Recently I have been reflecting on the three “gardens” of hospitality, compassion, and worship in the parable that the Session created for our congregation. All three gardens are necessary for our congregational life and are all connected to one another. It strikes me that my work with you as your Director of Education and Mission Outreach is relevant to all three of these “gardens” or ministries. I want to say a few words about how I see this occurring in each of the three ministries.

Ministries of hospitality are “ministries that welcome people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities, meet them where they are in faith, and equip them for living their faith.” Much of the Christian Education work I do is seeking to meet the members of this congregation where they are. Then based on where you are in your life’s journey provide resources and opportunities that support and challenge you to grow in your faith both individually and as a congregation. Another aspect is providing resources and opportunities that equip you to live out your faith this complicated world. I have to continue to remind myself that this requires me to get to know you individually. I want to know your story, your needs and your desires. This year, as much as possible, I am trying to spend time with a wide variety of this congregation in different situations. So don’t be surprised if I plop myself down at your table on Sunday morning.

Ministries of compassion are “ministries that seek to recognize the brokenness of the word and individuals within it and reach out with Christ’s love to bring hope and healing.” For me this defines what “mission outreach” is. In mission outreach we seek to recognize and understand the needs of our community, our nation and our world. Once we have done that we discern how we can use our passions, strengths, and skills to respond effectively to those needs. My role is to assist you in recognizing and understanding the needs as well as working with you to establish and grow ministries that can address some of the needs and brokenness.

Ministries of worship are “ministries that assist the people of God in praising God, acknowledging the divine presences, and responding to God’s claim and redemption.” You might have asked yourself how my work in “education and mission outreach” is relevant to ministries of worship. Well you are not alone in your questioning as I too have reflected on this. My work is relevant to worship ministries primarily through worship education. For example this year the elementary children spent four weeks of Sunday School learning about worship as well as creating elements our Sunday morning worship liturgy. As adults the more we understand why, how and who we worship, we are able to more fully participate in worshiping God.

I want to challenge you to reflect on the ways your passions and God given gifts are relevant to each of these areas of ministries.

Finding Life

Luke 24:1-12

They had every good reason to go to the garden tomb. They never suspected they’d find anything different from what they expected – the body of Jesus, wrapped in the linen cloth Joseph had brought when he took it down from the cross. They had seen it all with their own eyes, these women who had followed him so faithfully from Galilee.

They had watched Jesus as he died on the cross. They heard his final words as he gave himself over to God. They held their breath as he took his last. They witnessed the Roman centurion who came to belief and praised God when he realized the death of innocence had taken place. And these women were there when his body was laid in the tomb just as it ought to be, so they could return to this place of the dead when it was permissible, after the Sabbath, to finish his proper burial.

They had seen it all with their own eyes. They had no reason to expect to find anything but what they had left behind before their fitful day of rest. And in some strange way, I imagine at least, they looked forward to coming back to that place of the dead where they knew what to expect, where they could DO SOMETHING about what had happened even if it was dressing Jesus’ body for death. They looked forward to coming back to the tomb where they would at least be close to him because figuring out what to do without him was just still too hard that early.

Their world had crumbled around them. A mother they knew was mourning her son, which is never the natural order of things. There were students who had lost their teacher, disciples who had lost their master, people of faith who had lost God in their very midst. Their world was tumbling down around them, because the world had won. The perplexed and terrified establishment had squelched what it did not understand. The oppressive empire had put down the threat of rebellion. The life an innocent man, a good and holy and righteous man, a gracious and loving and compassionate man, a man who walked in the way of God, who loved with the heart of God, who healed with the touch of God, truly a man who was God, had been stolen, and so their world had crumbled around them. The world out there had won.

