“‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'”
Luke 14:22-24
First, the master offered free food and drinks to his invited guests, but everyone RSVP’d with regrets and excuses. That made the master angry and so he decided to throw his party for the poor, the handicapped, and anyone who could be found feeding off the trash cans in the streets and alleys. After the servant had gathered as many social outcasts into the banquet as he could, he told his master, “What you ordered has been done, but there is still more room.”
Notice what the master does next. He orders his servant to go out to the roads and country lanes (a good distance beyond the streets and alleys) to find more outcasts and make them come in. The master’s motive? He simply must have a full house and will not settle for anything less.
In this parable, the master’s grace is not lavished on the deserving but on the undeserving. The unacceptable. Those who shouldn’t be invited. And God bestows His grace on the same — not the proud but the humble (Capon).
God’s grace is not a response to what men do. God’s grace is a divine initiative which is totally unconnected to a person’s merit. And not only is the grace of God an initiative but a radical one that most would consider outlandish if not mad. But isn’t it just like God to flaunt his foolishness as wiser than men’s wisdom and his weakness, stronger than human strength?
Father, thank You for sending Your servant Jesus to search for me, find me, and bring me to Your banquet.
