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The
excuses for not going
---The Lord Jesus taught
that the Kingdom of God is like a great banquet,
which God invites many to participate in.
---The Host is of the
highest quality; the event is the finest. Everything
is of the first order. The hour comes closer, everything
is prepared. The Host is waiting. However, here
a problem arises: The guests don't go; the only
response is excuses. They had received their invitations
in advance, and they had time to put their things
in order, but they don't go. Why?
---They have many very
valid reasons for not going. One had acquired a
country property and he/she needed to go and see
it. Another had bought several yokes of oxen and
he/she needed to try them out. A third had married,
and he should be devoted to His wife.
---These three excuses
have a certain degree of validity, nobody can deny
it. They were part of man's normal activities that
are right to attend to. Yes, all that is valid,
but not towards God. If the host was less noble,
and the dinner less select, then it could be ok.
But when we are dealing with the one who invites,
and the reason for the gathering, the excuses are
unacceptable.
---Must the Creator
God of the heavens and the earth, must the King
who rules over all things, be wronged? Must He be
undervalued because He condescends to stoop down
to man to honor him?
---Each one of those
excuses has something in common: they are looking
for their own satisfaction. The ego is the center,
and the decision taken follows that road. Those
men have something important to do. They have acquired
something valuable for themselves - country property,
oxen, wife - and they are not willing to give it
up. What a valuation! What blindness!
---In the present,
a country property, some oxen and a wife can have
the highest value, who doubts it? However, in the
light of eternity what is their real value? Today
we dazzle ourselves with the games with which we
kill the time, but in that day we will see (oh,
so late!) that true gain was in obedience to the
invitation of God.
---It's not bad to
have property, oxen and a wife. But it is bad for
the reason that they are rejecting God. "If
anyone comes to me, and doesn't hate their father
and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers
and sisters, yes, and even also their own life,
they cannot be my disciple… Anyone of you that
doesn't give up all that he possesses, cannot be
my disciple" (Lk. 14:26, 33).
---But look at what
God does. When the invitation is rejected, he replaces
the reluctant guests with others. He won't stop
the banquet that He has prepared with so much expectation
from taking place. Therefore, He sends for all kinds
of people, less distinguished, but more prompt.
They don't have such good reasons for not going.
They don't have many goods, nor do they have many
parties to celebrate. So the unoccupied ones, the
vagrants, the waste of society arrive. They are
introduced into the banquet in numbers, until the
house is filled.
---What grace! How
great is the kindness of God towards you and me!
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