It’s not hard to imagine what they were feeling. We know about worlds that have crumbled We know about the still-open wounds, tender and hurting wounds, of those who have lost jobs or struggle to make ends meet in this economic climate, of those who have lost loved ones too soon, before the natural order of things has taken place, of those who battle depression or addiction, of those who grieve over relationships that have been strained beyond the breaking point. We know about the indiscriminant nature of earthquakes and floods. We know now that years of ignoring people in poverty can lead to mind-boggling devastation and corruption. We know about abuse, verbal, physical, and sexual, that can leave lives in confused ruins.

And we know that sometimes it feels like the tombs of despair are the only places we belong anymore because it just seems like this hopelessness is all there is anymore. The tombs, the places of death, seem like the only place we can dwell. The mindset and attitude of acceptance seems like the only way we can respond to the world that crumbles around us. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? If you can’t stave off the grief and the death and the dearth of hope, you might as well just go to the middle of it all, and get yourself ready to exist with it as the norm.

They had every good reason to go to the garden tomb. They never suspected they’d find anything different from what they expected. They had seen it all with their own eyes, but when they arrived they found something completely unexpected, or really the found NOTHING that they expected. They came looking for the evidence of the death they had witnessed. They came to play the hand they had been dealt. They came to do the only thing they could imagine doing, but they discovered what they never imagined to see.

Death was gone! Jesus’ body no longer lay where they had seen it lay before. They went to the place of hopelessness, and somehow hopelessness was no longer there! “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the two strangers asked the terrified women. “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” Why do you come to this tomb, this place of death, this place of grief as if it were the end of the story? Why do you come to dwell in the midst of what seems like a hopeless situation when he told you it would be different?

Why do we read the newspapers, watch TV, replay our own stories over and over and over again in our heads as if they are the final story that will get told? Why do we return to these experiences of pain and suffering and believe that they hold the ultimate power in our lives or in the world? Why do we believe or at least live as if we believe that all hope is lost, God is dead, and evil has the final word?

He told the women it wouldn’t end like this. He told us. He told them he would rise again, and we have heard that he has. He is not there in the tomb among the dead. He is living. He is living hope. He is alive!

The resurrection promises us we don't have to keep going back to the places of the dead to look for some sort of false comfort there, to harden ourselves to what is happening and just muddle on through the life before us and the world around us. Jesus, the living one, was not among the dead, and the women discovered they didn't need to go back to the tomb. Likewise, we don't need to, and really shouldn't get sucked into hopelessness because he lives, and if he can overcome death and the tomb, then there is hope for all of this, there is hope for all of us.

It doesn’t mean we forget these things exist. It doesn’t mean we forget the losses in our lives or ignore suffering in our community and around the world. It doesn’t mean that the tomb never held the beaten and broken body of the innocent man. Those things exist; the pain they cause is real. But because of the resurrection, because he is among the living, we don’t need to go back to the tombs, and live them over and over. We don’t have to dwell in hopelessness, looking for comfort where none is to be found. The empty tomb that the women found means miraculously, graciously, that these places of death and hopelessness aren’t where the story ends.

Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus, the light of the world, Jesus the Messiah, the chosen one of God, Jesus, God who came to dwell among us, is not dead in the tomb. He has risen. He is alive. He is hope where we thought there was none. He is life where there was death. He is love and grace and mercy where it seemed that anger and jealousy and suspicion had won out.

And because we know this, because we have heard of his life beyond death, we have a job to do, a call to answer, a call to go find this life. We have a call to go out from the gardens of death and be a part of Jesus’ living, breathing, transforming life in the world. We have a call to point to resurrection moments when we see them, resurrection experiences when we have them, and declare, “He IS here! He has risen!’ We have a call to look at the new green sprouts that are springing up from the dead earth, we have a call to rejoice at every person rescued from the rubble in Haiti, we have a call to point to the faith and commitment of youth who give up their vacation to serve the forgotten in the Gulf, we have a call revel in the beauty of songs sung, hymns played, art and creativity shared and declare with full voice, “He is here! He has risen!”

