Weekly Faith Question

“When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” Jesus said.
​
Is Jesus asking us to expand our social circles? Seems so. More, Jesus exposed the games this host and his guests were playing. Who is more important than who? Busiest? Most successful? Closest to wealth and power? Status games.

In church, status takes a different twist. Who is more generous? More compassionate? Longest-tenured? Longest-suffering? On the most committees? Closest to the pastor?

“There’s more to life,” Jesus says. Who are we without our status symbols, our social position, our place in the family? Without the real advantages, material and relational, that come with them? That’s our soul. Our essence, which flows and rests within God’s essence.

What a tragedy never to know that essence, and so, to treat other people and our very selves as “its,” things, means to an end, worthless apart from winning the game. 

Who could or would you develop authentic relationship with if you were free not to need the approval and esteem of your group? Ask Jesus to show you the way to your soul.