With a final devotional thought today on the theme of this past Sunday’s study on the place of Mephibosheth at King David’s table, we look today at a sort of parallel New Testament story – one that anticipates the eternal reality of a permanent place at the table of the Lord in God’s Kingdom.

This passage from Luke 14 has a lot of “unsaid” sort of “elephant in the room” moments to it. Let me try to add them sequentially through the story as you read it…

Jesus at a Pharisee’s House

The Pharisees were getting increasingly annoyed with this self-proclaimed preacher dude from Galilee who seemed to enthrall the masses. So one day, one of the Pharisees said to the others, “Here is what we’ll do. Let’s invite this Jesus guy to my house for a meal on a Sabbath. We’ll put in front of him a diseased man and see if he breaks the Law and heals him. Don’t say anything. Let him hang himself by WORKing a miracle on the Sabbath.”

14:1  One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.

So the Pharisees thought to themselves, “It worked! Our trap caught him in a severe violation of the Law! Yes!”  But before they could act on it in any way, Jesus spoke to them…

5 Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” 6 And they had nothing to say.

The Pharisees looked around at each other, seeing their elation suddenly deflated, with each saying with their eyes that there was no satisfactory answer to the question. Of course they would all save a life – even of an ox or a donkey – in danger of dying on any day, including the Sabbath.

While this unspoken battle was transpiring, people at the dinner were pushing and shoving and maneuvering in not so subtle ways to get positions at the table as close to the host as possible, thus avoiding the embarrassment of being at the foot of it all, humiliatingly far from the action.

7 When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable:8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, 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 honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

The Parable of the Great Banquet

In the crowd was one guest who was – you know the type – a person who hated conflict and who was a peacemaker at all costs. He was thinking to himself, “This whole scene is soooo AWKWARD! What can I do? I know! I’ll blurt out a statement that everyone can agree with, and then the tension in the room will be broken and we can all get along and have a nice dinner.”

15 When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

Jesus hears this, smiles, and thinks to himself, “Thanks for the softball toss man; I was wanting to apply this whole story to the Kingdom! I’ll tell them another little story to make the point.”

16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

18 “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

19 “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

20 “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

21 “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

22 “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. 24 I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

Many of the Pharisees heard this story and understood that he was talking to them, saying that God’s kingdom and table was composed of the disgusting elements of society – sinners of all sorts and those with physical ailments due surely to their sinful lives as a just payment. This teacher does not understand that only the good and religiously precise such as we Pharisees will sit at the best places in the kingdom feast, closest to God.

So who does God save? How does God invite to the feast and who will come? He invites all, for there is room. But only those who in their spiritual state of crippled lives and diseased conditions, who understand that their own goodness and righteousness is fully insufficient, will actually find themselves at the table.

Find themselves there. Yes. Like Mephibosheth. King David came looking for him. He had no rights to be with the king and at his table. But David sought him out and brought him there in grace and in accord with his covenant love. And so God, with us, seeks us out by his grace. He sends someone who invites us in at a time when we were not looking at all for such an invitation. And in a series of God-orchestrated events, we find ourselves adopted into God’s family with an eternal reservation at the table in the Kingdom of God in the house of the Lord forever.

We find ourselves in a place at the table. That is grace. That is the gospel.