Trinity 17 September 23, 2018
Luke 14:1-11
It's A Matter of Choice
v.7 Now He [Jesus] told a parable to those who were invited, when He noticed how they chose the places of honour, saying to them…
Dear friends in Christ, we have in our text for this morning Jesus responding to a situation that we could easily find ourselves in today. There was a wealthy Pharisee who had dinner party. While they guests were assembling, Jesus noted how those who were invited tended to choose the places on honour. Maybe it even looked something like a bunch of kids fighting over who gets to sit next to the birthday boy or girl at a party nowadays.
Choice is very important to us. In fact, the freedom to make our own choices is like the mantra of our society. "I can choose anything and everything I want." Some of the time this matter of choice is no big deal--like choosing what clothes to wear to come to church or what to eat for breakfast. We relish the idea that our choices matter--like who we choose to vote for in upcoming elections. "My choice is important." In the democratic process it certainly is.
The problem with choice begins to crop up, though, in other areas. When we believe our choices should reign supreme over the needs of others--and particularly over the Word of God. "I don't want to be married to you anymore because you brush your teeth funny--it's my choice." Or, "I don't want to get married at all--we can just live together--it's my choice." Worse yet, we think this way about choices regarding life itself: "I want to be a woman, even though I was born a man--it's my choice. I should be able to have an abortion--kill the child within--it's my body--it's my choice. I don’t feel like I want to live anymore--I should be able to have the right to kill myself--and have a doctor help me do it--it's my choice."
Sadly, this carefree, reckless attitude concerning the paramount importance of personal choice ends up wreaking havoc on relationships and lives. It leads to confusion, depression, and to suffering and death by countless people. We don't only end up hurting ourselves, but others too, by placing ourselves at the top of the decision ladder--making ourselves into our own little gods and goddesses that seek to have full control over every aspect of our lives.
The fact that we think and act this way is astounding--especially because it is so utterly illogical and nonsensical. Really, who has freedom to make every choice about every aspect of their lives? Nobody does. We don't get to choose lots of things on our own: speed limits to follow; whether or not we make the sports team; we don't even get to choose what family we're born into or what day we're born on. Those things are not our choice. And when we think we must have absolute control over all of our choices in order to live a rich and full life, we are deluding ourselves and falling victim to the insanity that is so widespread in our society.
We sinful human beings take this obsession with choice even a step further when we think we get to choose God. "I chose to be His follower--as I chose a place of honour in His kingdom. Okay, okay, maybe not precisely at Jesus' right hand, where the apostles are, but pretty close. I choose to be there. I deserve to be there." Please remember that pride comes before humiliation. "Do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this person,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place."
Beloved, you do not choose God as you would choose a pair of socks to wear. You do not choose a place in His kingdom, as you might a seat in the movie theatre. Rather, God chooses you. Jesus says in John's Gospel (15:16, 19), "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you…If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Or, as St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 1:4), "For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you."
You can take no pride in your place in the kingdom of God because it is purely by God's grace and mercy that you are saved and brought into His kingdom in the first place. Say someone falls into a well on the Sabbath and are rescued--what do they have to boast of? "Well….I really know how to fall in a well. Boy, if there were awards for falling in wells, I'd win gold!" (Examples of rescue from Hurricane Florence it recent days). Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. The person who is rescued can boast only in the mercy and work of the one who rescues them.
So it is with your place--your right standing--before the Lord God. It has nothing to do with your choice to follow Jesus or believe in Him. He is the One who has granted you such faith to believe in the first place. The only thing you bring before God is your sin and death in which you were conceived and born and have lived all the days of your life. Rather, it is God's eternal choice--His election of you--by His grace through Jesus Christ that makes you right with God--that washes you clean by Jesus' blood and righteousness.
In the end, it is God's choice that really matters. Jesus chose to go to the Last Spot--the least spot--to suffer death and hell on the cross--in your place--for your sin. It is by His incredible work for you that you are elevated--raised up out of your sin and death to new and glorious life everlasting through the forgiveness of sins He purchased and won for you by His blood shed on the cross. His blood forgives you for all the terrible choices you have made in your life that have resulted in pain and suffering of others--of yourself--and in separating yourself from Him.
God chose you. Ephesians 1:3-4, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him." You see, your place in the kingdom of heaven--your salvation--IS a matter of choice--just not yours. You have been chosen by God from before the world was ever made. God chose you in Christ to receive His blessings and forgiveness and life.
