Luke 14 and Who We Invite to Dinner

Jesus said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Luke 14:12-14

The John Piper sermon on this text from 1980 (see directly below) got me thinking about this text again. My wife and I had also recently read it in our nighttime Gospel reading, so it was more fresh in my mind. But seriously, do the applications get any clearer? Is there anyone who can understand English who doesn't understand the simplicity of this command?

I doubt it, but instead of the grammar being hard for us, the truth is hard for us. It is hard for us to listen to Jesus on this one. We say, "Yeah, Jesus, that's good for You, I know You invited the poor and crippled and blind, and I'm so thankful, but I just can't do it . . ." We become experts at giving Jesus excuses.

The plain truth of this text is that those who invite the ones who cannot repay them will be blessed of God Himself on the last day and forever. Conversely, those who look for repayment from men will stand ashamed at the last day, and, like the rich man of Luke 16, go to hell forever.

So let's believe Jesus. His repayment is better than all that relatives and friends and rich people could ever give us. His repayment is Himself. Let us believe together and press on to know Him even in the way we eat dinner.