Uninvited

Have you ever planned a party or event just to have no one you invited show up?

Yes?  Good then I'm not alone in that department.  If your answer is 'no,' well, keep reading anyway.

Jesus gave his disciples a parable that featured this concept.  It was an allegorical story painting a picture of the kingdom of heaven.  I want to point out that the phrase kingdom of heaven is lowercase here, so it's not a physical place we can go to.  It's more like a state of being.  A way of life.

In Matthew 22 Jesus tells this great story about a king throwing a wedding banquet for his son.  He sends out invitations and prepares the event.  When the time came he sent his servants to gather those who had been invited.  They refused to come.

So the king sent more servants.  They were to let the invitees know that all was prepared, the food was ready and all that was needed was their arrival.  The still refused to come and mistreated and killed the servants.  (They really didn't want to go!)

Then the king says to his other servants, "Those who were invited did not deserve to come, go out into the streets and invite anyone you find there."  So they went and brought anyone they found to the wedding banquet, good and bad, and filled the banquet hall.

Now the story goes on (follow the link above to read all of it) but I will stop there for now.

I know this parable is not directly tied to discipleship but it has a principle we can apply to that concept.  When we want to disciple, we might want to reach out to those we know, those we would invite to a party.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  We should reach out to those we know.  But they refuse to come, time after time, stop spending time trying to get them to come and move on.

Invite those you don't know.  Reach out.  Be bold.  I know that it's easy to say that sitting behind a computer screen, but it's not impossible.  To go with Jesus' parable, if you're the servant getting sent to invite someone to the banquet, you know it's going to be a good time right?  Of course.  So why not tell others about it?

The challenge is determining how to invite those you don't know.  How to approach them and share with them what you know to be good.  There are many ways to do so.  Check out M28's website for more info and ways to do this.

And for those who refuse the invitation, remember this, we are not the king.  We don't have the final say.  So don't give up on them in your behavior.  Keep praying for them.  Keep showing them love and kindness.  But you don't have to keep 'barking up the same tree,' for lack of a better expression.

Reach out to the uninvited.  You may be surprised what doors God opens up in their life, and your own.

Grace, peace and hope
-Jersey