You have been chosen in your Baptism to be His child and heir. The greatest promotion you could ever receive was when the heavenly Father called you His child--when you were baptized. You need not fear what the world, the devil, or your own sinful flesh can do to you. Indeed, what does it matter what the world thinks, says, or does? You have received a place of honour at the never ending feast of God in the life of the world to come. After all, it's a matter of choice. And God chose you. Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Luke 14:1-11
It's A Matter of Choice
v.7 Now He [Jesus] told a parable to those who were invited, when He noticed how they chose the places of honour, saying to them…
Dear friends in Christ, we have in our text for this morning Jesus responding to a situation that we could easily find ourselves in today. There was a wealthy Pharisee who had dinner party. While they guests were assembling, Jesus noted how those who were invited tended to choose the places on honour. Maybe it even looked something like a bunch of kids fighting over who gets to sit next to the birthday boy or girl at a party nowadays.
Choice is very important to us. In fact, the freedom to make our own choices is like the mantra of our society. "I can choose anything and everything I want." Some of the time this matter of choice is no big deal--like choosing what clothes to wear to come to church or what to eat for breakfast. We relish the idea that our choices matter--like who we choose to vote for in upcoming elections. "My choice is important." In the democratic process it certainly is.
The problem with choice begins to crop up, though, in other areas. When we believe our choices should reign supreme over the needs of others--and particularly over the Word of God. "I don't want to be married to you anymore because you brush your teeth funny--it's my choice." Or, "I don't want to get married at all--we can just live together--it's my choice." Worse yet, we think this way about choices regarding life itself: "I want to be a woman, even though I was born a man--it's my choice. I should be able to have an abortion--kill the child within--it's my body--it's my choice. I don’t feel like I want to live anymore--I should be able to have the right to kill myself--and have a doctor help me do it--it's my choice."
Sadly, this carefree, reckless attitude concerning the paramount importance of personal choice ends up wreaking havoc on relationships and lives. It leads to confusion, depression, and to suffering and death by countless people. We don't only end up hurting ourselves, but others too, by placing ourselves at the top of the decision ladder--making ourselves into our own little gods and goddesses that seek to have full control over every aspect of our lives.
The fact that we think and act this way is astounding--especially because it is so utterly illogical and nonsensical. Really, who has freedom to make every choice about every aspect of their lives? Nobody does. We don't get to choose lots of things on our own: speed limits to follow; whether or not we make the sports team; we don't even get to choose what family we're born into or what day we're born on. Those things are not our choice. And when we think we must have absolute control over all of our choices in order to live a rich and full life, we are deluding ourselves and falling victim to the insanity that is so widespread in our society.
We sinful human beings take this obsession with choice even a step further when we think we get to choose God. "I chose to be His follower--as I chose a place of honour in His kingdom. Okay, okay, maybe not precisely at Jesus' right hand, where the apostles are, but pretty close. I choose to be there. I deserve to be there." Please remember that pride comes before humiliation. "Do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this person,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place."
Beloved, you do not choose God as you would choose a pair of socks to wear. You do not choose a place in His kingdom, as you might a seat in the movie theatre. Rather, God chooses you. Jesus says in John's Gospel (15:16, 19), "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you…If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Or, as St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 1:4), "For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you."
You can take no pride in your place in the kingdom of God because it is purely by God's grace and mercy that you are saved and brought into His kingdom in the first place. Say someone falls into a well on the Sabbath and are rescued--what do they have to boast of? "Well….I really know how to fall in a well. Boy, if there were awards for falling in wells, I'd win gold!" (Examples of rescue from Hurricane Florence it recent days). Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. The person who is rescued can boast only in the mercy and work of the one who rescues them.
So it is with your place--your right standing--before the Lord God. It has nothing to do with your choice to follow Jesus or believe in Him. He is the One who has granted you such faith to believe in the first place. The only thing you bring before God is your sin and death in which you were conceived and born and have lived all the days of your life. Rather, it is God's eternal choice--His election of you--by His grace through Jesus Christ that makes you right with God--that washes you clean by Jesus' blood and righteousness.
In the end, it is God's choice that really matters. Jesus chose to go to the Last Spot--the least spot--to suffer death and hell on the cross--in your place--for your sin. It is by His incredible work for you that you are elevated--raised up out of your sin and death to new and glorious life everlasting through the forgiveness of sins He purchased and won for you by His blood shed on the cross. His blood forgives you for all the terrible choices you have made in your life that have resulted in pain and suffering of others--of yourself--and in separating yourself from Him.
God chose you. Ephesians 1:3-4, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him." You see, your place in the kingdom of heaven--your salvation--IS a matter of choice--just not yours. You have been chosen by God from before the world was ever made. God chose you in Christ to receive His blessings and forgiveness and life.
You have been chosen in your Baptism to be His child and heir. The greatest promotion you could ever receive was when the heavenly Father called you His child--when you were baptized. You need not fear what the world, the devil, or your own sinful flesh can do to you. Indeed, what does it matter what the world thinks, says, or does? You have received a place of honour at the never ending feast of God in the life of the world to come. After all, it's a matter of choice. And God chose you. Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus. Amen.