Inviting All

Do you enjoy a really good party? That’s probably a silly question. Who doesn’t love parties, right?

Have ever thrown a good party? If you have, then I am sure you still love a good party, but you also know how much work it can be to throw one. Picking a date, a place, a menu, and a guest list can all be lots of work.

Take that last one for example…can you remember that last guest list you put together? Sometimes, it’s tougher than we might imagine. Sometimes, when we begin making out the list of the people we’d like to invite to our parties, we start to say things like:

“If we invite Jim…then we have to invite Jerry and Bill, too…because they all work together, and Jerry and Bill will be really angry if they find out Jim went and they weren’t invited.”
“But then, we’ve got to remember that Bill doesn’t get along with Darlene, so if they both show up, we’ve got to find a way to keep them separated.”
“And don’t forget about Daryl, he’s always telling those terribly inappropriate jokes…make sure to keep him away from Pastor Dan.”
“Yeah, we’ll put Pastor Dan and his wife at a table next to Darlene and her husband, and Jerry and Bill can go with Daryl and his girlfriend, they love a good joke!”
“Oh my gosh, I just realized…we’ve invited Aunt Bertha and Uncle Henry…remember? She still hasn’t forgiven him for that time when they were ten years old and he told the boy up the street that she really liked him!”

Does any of this sound familiar? My guess is, if you’ve ever thrown a party, you’ve had these conversations. Guest lists and seating charts alone can take up lots of time and give us lots of headaches. The end result, though, the day of the big event, makes it all worth it. When everyone arrives and the party begins, fortunately, we forget about all the headaches…as long as everything goes smoothly and nothing gets broken.

I’ll bet the king in the story that Jesus tells in Matthew 22:1-14 went through all of this as he planned a party for his only Son. He chose a date. He chose the place. He planned his menu…who doesn’t love fatted calf? And then, he made out his guest list. He put everyone who was anyone on it. All of his closest friends and advisers got invitations. Every wealthy landowner in the kingdom was asked to save the date. Every shopkeeper, every rich patron, every A-list person in all the land got to RSVP, and the list went on and on. The king invited them all, he ordered his servants to make the preparations, and then he waited…He couldn’t wait to see the look on his Son’s face when he walked into the banquet hall and they all shouted, SURPRISE! It would be great

When was the last time you threw a party and no one came? This isn’t just being disappointed that Aunt Bertha can’t make the long car trip up. When was the last time you had something really big to celebrate, but no one seemed to care? This is much bigger than Jerry and Bill getting angry that you left them off the guest list. When was the last time something big happened in your life, and there was no one there to tell about it? What happened to the king is much more unbearable than what happens when Cousin Daryl, unknowingly tells Pastor Dan that really tasteless joke.

This is what happens to the king in Jesus’ story. He sends the invitations, he calls his friends, he gets everything ready, and then he stands at the gate…and no one comes. None of the landowners head up his driveway. None of the shopkeepers enter the hall. No A-listers make it to the party. How do you think that felt? You went through all the careful preparations, all of the work, all of the headaches…and you’re not going to experience any of the joy.

Our lives together aren’t really all that different than the guest lists we create for the parties we throw. If we think long and hard enough, I am sure we can begin to map out, even in our own families, the complex and touchy relationship quirks that exist between us. Differences in friendships…long-held grudges from some distant event in our past…senses of humor that just don’t mesh…values that conflict…behaviors that grate on us…the list, like the list of the king’s guest, goes on and on.… With all of that going against us, it’s enough to say “forget it” and tear down the streamers, throw away the menu, and shred the guest list…give up on the party altogether.

But before we do any of that, we may want to pay attention to the end of Jesus’ story.

Jesus seems to be saying, stop being so choosy about who your friends are, and start paying attention to who God’s friends are. The king invites everyone…after the wealthy and the powerful turn down the invitation, the king invites everyone to come to the party. God does the same thing. God invites all people.

God doesn’t waste any time the way we do, wondering who will behave once they get to the party, God doesn’t seem too concerned that two people with a grudge between them might run into one another, I would venture to guess that God doesn’t really care how terrible Cousin Daryl’s jokes are, or how self-righteous Pastor Dan may be…Instead, God puts us all together, often right next to each other, and invites us all to live this way, despite our differences…and…even learn to CELEBRATE them!

Every good party needs an invitation, a reason for the gathering, and great menu. The party that God throws for the world has all of these things wrapped up in one. Jesus is the invitation…he’s the one who heads out into the streets, the neighborhoods, and into your heart, inviting you to stop what you’re doing and come to the party. Jesus is the reason for the celebration, the Son of God just walked through your front door and isn’t here to inspect the work you’ve done so far. Instead he’s here to bring you joy. The menu when we gather, at God’s invitation, is Jesus as well. It is his body and blood that make the celebration possible.

When human life had become so tangled and confused that we had all but forgotten how to attend a great party, how to celebrate life, with all of its imperfections, that’s when Jesus showed up. He came to show us that life is difficult, relationships are messy, and it’s all imperfect…But God is still here… and that is worth celebrating!

In this life, Jesus’ guest list included tax collectors and fishermen, women and men, the rich and the poor, the sick and the well, people with great references and also many with the worst reputations…He met them all face to face…he sat with them at the table, he drank wine with them at the wedding, and he cried with them at the graveside. In it all, he invited the people around him to celebrate the life God gives, in all of its fullness…the good and the bad.