And we have a call to join this resurrection life ourselves. We have a call to be a part of bringing his life to the world, be a part of God’s work that is going on all around us if we just open our eyes to see it, if we just open our ears to listen for it, if we just open our calendars and our lives to participate in it. We have a call to rise above the terror we face when we find ourselves in the places of death because the good news has already been shared; it has already been let loose in the world – He is not here, but has risen! Let us go find and join his life in the world! Alleluia!

Soles 4 Souls

According to the gospel of John, on the night of his last supper with the disciples, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and commanded them to do the same for others. In addition to an optional foot-washing station at the Maundy Thursday worship service, we will observe this event in the life of Jesus with a collection of new or used shoes for the organization Soles4Souls. This group collects shoes of all types for distribution to those in need in this country and around the world. Work boots, snow boots, dress shoes, sneakers - - all kinds of shoes are useful in all kinds of different settings, so bring ANY shoes you have that you no longer need, and Soles4Souls will get them to those who do. Do not worry if your shoes seem to be in bad repair; the organization will do the sorting for us. Even “lost” shoes, without a match, are welcome; they will store them in their warehouses until they find a new mate. Shoes will be collected all of Holy Week, but a special collection site and prayer will be a part of the Maundy Thursday service. Funds from the Mission Outreach Committee will help us mail them to the distribution site in Iowa. Please help us with this Lenten mission project!

For more information about Soles4Souls, click here.

Charter for Compassion

Yesterday's sermon posting included links to a couple of videos related to the Charter for Compassion, but I realized today that I never linked to the actual Charter website. Sorry about that.

Feel free to browse through it and tell us what you think!

Charter for Compassion

A Scriptural GPS

A friend of mine, while trying to navigate her way to a job interview in rural Vermont plugged in her trusty GPS, Global Positioning System, to help her find her way. It did its job, or so she thought, finding the quickest, most efficient route from her home in Massachusetts. However, as she though she was nearing her final destination at a little church in a village nestled in the mountains, she encountered this road sign on a snow and ice covered road. Apparently she wasn’t the first out-of-towner who naively trusted her GPS to help her find the way.I guess they haven’t programmed those magical little devices for the magic of winter wonderland.

The lawyer Jesus encounters in Luke’s gospel is also looking for an efficient path. Not wanting to waste any time or energy on unnecessary tasks, he asks Jesus for the correct route information. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is the quickest way from here to there?” he wonders. “What is the bare minimum I have to do to get where I want to go? Exactly how many people are my neighbors?”

The priest and the Levite in the parable, however, seem to know exactly where to go. They are trusting whole-heartedly in the GPS they have been given – the accepted rules and traditions of the culture and religions. Seeing the mangled man in the road ahead, their navigational devices immediately recalculate their routes for them, draw for them detours that take them to the other side of the road.

Strict laws against touching the dead, which is what the traveler looked like, would have reasonably prevented them from intervening. A priest presumably on his way to intercede for others in the complex world of ritual and sacrifice would have defiled himself and made himself completely useless to the faithful who depended on his actions if he had touched a corpse along the way. Likewise a Levite, whose job came to him by his bloodline, meaning there are a limited number of men in the world who could do what he did, could not make a similar risk to his ritual status, to his level of purification. The GPS they had been given for living their lives told them to do exactly what they did, avoid this man, dead or close to it, in the road. The expectations of their roles came with certain understandings about what they should and shouldn’t do, and touching an unclean man, even if it could save his life? That just didn’t seem acceptable at the time.

The church gets sucked into the mindset sometimes, too. We get caught up in the trap of trying to act acceptably in our community. At the very least we are tempted by the cultural GPS in the same way. Voices out there speak and try to tell us that our realm of activity and circle of care shouldn’t stretch beyond our walls. They shout that working for social justice and the fair treatment of other is outside the acceptable scope of our ministry. There are those who argue that that church should keep to the church and just care for its own.

There are even those who make that argument within the church. Why should our congregation or our denomination speak up about conflicts in other lands? Why should be engage in the debates about health care or civil rights or human trafficking? Why does the church speak about responsible investments or legislative advocacy? What does the church need to say about fair wages or fair trade? The church, cry voices inside and out, is perfectly suited to care for its own, for our own, so why should the church, why should Christians meddle in affairs beyond our walls? Why should we care beyond our family, beyond ourselves, beyond our local neighbors?

