I'm reading this morning in Luke 14 as Jesus tells this parable about the Great Festival. He speaks of a man who invites all these people to a party and then sends out a messenger to tell them the party is ready to get crankin. But as the messenger reaches each of the people they all have excuses as to why they can't come: I've got work to do; I just got married; etc....
So the man sends his messenger out to find other people - the lame, the crippled, the blind, the poor, the outcasts - and tell them all to come and enjoy themselves. Go out to the country - find anyone who desires to fellowship with me - and bring'em. Let's party. BUT, as for those who got the first invitations and didn't come...they won't even taste a morsel of how good this was.
Here is where Jesus seriously gets in our crawl and disrupts our everyday. I mean, is He saying what it sounds like He's saying? Honestly, I think we can contextualize and interpret this parable all kinds of ways and do it just in such a way that it makes us feel a little bit better about the possible ramifications. But I believe the one thing that is clearly being said here is that when it's ALL said and done - the show's over - many of the people who will meet Jesus face to face are not the ones we expect. It will be the others.
All the time we watch as people who have received their invitation take it, put it up on their bulletin board, mark their calendar...but then the messenger comes calling and says, "It's time to party with my master"...and here come the excuses.
God is asking us this morning: "What are you doing with MY invitation?"
