An Invitation To Life.2

"A wealthy man planned a great banquet, and invited many guests. When the preparations were completed, he sent his servant to gather those who had been invited.

'Come,' he said, 'for all things are ready.'

But all those who had been invited began to make excuses.

The first replied: 'I have just purchased a piece of land, and I must go and look at it again. Please have me excused.'

The second said: 'I have just purchased a herd of cattle, and I must go and examine it. Please have me excused.'

A third answered: 'I have recently been married, and for this, I cannot attend.'

Finally, the servant returned and reported what had happened. Hearing the disappointing news, the master commanded:

'Go quickly into the streets of the city, and gather the poor, the lame, the ill and the blind.'

The servant hurried to do this, and soon returned, saying: 'Sir, I have done as you commanded, and still there is room at the table.'

'Go then,' the rich man replied, 'along the highways and among the fields, and urge those you meet to come in, that my table might be filled. For I say to you: none of those that were originally invited will taste of the banquet that I had prepared for them.'"

--Jesus

My Aunt just passed away. 

Hours before she did I received a distressful call from my cousin Connie.  A well meaning neighbor -- at least we can only hope she is well meaning -- suggested that, as my aunt lay taking her last breaths, Connie should consider that her mom's recent lack of church attendance should (I'm not making this up) cause grave concern about her eternal resting place....

I wept. And maybe tasted a bit of the disappointment Jesus felt when people get focused on the wrong things.  He came to proclaim the wonder-filled possibility of Oneness with the richness of His Father's splendor.  

But since most of us, and I say most of us in the sense of everyone who's never dwelt in the Eternal Glory of the Creator God, have never experienced anything quite like that in our mortal existence, we regard that news with an, um, earthy earthiness (not sure exactly what that means, but it kind of makes sense...)  Kind of like the guy who's just announced that you've won the Powerball Jackpot and you just sit there in a sort of stupor not sure how to comprehend.

But that never seems to stop some from ruining the party for others. Depending on your particular theological backdrop you could substitute any number of crucial litmus tests for passage into the Pearly Gates:
- "Did she say the penitent's prayer?"
- "Was she covered by the blood?"
- "Did she accept Jesus as her Lord AND Savior?"
- "Did she believe in the virgin birth?"
- "Did she believe in this version of the atonement?"

So my question to the self-appointed gatekeepers: If someone at some point in their life accepts His tender invitation to come to the banquet, who are you to add your own indulgences to admission?

Is it not hard enough, with all the distractions in life, to get

image from deesbbbanquet.blogspot.com

someone to commit their Will to joining God's Kingdom Party and experiencing the joy of His Perfecting Will?  They may not do it until they've been humbled by infirmity or discovered their true lost-ness wandering aimlessly through the highways and byways of life!

But our part is simply to invite and gather. Not determine their worthiness to come in...If we can't trust the Preparer of the Party to rejoice in our repentance, wrap us in His robes of righteousness and make us worthy then maybe we're at the wrong address. Serving the wrong Master!

The Call.7

Then the King turned to his servant. "The wedding is ready,” he said, “but those who were invited were not worthy to attend. Go then, to those whom you meet on street corners and highways, and invite them in to the wedding."

The servants did as the king commanded them. They went to the street corners of the city, and out along the highways, and invited everyone they encountered, both the good and the bad, until the wedding hall was filled with guests.

That evening, the king was greatly displeased to see one at the table eating without the wedding garment that had been provided. 

He asked: "How is it that you came in to the feast without your wedding garment?" 

But the man could give no excuse.

Then the king said to his servants: "Bind this man and have him removed."

---Jesus

I asked the wedding congregation to pull a dollar bill out of their pockets and hold them in the air.  "In the last twenty years has this dollar increased or decreased in value?"  Chuckles filled the air as the majority agreed that it has significantly decreased.  One man flatly stated "It's worth about 20 cents!"

Then I asked "In the last twenty years, has the value of marriage increased or decreased in our society?"  Sighing instead of chuckling, the folks realized my point.

Devalued to the point that anyone feels emboldened to call any living arrangement marriage, no matter how historically incompatible with nature's law and nature's God.

The King's call was an invitation to restoration of the Kingdom values embodied in the Son of his Love.  It is the King's prerogative to call his subjects to account for how closely they live out those values or how far they've strayed.  The preparation of the calves is a reminder that the people will be called to remember the terms of the covenant of the Kingdom.   And in remembering, renew their commitment to live them out...voluntarily, from the heart.

The truth of the matter is that we will live by some code of conduct.  In ancient days, as  Toqueville points out, king's were the sole source of power and authority.  And yet, even if they were ruthlessly evil they were limited in their ability to monitor the day to day activities of the people.

"Although the entire government of the empire was concentrated in the hands of the emperor alone, and although he remained, in time of need, the sole arbiter of all things, the details of social and of individual existence ordinarily escaped his attention altogether."  

Today, however, with technological advances, the ruling class has the ability to "subject the state's subjects to a uniform set of regulations."  Obamacare alone has over 700 references to the regulatory power of the Secretary of Health & Human Services. By fiat, for example, Kathleen Sebelius mandated the Catholic church provide contraceptives to its employees.  In today's America, even children are being forced to obtain permits to run a lemonade stand!

These "uniform set of regulations" are, in deed, our "uniforms" with which we are to clothe ourselves to pay homage to our ruling elite!

In Jesus' parable of the banquet, He reminds us that we will be clothed: 

• in the rags of our own self-will
• in the "uniforms" of a ruling class
• or in the "robes of righteousness" the King offers to all who voluntarily give Him their hearts.

Choose wisely...

(references to Toqueville and Obamacare from Mark Steyn's book, After America)