“How much is enough?” these questions are asking, just like the lawyer who tests Jesus. “Is it enough to pray for the people who are hurting in our congregation? Is it enough to pool our resources to try to help each other out of tough financial situations? Is it enough to feed our friends with physical and spiritual food when they are suffering and mourning? Is it enough, Jesus, to care for the people we know, we love, with whom we worship?

Or do we need to go further? How much is enough? Is it enough to serve dinner to our youth and the youth of our neighboring churches? Is it enough to collect food for the struggling families at the school down the road? Is it enough to venture a little further and serve a meal at the homeless shelter? Is that enough, Jesus, to care for the anonymous people we hear about, we pity, with whom we share a community?

Or do we need to go further? How much is enough?

The Samaritan certainly went further. His GPS, both geographical and cultural seems to be completely broken because no Samaritan would EVER have accepted a route that took him through this Jewish territory. It just wasn’t done. Samaritans didn’t like Jews; Jews didn’t like Samaritans. The bad blood between them dated back hundreds of years. There was no reason this Samaritan should have been walking this road against all cultural, all political, all social expectations. These people don’t mix, and any useful Samaritan GPS would have kept this man OFF this road.

It was dangerous for him to be there. He was looking for trouble in a foreign land, traveling through a territory that was culturally, ethnically, and religiously different from everything familiar in his life. The people back home would certainly tell him if they could that this was not wise, not safe, not acceptable by any of their usual standards. He deliberately put himself right in the middle of a setting where he was bound to meet someone very different from himself, and it was likely to be a risky and life-changing encounter. As he travelled that road and approached the half-dead man in his path, what he then chose to do can only be described as an act of compassion.

That much is enough, Jesus says. That much is real compassion. Compassion isn’t about just loving and caring for the people everyone expects you to love and care for. Although that is CERTAINLY a starting point. Caring for our family, caring for our church community, the poor of our city and country, the families that are struggling in our immediate neighborhoods (because they are there and here whether we choose to see them in the road or not) is certainly the beginning of compassion. It just isn’t the end.

Compassion is risky, vulnerable behavior. Compassion is opening ourselves up to the idea that there are people who are very different who we are called to serve, and there are people who are very different who are called to serve us. Compassion is not limiting ourselves to the acceptable, predictable, efficient path of life and faith, but opening ourselves to detours and longer routes. Compassion is about searching for the more difficult journey with hidden opportunities to love others with our actions in Jesus’ name. Compassion isn’t a thought we have or a belief we apply to some theory about who Jesus is and what he wants us to do. Compassion is real life action.

After decades of studying the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and especially their struggles to exist with each other, author Karen Armstrong began to see something that seemed off the mark in our contemporary practices of our faith traditions. Armstrong noticed that people of faith spend a lot of time worrying about what we believe with our heads, what the Qu’ran calls zanna, by her definition “the self-indulgent guess work about matter that nobody can be certain of one way or the other, but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian.” She argues that while we spend all this time and energy on thinking about our belief in our head religion is really about behaving differently. “Instead of deciding whether or not you believe in God, first you do something. You behave in a committed way, and then you begin to understand the truths of religion. And religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action; you only understand them when you put them into practice.”

This disconnect, she proposes, is part of the reason so many people in the world, particularly so many who claim to be a part of the three Abrahamic faiths, find themselves as odds, even very VIOLENT odds, with one another. At the core of all of our faiths is a call to compassion, a call to loving care for all people on earth. Unfortunately for all of us in all of our faiths, we have gotten really good at saying what we believe about compassion, but really pretty bad at acting that way.

