|
Word from the Pastor:
Invitations
“For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”
—Luke 14:24
Like some of you with, let’s call it a tendency to be shy, I can be overwhelmed by an invitation. Does the invitation work with my schedule? Is it an enjoyable activity? Will I know many people there? What am I expected to wear? Can I get away with skipping the tie? On and on the list goes.
I guess what I’m saying is that I can sometimes be a creature of habit, and invitations into unknown situations and events, while exciting, can generate anxiety. There are times when it’s almost as if I’m looking for excuses to say no or “Sorry, I can’t make it.” Some of this anxiety for many of us, if I’m any measure, is that we fear that we may not belong.
In Luke 14, Jesus holds a number of conversations with a group of Pharisees who have invited him to dinner. He looks around and notes who is placed in positions of honor and who is not (v.7). He gets involved in prolonged debates over healing on the Sabbath (vv.3–6). I’m sure that it was quite a pleasurable social event, if by pleasurable we mean raking nails across a chalkboard.
Jesus took them up on their invitation, knowing that he and his message would be grilled. Yet he went anyway. He went because some might hear the Good News and be changed. This ought to give us all pause at our own anxiety at invitations or opportunities with which we feel uncomfortable. God has an amazing way of using unusual events for God’s glory.
In this episode of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Jesus is sent by the Father to deliver a message to this group of insiders. And he goes about his Father’s business by way of a parable. It all began with someone next to him saying something pretty obvious: “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” (v.15).
The implication is that the speaker is trying to act the role of peacemaker after Jesus unsettles the party (v.13) with his words about the dinner’s omission of the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. Yes, yes, Jesus, you are right. We should include those we have excluded, but when we all get to heaven, everything and everyone will be just fine. Nothing to see here. Moving right along…
It is here that Jesus shares his parable about someone who threw a big dinner party and sent out invitations. No expense was spared. This was going to be the social event of the decade!
Yet things did not go according to plan. Those who were invited, those who “belonged,” well, they didn’t come. Some were busy with other things. Business plans got in the way. This obligation or that barred them from taking up the invitation. All the “belonging” in the world, implied by the nice invitations sent out by the master through his slaves, wasn’t enough to compel folks to the feast.
So Jesus tells them that the master then sent out word to invite anyone and everyone who would to come on in. The barriers had been cast down. This was no longer an invitation-only event. The door was open to all who were willing to step through it.
It is here that Jesus drops the hammer in verse 24: “For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.” No more excuses. The invited who once belonged are no longer invited, because the old categories of belonging, of being “in,” of being the right type of person no longer apply. At this point in the evening, Jesus’ dinner companions were probably picking their jaws up off the floor.
In relation to our own lives, I think the message is clear. There’s a lot of things to be anxious about in life, but belonging isn’t one of them. God’s invitation in the Son is clear and unambiguous. When we pick up our cross and follow Him into the byways, among the sick, the lame, and the poor, we’re casting aside all the other markers that once caused us consternation, in exchange for an invitation to a dinner set for us from the foundation of the world. All we need to do is learn to say, “Yes!”
In Christ,
Pastor Sam
| 
