All of us are familiar with excuses.  Our history with excuses includes those times when someone offered us an excuse for their behavior, an excuse that often we were skeptical of.  And, frankly, we are familiar with excuses because there have been times when we used them.  I’m not condoning your excuse making, but hopefully, your excuses were better than some of these.

Insurance agents and adjusters hear some amazing excuses.  “As I approached the intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had appeared before.”  Or, how about, “The telephone pole was approaching fast.  I was attempting to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.”  Or, “A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.”

Teachers and professors are another group that regularly hears excuses.  “The dog ate my homework” is a classic, but lacks imagination.  A psychology professor at the University of Illinois asked his colleagues to provide him with some of the more imaginative excuses they had recently heard.  Here’s just a sample.  A variation on the “dog ate my homework” excuse: “I had an accident, the police impounded my car and my paper is in the glove compartment.”  “Death of a grandmother” is an oldie, but goody.  However, one professor’s class might have set the record when 14 out of 250 students reported their grandmother had just died right before final exams.  A bad semester for grandmas!  In another class, a student reported he couldn’t take the mid-term because his grandmother had died.  When the student appeared back in class a week later, the professor offered his condolences to which the student replied, “Oh, don’t worry.  She was terminal, but she’s feeling much better now.”  I hope it wasn’t a logics class!

Professors hear so many excuses that they become quite adept at responding to them.  One of my favorite examples involves four girls who were sorority sisters and in the same biology class.  Spending the night before an important exam partying instead of studying, they agreed upon a plan, concocting a story about their car getting a flat tire on their way into class that morning.  Later in the day they tried their bluff on the professor.  The girls were delighted when the professor said he understood, told them—apparently with a straight face—he was glad none of them got hurt and said they could make up the test the next day.  Given an extra day to study, the girls knew they had used up their luck regarding excuses so they did study that night for the exam.  When they showed up the next day, the professor took each girl to a different location in the building and gave them their test.  The first question on the test was, “Which tire was flat?”

One more.  A few years ago, people began complaining to the London Transit Authority about buses going right past bus stops when there were passengers at the stop waiting to board the bus.  Finally, the Transit Authority released a statement explaining what was happening.  The statement said it was impossible for them to maintain schedules if they always had to stop and pick up passengers!  Forget the purpose of buses, let’s just make sure they run on time.

We all make excuses.  In fact, there are web sites available where one can find excuses already written for them to use!  I’m not going to tell you what they are!  There’s one website where a doctor is apparently making a better living by writing excuses than with practicing medicine.  For a fee you can get a medical excuse from a physician to get you out of gym class, or work, or whatever the need is.

It all has a kind of tragic-comedy quality to it, doesn’t it?

Excuses are the tragedy behind the story Jesus tells in Luke, chapter 14.  Known as The Parable of the Great Banquet, it follows directly on the heels of another parable about a banquet, the parable we heard about last week concerning humility about the seat we seek at a banquet.  The setting for today’s story remains the house of a Pharisee.  One of the guests, apparently inspired by Jesus’ story about a banquet, shouts out, “Blessed is the person who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God!”  It is a shout of expectation—and a bit of a shout of privilege also—for it refers to the image of the future kingdom as a great feast, an image depicted in many Scripture passages.  The privilege piece comes in imagining the guests at the prominent Pharisee’s house.  They’ve already sought the seats of honor they feel they deserve.  Now, as if he didn’t hear Jesus in the first parable, this man shouts out how blessed the person is who eats at the feast in the kingdom.  It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to grasp that this man—and all the guests at this prominent Pharisee’s house—expect to be at that feast.  In reply, Jesus tells this parable about a great banquet.

One cultural time and place to grasp is that it was necessary to send out two invitations for a banquet.  The first invitation gave information of day and place and sought a reply, from which the host would know how many to prepare for.  Lacking the modern conveniences for cooking and communicating, the host would then send out a second invitation when everything was ready, saying, “Come now, all has been prepared.”  It is in reply to this second invitation that the guests beg off with their various excuses.

