Returned to classes yesterday saying goodbye to Saturdays for the next twelve weeks and hello to friends and community that is missed as the garage gets cleaned. Luke 14:l5-24 was the peg on which the convocation speaker hung his remarks--the story of the dinner party. A man invites many to dinner and sends his servant to tell them "all is ready." They begin to beg off...work, family, life...all interfere with coming to the table. So the servant is sent into the streets for misfits, homeless, wretched...all those who normally do not get invited to dinner.
Making the point in several different ways, the speaker challenged both our excuse-making and our outcast-inviting. All are welcome in the Kingdom. Do we respond or make excuses? Do we bring the weakest and neediest in with us.
It was food for thought and food for nourishment because attached to the challenge was the invitation to communion...a dinner party at the Lord's table. Elements were prepared, prayers prayed, and no one seemed to make excuses to avoid the table (OK...except me...does a wheat allergy get you in trouble not coming to the dinner? :))
BUT...the point was this. As the row in front of me stood to go to the dinner...to be spiritually and physically fed with God's love and provision...the speaker's 8 year old remained seated. She was not allowed by her faith tradition to participate in the meal.
I respect that there are differences interpreting these religious practices, and I know the arguments because I was a child of that religion who sat in the pew excluded from the feast for a good while. The question kept hammering at my heart though...I hope she didn't listen too closely to her daddy's sermon. She might have expected an invitation to the dinner...
And I wondered as I wondered about this later...what in my own practice do I not see? It seems so clear that the child should be fed. It's easy to "see thee." I am looking more carefully to "see me" as the invited and as the inviting.
God, open our eyes...
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