Come, Everything Is Ready

Mercy, Humility, and the Cost · Luke 14

Story guide: A servant welcomes families and disabled travelers through an open gate toward a brightly prepared first-century feast. Jesus tells of a great banquet whose invited guests make excuses.

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15But one of those reclining at the table with him, when he heard these things, said to him, “Blessed is whoever will eat bread in the kingdom of God.”

16But he said to him, “A certain man was making a great dinner and invited many,”

17And at the hour of the dinner he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, because it is already ready.’

18But they all alike began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I need to go out and see it. I ask you, consider me excused.’

19And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you, consider me excused.’

20And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and for this reason I cannot come.’

21And when the servant came back, he reported these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, becoming angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the broad streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and disabled and blind and lame.’

22And the servant said, ‘Lord, what you commanded has been done, and there is still room.’

23And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the roads and hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.’

24For I tell you that none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.

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