There is a point to the excuses Jesus cites in his story.  Generally speaking, they are not bad things that cause each person to excuse himself from attending the banquet.  For one, it was the distraction of business and enterprise that led to his declining to attend the banquet.  “I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it.  Please excuse me.”  For another, it was the interest in trying out a new possession that took priority.  I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out.  Please excuse me.”  And the third person seems to have the best excuse of all.  “I just got married, so I can’t come.”  You want to explain to a new wife why you need to leave to attend a friend’s banquet?  But all of that begs a lot of questions.  Did the newlywed not recognize the conflict in dates when he accepted the banquet invitation in the first place?  More importantly, couldn’t he and his new wife both go to the banquet and enjoy it together?  Or the man with the new field—couldn’t it wait one day for him to go see it? And couldn’t the oxen be given the day off, waiting until tomorrow to put them through their paces so that the owner could fulfill the commitment of his earlier R.S.V.P.?  Another whole area of questions that surface for me has to do with the attitude of the invitees toward the banquet holder.  What is their attitude toward the banquet holder?  It looks like they really don’t like him very much.  Were they begging off attending because they didn’t think it would be very much fun?  Did they initially agree to attend because it was the politically expedient thing to do, then made excuses when push came to shove because they’d really rather not attend?  What exactly is going on here, and why does Jesus tell this story?

One reason Jesus tells this story is that it represents the reality of his ministry in that time and place.  For most, if not all of the people gathered at the Pharisee’s house—including the man who shouted out the blessing that led to Jesus telling this story—they expect to be among those invited to God’s banquet feast.  Yet, when the invitation comes—in the form of Jesus Christ, the servant—they make excuses for not accepting.  Jesus goes on to tell of people who are invited—the kind of people who would never be invited to a Pharisee’s house for dinner, but are invited to God’s banquet feast—the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.  More than that, outsiders are also invited—people in the country…Gentiles…Samaritans.  God’s invitation list is broad and long.  We’re not told of the reaction of his audience to the story, but you can be sure they didn’t like where they were in the analogy.

Well, that’s all well and good for them.  What’s the message for us?

First of all, Jesus would caution us against any sense of “earned” or “deserved” status in God’s kingdom.  If we think our social status, or our national status, or our denominational status—or any other kind of “status” we might invoke—if we think any of that bestows some kind of kingdom rights upon us, we’d better be careful.  Jesus would warn us against that with this parable.

More pertinent, however, is Jesus’ caution against misplaced and misdirected priorities in our lives.  Jesus would caution us against the things of business, or possessions, or even family—as we’ll see even more clearly next week—Jesus would caution us against those things replacing God as first priority in our lives.  Perhaps Jesus is challenging not only our priorities in life, but also what we think brings enjoyment to life.  The banquet sounds nice, but better business would bring a better life so I’d rather put my energies there.  A banquet could be fun, but I’d rather take my new car, or my new boat, or any new toy out for a spin, so please excuse me.  Or, I could enjoy a banquet, but isn’t time with my family important too?  Yes, all of that is important, but not when it squeezes God out of our lives.  Jesus knows that real joy with business, or possessions, or family occurs when we make God Lord over all those things.  Remember the description two weeks ago of the routinely hectic day of the average family of four in America?  Each day spent like that becomes a day of excuses, where we turn down the invitation from God to be a part of his banquet celebration.

At various times, you’ve heard us talk about the six marks of discipleship.  In the past, we’ve preached on them.  Every Sunday they’re listed in the announcements.  In view of today’s story from Jesus, I think we could also refer to them as Six Marks of a Banquet Attender.  Pray daily.  Worship weekly—and we need to change that to worship corporately weekly, for each day in the life of a disciple, a banquet attender should include worship.  So, worship corporately weekly.  Read the Bible regularly.  Serve at and beyond Shepherd of the Hills.  Be in relationships to encourage spiritual growth in others.  And give of my time, talents and resources.

Those are nice summaries, I think, of the invitation from God to attend the joyous banquet He has prepared for us.  Jesus implies that life in the kingdom is a joy.  William Barclay, in his commentary on Luke, says, “Jesus thought of His Kingdom and His service in terms of a feast.  The symbol of the Kingdom was the happiest thing that human life can give.  Surely this is the final condemnation of the Christian who is afraid to enjoy himself…We must always remember that Jesus thought of the Kingdom in terms of a feast.  A gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms.”  The invitation from God is an invitation to join in the joyous celebration of a feast.  Do we see it as a joy?  And do we accept the invitation?  Or do we make excuses about our attraction to other priorities?

Let us consider our response in a moment in silent reflection.