Invitations

On Sunday, worship was focused on one of the passages that I then read yesterday morning - the parable of the great banquet in Luke. A great banquet is offered, many are invited and many choose not to come, so the master sends out servants to bring in as many others as possible. In the message, the pastor said, "the bigger the table, the greater the number of invitations." That has really stuck with me the last few days as well as we have a family celebration coming up in about a month and we keep remembering different people we need to invite. So, the guest list keeps growing. It is a big celebration and so there's a lot of invitations. But some have said they can't come and others are bringing more than we thought. And you know what, its all good.

But what about the most important table out there? What I heard in the sermon the other morning was not simply a "duh" message about how a bigger table automatically needs more invitations to fill it but that we need to stop limiting ourselves in who we invite to Jesus' table. I know I fall into the trap of just wanting to invite those who are "like me" but that's not what the table of our Lord is called to be. As we say in part of our Lord's Supper liturgy..."people will come from north and south and east and west to sit at the table in the Kingdom of God." The table of God is not limited by a specific number of chairs or limited to only a certain type of people. It is a table that somehow more and more people can fit around, that always has enough for all, that is a celebration unlike any other we can imagine.

But it starts with us remembering that we are called to invite, invite, invite, and invite some more. There's always room.