That’s why when Karen Armstrong won the 2008 TEDPrize, an award given annually to an individual or organization with “One Wish to Change the World,” she used her $100,000prize money, corporate support, and a public forum to draft and promote the Charter for Compassion. In the words of the charter project:
“The Charter of Compassion is a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life. Compassion is the principled determination to put ourselves in the shoes of the other, and lies at the heart of all religious and ethical systems. One of the most urgent tasks of our generation is to build a global community where men and women of all races, nations and ideologies can live together in peace. In our globalized world, everybody has become our neighbor, and the Golden Rule has become an urgent necessity.
“The Charter, crafted by people all over the world and drafted by a multi-faith, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders, seeks to change the conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt ~ be it religious or secular ~ has failed the test of our time. It is not simply a statement of principle; it is above all a summons to creative, practical and sustained action to meet the political, moral, religious, social and cultural problems of our time."
The drafters of this Charter invite the world, individuals and organizations, cities and nations, churches, temples, and mosques, religions and denomination, to adopt it, making a lifelong commitment to live with compassion.

Listen now to the words of this charter.

The website for the Charter for Compassion includes an interactive section where individuals around the world share stories of compassion they have received or offered– ranging from an individual in Vermont who started a low profit company to give away technology to classrooms around the world to a woman in West Virginia who paid for the groceries of a single mother in line in front of her at the grocery store when she overheard that the woman’s food stamps weren’t valid for four more days. These stories and testimonies challenge us to recognize the places we have experienced the compassion of others, and, as Christians, the places we are called to share Christ’s compassion through our lives.

The culture in which we live is constantly trying to guide our steps toward an efficient and comfortable present and future. The GPS of societal norms will never cease attempting to send us on fast-moving highways that avoid all deviations and detours from the acceptable path, roads that keep us segregated into communities, friendships, churches, and families with people just like us. However, if we program ourselves along the GPS of scripture, if we are guided by the route of a Samaritan walking on the completely wrong road, we will find ourselves traveling in the way and footsteps of Christ. Then maybe we can begin to answer through our actions the question Jesus begs us to understand - - “Who ISN’T my neighbor?”

(Karen Armstrong quotes are from her acceptance speech from the 2008 TEDPrize.)

I recently attended the Association of Christian Educators (APCE) Annual Event in January. The purpose of this conference is to learn, worship, connect and reconnect with others who work and volunteer in Christian Education. The conference was held in Nashville, TN and theme was Awake My Soul. The worship services throughout the week did just that-my soul was awakened. The music, preaching, prayer, and keynote speaker were moving and I experienced the presence of the Holy Sprit in my soul. The following are some other highlights and insights.

I attended the Presbyterian Organized in Nurture and Training (POINT) conference prior to the APCE Annual Event. Our keynote speaker for this conference was Dr. Susan E. Hylen, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. She used the story of the “Woman at the well” to help us explore and articulate our own expressions of faith as well as explore how we might lead/experience corporate discernment of faith in our community. I was most intrigued by Hylen’s unique interpretation of the story and especially the character of the woman. In many interpretations the woman is portrayed as “nincompoop,” asking seemingly unanswerable questions. In Heylen’s interpretation the woman is viewed as asking deep questions of Jesus stemming from her knowledge and beliefs of her own religious and cultural background. I wish I could remember all she said about this!

I led my first workshop at this conference and it went very well. It was a confidence building experience as well as learning experience. The workshop’s title was Christian Education in Small Congregations. The planning process itself was useful in that it made me systematically think about FPCH and what we do that is unique because we are a small congregation. Some of these things include our partnership programs (i.e. NETworks Youth Ministry, NETworks Vacation Bible School and the Ecumenical Men’s Breakfast group), adapting curriculum and resources to fit fewer numbers, and our Family Faith Talks workshops. People in the workshop asked very thoughtful questions and shared their own stories as well resources unknown to me.

I attended four workshops three of which are noteworthy and so I “speak” to them. First, I attended a workshop titled Encouraging Family Conversations About Faith. The workshop should have been called “How to Talk with Children about God.” In other words the focus of this workshop was looking at ways to help adults, mainly parents, talk with and answer questions children have about God and faith. The presenter had some really great insights on ways to do this. I would like to offer a workshop on this topic for parents and any interested adults in our congregation.

