, your brothers and sisters, your relatives, and rich neighbours. If you do, they might invite you back. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” Again Jesus shocks his listeners with a twist. A gift or invitation in Jesus’ day was never “free,” but was always given and received with strings attached. If you were invited to a feast, there was a social expectation that you would be invited back. To accept an invitation meant you were obligated to the host that, one day in the future, you would invite them for a feast at your house. You would invite them, so they would have to invite you, then you would have to invite them, so on and so forth. The social treadmill would churn. An invitation to any person of low social status (like the poor or crippled) was a wasted invitation, since they could never invite you back!
So what exactly is Jesus getting at? Why twists? Why the disruption?
(3) The realisation
Now the realisation comes. Jesus isn’t just speaking about seating arrangements at a wedding feast. He’s talking about where you seek your worth. Instead of finding your supposed worth in the eyes of others, and doing things to increase your honour and moving up the social pecking order, Jesus says, “Get off the social treadmill. Push the emergency stop button and just get off.”
In Jesus’ day people looked for honour and worth at wedding feasts. In our day it happens in a variety of places. At school there are different groups e.g. the sporty group, computer geeks, drama group, residents and day students. You do or say things (some of which you may later be ashamed of) to gain honour and worth in the eyes of others, to move up within your group, or move to a ‘better’ group. In the lyrics from ‘High School Musical’ the idea is: ‘Don’t mess with the flow, no no. Stick to the status quo.’ But Jesus says, “Break free. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled. And those who humble themselves will be exalted. Get off the social treadmill. Don’t buy into playing that game of trying to work out where you are in the social pecking order by what other people think.”
This social treadmill happens in places of work: perhaps one group of teachers are “the favourites”, and the others are outsiders, left out. Or perhaps those in the air conditioned offices are given more “honour” than those on the factory floor. The idea of seeking your honour and worth from others is basically what social media is built around. You post a photo and see how many likes you get. You compare your number of likes to your friends, building a social ladder e.g. “my photo got more likes that him, but less than her.” But the realisation is that Jesus says, “Stop! Stop getting your worth from others!”
But suddenly we realise Jesus is also speaking of heavenly things. Jesus is talking about how the kingdom of God operates. And the kingdom of God doesn’t have a social pecking order. There is no ladder. Who we’re related to, what we’ve done, how rich we are, which group we belong to at school, where we sit at work, who we rub shoulders with, how many likes we get on our posts — none of this matters to God. None of this gains any favour in his eyes. See the reality is that no one here is good enough to even get an invite to God’s wedding feast. Why would God, the maker of heaven and earth, want to associate with you? What can you offer him as a gift in return? You are smaller than an ant to him. Nothing you can do or say or give is worth anything to him. I mean, it’s all his anyway. This entire earth. All the money in the world is his. All the gold is his. Even your body was given to you by God at your birth. Psalm 8 asks, ‘What is mankind that you are mindful of them?’ (Psalm 8:4). You’re the poor, crippled, lame, and blind people that honourable Pharisees want nothing to do with because, well frankly, you’re embarrassing.
Yet this is the shocking twist in the story isn’t it. God humbled himself. God came to earth as a baby. He condescended to us, who are lower than ants. And there wasn’t any room for him, even at the lowest table. Bethlehem was full. The best they could find was a dirty feed trough in a room with animal droppings. On top of this Jesus was rejected by his own people, his own family, his friends. He was innocent, yet tried as a criminal. He was crucified naked, a public spectacle, suffering the most humiliating death possible. Shamed, Jesus’ body was buried in a borrowed tomb. He’d take the lowest seat at the lowest table out in the back room. And yet God the Father, the host of the biggest and most honourable eternal wedding feast, says, “Friend, move up to a better place.” And Jesus is raised from the dead. The tomb is empty. He is risen! God exalts Jesus to the place of honour at the right hand side of his throne in heaven. Isaiah 53 tells this story:
7 [Your servant] was beaten down and made to suffer. Yet he didn’t open his mouth. … 11 [But] after he suffers, he will see the light that leads to life. 12 I will give him a place of honour among those who are great. He will be rewarded just like others who win the battle. That is because he was willing to give his life as a sacrifice. He was counted among those who had committed crimes. He took the sins of many people on himself. And he gave his life for those who had done what is wrong.” (Isaiah 53:7,11–12).
God wants to invite you to his eternal wedding feast too! You are to be his honoured guest. We hear about this heavenly wedding reception in Isaiah and Revelation:
6 On Mount Zion the LORD who rules over all will prepare a feast for all of the nations. The best and richest foods and the finest aged wines will be served. 7 On that mountain the LORD will destroy the veil of sadness that covers all of the nations. He will destroy the gloom that is spread over everyone. 8 He will swallow up death forever. The LORD and King will wipe away the tears from everyone’s face. He will remove the shame of his people from the whole earth. (Isaiah 25:6–8).
6 Then I heard the noise of a huge crowd. It sounded like the roar of rushing waters and like loud thunder. The people were shouting, “Hallelujah! Our Lord God is the King who rules over all. 7 Let us be joyful and glad! Let us give him glory! It is time for the Lamb’s wedding. His bride has made herself ready.” … 9 “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Revelation 19:6–9).
You aren’t worthy of being invited to this eternal wedding feast. You belong outside in the gutter with the crippled and blind, not even at the lowest table. Yet God invites you to come as his honoured guest. His invitation makes you worthy. Jesus vacates his seat of honour, and invites you to sit in the most honoured seat! “Come, my friend. Move up to a better place,” he says smiling. And there’s no expectation that you repay this gift because, well, you can’t! But any shame in this has been taken away, forgiven. For there is no social pecking order at God’s table. Rank, family connections, wealth, earthly deeds — none of it matters. ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:28).
As the song goes: ‘So come to the wedding banquet, there’s a place for you. Maybe you have no money or you feel unworthy. No matter, God your host welcomes you. Come to the banquet, there’s a place for you. You are an honoured guest, so sit down, be fed and blessed. Your heavenly Father is running to meet you, loving arms stretched out to greet you. Don’t let fear defeat you. Come to the banquet, there’s a place for you.’ Amen.
