The banquet
It is 25 years ago this month that I started contributing to this column. My aim has been, and remains, to engage readers not with religion per se, but with a person, namely Jesus. The call, invitation and even command that is given by Jesus has been my theme. An obvious example of this call/invitation/command is given in a parable that Jesus tells us about a banquet and the issuing of invitations; a topical subject in the light of the banquet to be held at Buckingham Palace for the U.S. President’s State visit early next month.
Here is the gist of the parable… There was a certain well-to-do man who organised a banquet and told his servant to go and invite those for whom places had been laid. Those invited began to make excuses as to why they couldn’t make it. One said that he had recently purchased a field and needed to go and see it. Another had just got a new yoke of oxen and needed to examine them. Still another simply said, ‘I’ve just got married so I can’t come.’ The well-to-do man was not pleased. He instructed his servant to go into town, into the streets and alleys and bring in the poor, sick, disabled etc., so that they might feast. The servant, obviously showing initiative, announced that he had already done this and there was still room at the banquet table! So the host told him to go further afield, into the countryside where there would be ‘outsiders’ - peasants, travellers and the homeless. He was told to compel these to come and benefit from his master’s fine table.
Through his servants i.e. his followers, Jesus continues to extend an invitation to men and women, calling them home to God where there is (metaphorically speaking) a family banquet prepared and waiting. Most people apparently prefer to turn the invite down lest it interfere with their own daily pursuits. Clearly, we need to secure an income, fulfil responsibilities and have time for relaxation. These things, however, need not hold us back. Jesus tells us how to go about this in God’s way saying, ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and these things will be added to you also’.
So, here is the call, the invitation and command of the Christian message: will we lay things aside in order to take our place at God’s table? If we do, we can trust that he will show us how to live out our everyday lives in such a way that honours Him, blesses those we love and those with whom we rub shoulders.
I guess that over the past 25 years, I have written in excess of 120,000 words in these articles. Thankfully, to respond to the invitation given by Jesus takes only a few words; words that may be verbal or prayed in the quietness of the heart.