Another workshop I went to was titled Murder in the Pew. The whole focus of the workshop was ecclesiastical mystery novels. The presenter, and avid mystery reader, took us through her bibliography of mysteries that in some way are linked to religion. Some take place in religious building and in other books the main character is a monk or clergy. I did not know there were so many of these types of mysteries. One could have a whole book club based on these mysteries. If anyone wants a copy of her bibliography let me know and I’ll make you a copy!

The final workshop I attended was titled Helping Others: Servant or Sucker. This was the best workshop I attended because I think the potential applications for the Mission Outreach ministry of FPCH are plentiful. In this workshop we looked at the culture of poverty including the different levels of poverty. We talked about how a person or congregation can begin to take on the issue of poverty in practical ways. There is too much information to summarize here. I will say I was so inspired by the presenter that I bought her book titled Loving Our Neighbor: A Thoughtful Approach to Helping People in Poverty. I’m looking forward to reading it and reinforcing my understanding of these issues. I hope to gain insights on ways FPCH can provide effective and compassionate ministry to those in poverty. I’d be happy to share the book with anyone who is interested!

I must also say a “couple of words” about the “private” concert by Christian singer Amy Grant. I was first introduced to Amy Grant’s music as a middle school student by one my youth group leaders. I have loved her music ever since then. Amy Grant lives in and attends a Presbyterian church in Nashville and asked the local conference committee if she could come spend some time with us. Her concert was amazing. She told stories of her family and her faith. These heartfelt stories were enhanced by singing of some old favorites as well as a few new songs. Even though I was sitting in a banquet hall with a thousand other people I felt like I was sitting in Amy’s living room chatting and listening to her. It was a night to be remembered!

RSVP

Isaiah 55:1-9
Luke 14:16-24It was going to be a GREAT party. It was going to be better than GREAT. It was going to be fantastic! Many had been invited. Not a whole lot of responses were received, but really, people don’t RSVP any more anyway. It was going to be a GREAT party.

The house had been scrubbed top to bottom. The courtyard had been swept and swept again. The ground was free of all those little stone that get stuck between your toes and beneath your feet in sandals. Someone had crawled on hands and knees to make sure they were all removed from the site of the party. The animals that had been fattening for months were back from slaughter, and the choice cuts of meat were prepared. They had already begun to be licked by the flames of the cooking fire as they turned slowly on the spit. The host and his family had been scrubbed from top to bottom, too, clean and shining with excitement over the celebration that was just about to beginning.

At the appointed hour, the time when the guest had been invited to arrive, they went to the door to receive the blessing of their guests come to celebrate and enjoy the party with them. With a grand sweep, the door was opened…and no one was there! Just the bustle of a busy street at the end a of a long day. Servants going to collect the evening’s water, merchants trying to sell the last of their fresh wares, closing up shop for the night, worker of different kinds making their ways home to be with their own families for the night.

Not one invited guest stood waiting for the party to begin. Not one was there to celebrate and enjoy. Imagine the disappointment, the discouragement, frustration and even sadness of the host. The invitation had gone out to MANY. The promise of a GREAT, no, a fantastic party had been made. Hours of preparation had gone into the occasion, but when the time came, no one had arrived to celebrate. Come the invitation had said, but all he got were excuses in response. Celebrate with me! Come and enjoy! Come and rejoice for a while.

“Come”, says our God, “Feast at my table.”
“Come,” says our God, “and listen to me.”
“Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.”
“Come and follow me.”
“Come let us sing to the Lord.”
“Come and see what God has done”
“Come and hear the message from God.”
“Come to God’s presence with singing.”

Come, our invitation to worship beckons. Come and celebrate with God and one another, but often we, too, respond with excuses. I’m tired. I can do it alone. It’s too early after a long night. It’s too late for everything I have planned for today. There’s too much to do to get ready for the week. I did too much this weekend. I don’t know enough. I haven’t relaxed enough. I don’t believe enough to show up to worship God. I don’t believe enough to go to that party.

