The Parable of the Great Banquet #24

The Parable of the Great Banquet is a story Jesus told at a Sabbath dinner in the house of a leading Pharisee. A man prepares a large feast, but every invited guest offers an excuse, so he sends his servant out to gather the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. It appears only in the Gospel of Luke (14:15-24) and is one of the clearest pictures of who is welcome in the kingdom of God.

The Parable

A man gave a great banquet and invited many. When the time came, he sent his servant to tell the guests to come because everything was ready (Luke 14:16-17). One after another they began to make excuses. The first had bought a field and needed to see it. The second had bought five yoke of oxen and was going to examine them. The third had just married and said he could not come (Luke 14:18-20).

The master was angry and told the servant to go quickly into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. When there was still room, he sent the servant to the highways and hedges to compel people to come in, so that the house would be full. He ended with a warning that none of those first invited would taste his banquet (Luke 14:21-24).

Context

Luke sets the story at a meal on the Sabbath, where Jesus had just watched the guests choose the best seats and had told the host to invite the poor and disabled instead of friends who could repay him (Luke 14:1-14). A fellow guest then remarked, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 14:15). The parable answers him: it is not enough to admire the feast from a distance.

First-century banquets usually involved two invitations, an early notice and then a second summons when the meal was ready, so the guests’ refusal at the second call was a serious social insult. The excuses were weak: a field or oxen would normally be examined before purchase, not after.

Meaning

The parable is usually read as a warning to those who assume a place in God’s kingdom while putting other concerns first, and as an assurance that God’s invitation goes to people the religious establishment overlooked. The outcasts in the second call recall the very people Jesus had just told his host to welcome.

The command to “compel” people to come has a complicated history. Augustine cited it in his dispute with the Donatists to defend the use of state pressure, but most Christians since have understood it as urgent and persuasive invitation, not physical force, and many Protestants and modern Catholics explicitly reject the coercive reading.

Matthew tells a similar story, the wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14), in which the host is a king giving a wedding feast for his son, the invited guests mistreat the servants, and a guest without a wedding garment is cast out. Luke’s version is quieter and concentrates on excuses and the widening of the guest list to include the poor and the outcast.