The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost – October 10, 2026

I want to begin with a question that has been sitting with me all week. What if the thing we’re most afraid of losing is not actually the thing that would save us?

Isaiah opens our readings with a song of praise. He says, “O Lord, I will honor and praise your name, for you are my God. You do such wonderful things! You planned them long ago, and now you have accomplished them.” He remembers how God has been a tower of refuge to the poor, a shelter from the storm and the heat, a shade from the relentless desert sun.

And then comes the line that stops me every time. In Jerusalem, the Lord’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. A delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat. He will swallow up death forever. The Lord will wipe away all tears.

That’s the vision. Not a narrow table with a few reserved seats. A feast for all the people of the world, with death itself taken off the menu.

So here is the “what if” I want us to carry together. What if we have been living as though the table were small?

Psalm 23 answers that question with a picture we have known since childhood. The Lord is my shepherd, and I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows and leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength.

Most of us could recite that part in our sleep. But notice where the psalm goes next. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

And then, in the middle of the valley, with enemies still watching, comes the table. You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.

The shepherd doesn’t wait until the danger is over to feed us. The feast happens while the enemies are still in view. That is the shape of God’s abundance. It doesn’t depend on our circumstances being settled. It arrives in the middle of them.

Philippians gives us this same abundance in the middle of a very ordinary problem. Paul has been writing about joy, and then he stops and names two women by name. Euodia and Syntyche, who worked hard alongside him in telling the Good News. They’re having a disagreement, and Paul asks a true partner to help them settle it.

He doesn’t write them off. He does not say the church would be better off without them. He calls them co-workers whose names are written in the Book of Life, and then he says, always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again, rejoice.

Then comes the promise we need for whatever we’re carrying this week. Don’t worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

That’s the peace Paul is talking about. Not the absence of conflict, but the presence of God holding us while the conflict is still being worked out.

Now let me tell the Gospel parable again, and I want to do it on a football field.

Imagine a team that has been invited to the biggest banquet the league has ever hosted. The owner of the stadium has prepared everything. The suites are set, the food is out, the trophy is on the table, and the whole thing is for his son.

The messengers go out to the invited players and say, come, everything is ready. And the players look up from their own practice and say, we are busy with our own season. One has a business to run. Another has a farm. A few of them turn on the messengers and run them off the field.

So the owner sends word to the streets and the sidelines. Go out and invite everyone you see. Bring in the people who never got a uniform, the ones who never made the roster, the ones who have been watching from the parking lot their whole lives. And the stadium fills up, good and bad alike.

Then the owner walks through the suites and sees a man sitting at the table still wearing his old practice jersey, the one with the number he used to be. And he asks him, friend, how did you get in here without dressing for the banquet?

Now here is the part I want us to sit with. That jersey isn’t a small thing. It is the old life, the old record, the old grievance, the old way of keeping score. The invitation was free and it went out to everyone. But coming to the table means putting on something new.

God’s mindset is abundance. Abundant grace, abundant love, abundant mercy, abundant relationship. The table in Isaiah is not portioned out with a measuring cup. The cup in Psalm 23 does not run low, it overflows. The peace in Philippians exceeds anything we can understand.

Our mindset is so often scarcity. We want a just world that behaves according to the norms we already know, where the right people get the right seats and everyone else waits outside. We count the chairs and worry there won’t be enough.

But the parable says the hall was filled. The owner didn’t run short. He ran out of excuses from the people who were invited first.

What if we are already standing in the middle of abundance and can’t see it because we are still guarding our own portion?

To close, I want to hand you two things.

The first is a question to take home. Where in your life are you still wearing the old jersey? Where are you still keeping score, still holding the grudge, still treating the table as though it belongs to you and your kind of people?

The second is an invitation. The feast is already prepared. The Lord has spread it for all the people of the world, and that means us. It means the person you can’t quite forgive. It means the neighbor you haven’t met yet.

So fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely. Keep putting into practice what you have learned and received.

And this week, when you come to this table, come dressed for the banquet. Not because you earned the seat, but because you were wanted there.

Do not be afraid. The table is set, and there’s room. Amen.