The Church is God saying, "I'm throwing a banquet, and all the mismatched, messed-up people are invited. Here, have some wine."
04171 – Churches and God’s Banquets
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01886 –
Christians are to be people of service. They are not to think they came into the world to sit at a banquet, but they are to wait on their Master while he sits at the table. Too many consider that the services of the sanctuary are intended merely to feed them. They...
01618 – God’s Extravagant Grace
There we'll all be, gathered around the banquet table, not just the perfect people but also the other 99.9 percent of humanity. The prodigal son and his hard-partying buddies, the joyful father; the oldest son, and his responsible friends too, they're all there along...
01313 – Remember Your Baptism
Luther said, "Remember your baptism." How can people do that? In Luther's church, most of the baptisms were of infants. They were brought by their mothers and fathers and they were baptized. So how could they remember their baptisms? Luther knew that when they became...
01273 – Regular Practice of Prayer
Throughout his Gospel, Luke shows us Jesus praying. Jesus prays before he calls his disciples, before asking them who he is, at the time of his transfiguration, before teaching his disciples how to pray, on the night of his arrest, and at his death. For Luke, what is...
01200 – Conversion Keeps on Happening
The newly-converted Saul is welcomed, baptized, and shares in the table fellowship of the church. Paul says that he was given "the right hand of fellowship" (Gal. 2:9). The enemy is addressed as "Brother Saul." Conversion is not an individualistic attainment or...
01119 – Jesus’ Practice of Table-Fellowship
So Jesus' practice of table-fellowship was not only an expression of the good news of God's kingly rule. It was also an implicit critique of a Pharisaic definition of acceptability, of a Pharisaic practice which classified many fellow Jews as sinners, effectively...
01061 – Kingdom Feasting
In his daily practice, Jesus rebelled calmly against the deepest rules of his world. He lived his own parable of the Banquet and the injunctions of the master in it: “Go therefore to the thoroughfare and invite to the marriage feast as many as you can find.” In the...
00464 – Cheap Grace vs. Costly Grace
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus...
00391 – The Only Solution is Love
We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know [Christ] in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is...