We don’t really think of it that way, but really worship is a party. It’s something we do together, not even just something done up front here by others on our behalf. It’s not a lecture surrounded by some good music. It’s not even a spiritual gas station we frequent to simply fill up our tanks for another week. Worship is a party, a celebration, complete with an invitation from God to come and rejoice, give thanks, sing, even dance if we’re ready for that. Worship is the time we gather as a community to do together what we can and we should also do alone – wonder and marvel at the glory of God, pray and meditate on the gift of God’s Word, offer our lives and ourselves in grateful response, celebrate the grace and mercy of our faithful Savior. And like most parties that I have been to, the more we give of ourselves to the energy of the party, the better it gets for us all.

But we’d never know that if we didn’t show up. The guest who didn’t think they were ready never got to taste the scrumptious food of the great banquet. The timing wasn’t right. Things weren’t in order at home. Schedules conflicted with the gracious invitation of their host. They just weren’t ready.

And who is when lives are busy and calendars are full. Who is when there seems to be so much to learn about God it’s really a bit overwhelming? Who is ready when there are so many questions unanswered? Who really is ready when sometimes the music isn’t the kind of music I like? When sometimes questions are asked that I’m not ready to hear? Who is ready when other things in life seem more pressing, more important, or maybe just more fun, more satisfying than coming to the party that God hosts? Who is ever ready anyway?

Well, in the parable someone was. A whole lot of someone’s were, actually. When the host heard that his guests weren’t coming, when he discovered that his carefully planned festivities, his delicious food, his gracious hospitality weren’t going to be accepted, he didn’t start wrapping everything in plastic wrap, resigned to eating leftovers for weeks, he sent out new invitations. He sent his servants out to find the guests who WERE ready to enjoy what he had to offer. He sent them into the streets and alleys, into the worst neighborhood, to the gates of the city where the poor and destitute lay waiting for something, anything, from the people who passed by. He sent his servants out with an open invitation to anyone who wanted to come, taste, and see. And the revelers came pouring in.

The best guests, it turns out, may not be the ones who are best prepared, whose lives are in perfect order, who think they have the time or ability to get everything ready before they show up to celebrate, because these guests will never actually make it to the party. There will always be one more job to do, one more house to check on, one more task to complete, one thing to learn. We’ll never be ready enough. Our lives will never feel in order enough.

The best guests, it turns out, are the ones who know their imperfections, but respond to the host’s invitation with a resounding, “Yes!” Come, you who are thirsty - - Yes! I will drink of your living water. Come, you who hunger - - Yes! I will eat from your banquet table. Come, you who are tired - - Yes! I will rest in your arms. Come, you with heavy burdens - - Yes! I will share them with you and others. Come, all of you, and rejoice and give thanks - - Yes! Even in my weakness, I will come and celebrate with joy and gratitude for the abundant blessings that are spread before me. Yes! Not just in spite of, but because of our imperfections, we will worship God.

The invitation is all over Scripture. It’s all over our worship service. We come and worship, not because it is our brilliant idea, but because God has laid the perfect spread before us. We come and worship because God has invited us, God calls us to gather here imperfectly. We come and confess all that stands in the way of this worship and our relationship with God, not to beg for our admittance into the party, but because the promise is there, the invitation has already been sent, and God wants to forgive everything that divides us from one another.

We come and worship because by the water of baptism, God welcomes us to the party even before we know what the party is all about, even before we can understand, even when we have tried to understand, but that understanding lays beyond our reach. We come and worship because the blessings of hope, the challenges of discipleship, the comfort of grace are abundant in God’s Word. We come and worship to share in the feast that Christ our Lord spreads before us, to come to the table of welcome, the table of life, the table of salvation, as imperfect and broken people, made whole as we celebrate and rejoice in the blessings that are promised in this spiritual food.