Filling The House (Luke 14:23)

 


Saturday, March 22, 2025


Psalm 51

Genesis 45:16-46:7

Luke 14:15-34


Observance: Thomas Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, teacher (d. 1711)


Filling The House (Luke 14:23)


Stopping to think for a moment about what the future might bring can get a bit overwhelming. Not so much futuristic thoughts about things like what we might have for dinner, or if we have enough fuel in the car. But thoughts about the future in light of eternity: about great movements of the Holy Spirit bringing about widespread conversion; and what it means to be an eternal soul who will one day inhabit eternity.


It is a little like being a small child and going into a big city for the first time. For a kid from the suburbs of Brisbane, my first time in the Sydney CBD was dizzying. I could stand on the footpath and just look up and up and never see the top of the skyscrapers without falling over backwards. When Jesus asks us to consider the fact that we are being invited into eternal life in his immediate presence, the difference between then and now is as stark as the difference between a dragonfly and a larva floating on a pond. We quite simply have no frame of reference apart from the fact that the future that is on offer for us is terrifying in its mysterious difference.


Those who were invited to the Master’s banquet in Jesus’ parable did not have this problem. Their imagination was too stunted; they could not consider how wonderful the banquet was to be. And so they made excuses. But if you love the Lord, then you might be at the other end: you may be filled with a holy terror at the prospect of being in the immediate presence of the living God. Which is why Jesus talks about it as a banquet. And, it is why Jesus prefaces it with yesterday’s words about coming in at the bottom and being raised up to the top by the host.


Have you been found in the streets and lanes as one poor and crippled and blind and lame? Come to the feast; still there is room. Have you been found in the highways and hedges and find yourself compelled by the invitation? Come to the feast; still there is room. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, that he is merciful and long-suffering and filled with loving-kindness and that there is nothing to fear. Still there is room; who will you compel to join you in the feast?


Master of the banquet, you have room for all in your house: open our hearts to your gracious invitation by a greater stirring of your Holy Spirit, and give us the desire to go out into the lanes, the streets and the highways to compel all passers-by to join us.


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