Have you ever been invited into a situation where you weren’t exactly sure how you were supposed to act? Maybe a friend asked you over to dinner with their family. Perhaps you ended up at a party with strangers. Or maybe you started at a new school or workplace in a new town or country?

How does it feel to be in those situations? How do we tend to act?

Jesus used conversations about situations like these to spark people’s imaginations about what their life of faith could or should look like. I hope you’ll join us in worship as we continue that conversation with Jesus as our host.

Peace,

Hardy

Please join us immediately following the service for our Coffee Hour

(in-person in the sanctuary or online via Zoom).

bit.ly/SVPCCoffeeHour

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place', and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."