The Uninvited
Luke 14:12-24
Would you be invited to have dinner with Jesus?
Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash
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.” One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ’sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’” - Luke 14:12-24
I assume if you are invited, you will go. You won’t come up with an excuse and pass it up, would you?
In this telling of the story of the invited guests, we don’t have the person who came but didn’t put on the appropriate dress for the dinner, and was banished.
This version focused solely on filling the table with guests. Jesus makes a point of the people who were too busy, involved in their own lives, to accept the invitation.
I have been that guy, the one who said I was not interested, the one who passed up the dinner.
But I never saw it as dinner with Jesus.
Usually, the dinners I get invited to have a hefty price tag. These are fundraisers, where people go to be seen as generous and upstanding citizens.
This is not the kind of dinner Jesus is talking about. This dinner is free, offered by the King. And those whom the King thought were his devoted and faithful followers said, “No thanks.”
Is this a message to the attendees or to the one holding the dinner?
You see, the church today is seeing the exact same thing. People are invited, and they have excuses for not attending the feast, the Holy Eucharist.
But the priest doesn’t tell the devoted followers to go out and invite the crippled, the lame, the homeless, the lost, the addict.
Why would the priest invite people who couldn’t contribute to the maintenance of the church?
We read this in church and give a beautiful sermon about Jesus coming into the world for the lost, but do we follow his example?
There is a ministry within our church where a deacon or priest goes out into the community and holds a service for the people who are there, people who have no place to go.
This is a great first step. But why not invite them in?
Perhaps we think we will be making them feel uncomfortable, because they aren’t dressed appropriately for Sunday service.
That is why the King provided cloaks for the guests. Everyone was made to look like they were of the same social class.
But we don’t have that in today’s reading. We are told to go out and invite the uninvited. And not just invite them, but bring them in.
We say we are believers, but we choose what we believe and how we follow. What Jesus taught was uncomfortable. Being a Christian is work. It means getting our hands dirty and washing them clean in the blood of Christ, alongside the lost and lonely, the forgotten.
Maybe that is why the churches are failing. We are waiting for people to come to us, rather than going out into the world to get them and bring them home, where they find love and the food that saves.
More to come...
I don’t like the explanation for churches failing, but I admit that it sounds reasonable. We are busy looking for contributors to keep the doors open.