In the end, he made this kind of celebration possible for eternity…he stretched out his arms on the cross, to invite you into God’s unconditional love. He called you to come and experience real forgiveness and freedom. He sent out word that there was a place saved for you at his table of grace, where the menu would be bread and wine that hold his presence and life…all of it given for you.

The table is set, the doors are open, the meal is waiting. God is inviting you to come, but before you do, you may want to stop agonizing over preparations, stop judging who makes your guest list and who doesn’t, and to stop trying to coordinate and control the messy world of human relationships, and instead start celebrating the loving God who redeems them all.
Imagine a party where you don’t have to do all the work, you don’t have to feel responsible for how the guests interact, you don’t have to worry when something gets broken. In fact, you don’t have to worry about a single thing. This is the party that God is throwing for the world…inviting all people to come and see and taste and hear how much there is to celebrate when we invite everyone to gather together.

Worshipping Faithfully

I’ve got some bad news for you…right now, at this very moment…you’re not accomplishing anything at all…I can almost guarantee you…when you walk out of this room later on this morning…when you drive out of the parking lot later today…you will not have accomplished very much.

-The dirty laundry sitting in the hamper at home, will be just as dirty when you get home.
-The leaves in your yard…well, they will have grown…there will be more of them to rake up once you return later today.
-Unless you’ve written “go to church” on your to-do list this morning, then I guarantee you there will be just as many things to check off…as many things left to do as there were yesterday.
-If you went to the bank and checked the balance on your account, it will not have grown during the time you spent here.

That’s the truth…you’ve chosen to invest your time here in church this morning, but if you try to measure what kind of return on your investment you’ve received later today, you may end up disappointed…because in the hour or so that you and I spend here together…we really don’t accomplish too much. That’s the bad news…if you’ve chosen to invest your time here today…you won’t find much of a return.

In the last several weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about our vision here at Zion…a vision for GROWING. We’ve talked about the importance for our lives of GIVING forgiveness away unselfishly. We’ve thought about how each day in our life might be different if we were to practice RECEIVING God’s grace each moment. And, we’ve looked to Jesus’ as someone who can help us to OPEN new doors of possibility without fear. Today, we’re talking about WORSHIP.

One of the things that I love the most about our GROWING vision statement, is that today’s point is located in the exact center of it. WORSHIPPING FAITHFULLY isn’t just the center of our vision, but as Jesus reminds us, it’s the center of our life. Worshipping Faithfully means that we make our relationship with GOD the most important relationship in our life…it becomes the center of who we are, every moment of every day.

Sometimes, though, we confuse WORSHIP with INVESTMENT. We go to church and wonder, what will I get out of it? What kind of returns can I expect from this investment? What’s in it for me? Believe me, I do this all the time, wondering “How many people will show up?” “What will the giving look like, will it help us to meet the budget?” “What will I say? How will it make an impact.” Maybe you’ve done this, too…wondering what kind of return you’ll get out of the investment that you make when you come to worship.

The problem is, when we do this, we get dangerously close to the mindset of the people in Jesus’ story in Matthew 21:33-45.

From their perspective, they think that they’re really accomplishing something. They think that the investment strategy that they’ve come up with will really pay off for them in the end. They’ve convinced themselves that they’re in for a huge windfall…they’ve got visions of the entire vineyard…every vine, every grape, every drop of wine that comes from that winepress…all of it belonging to them! They can already hear the cash registers ringing in the profits they’ll receive…once that pesky landowner is out of the picture. They are one hundred percent certain, that they are on the verge of accomplishing something great.

How does it work out for them in the end? My guess is, it doesn’t turn out at all how they thought it would. Maybe they should have invested differently. Their plan to sever the relationship with the landowner backfires on them in a big way.

I think Jesus tells this story for a reason. I think he’s illustrating what happens when we lose sight of how important relationships are in life. WORSHIP reminds us, whenever we do this, of just how important they are. In fact to God, they are priceless.

Relationship with us is so PRICELESS to God, in fact, that He sends us the everything that is most valuable to Him. God’s only Son walks into the vineyard to give us his life. He’s less concerned with the number of grapes on the vine than he is with the number of people who are working there. Jesus doesn’t seem to look at his journey to live among us as an INVESTMENT…and if he does, then we might say that in the end he made a poor one. Instead, he just might see it as a PAYMENT…he gives away everything he has to purchase our lives…In the end, when he goes to the cross it looks like his whole life will have been wasted…and the investment that he’s made won’t yield, produce, or accomplish anything.

With Jesus’ death and resurrection, though, God reminds us that life isn’t always about what you can see: the laundry pile shrinking, the leaves being raked into piles and cleared away, the to-do list growing smaller, or the bank account growing larger…sometimes the most priceless things in life are unseen…like the new life that is silently happens inside the darkness of Jesus’ tomb.
Worship, just like life, isn’t about what WE can accomplish when we gather together…sing a few songs…pray a few prayers…and pass the plate (although often we make the mistake of believing that it is.) A life of WORSHIPPING God FAITHFULLY seems to be less about the things we accomplish…the growth we can see….and Instead, WORSHIP is all about what GOD can accomplish through us. The returns on the investments that we make are often intangible, immeasurable…but in the long run, they are priceless.

Think about what happens in the hour or so when we gather in worship.
We begin by confessing our sins…we open our hearts to God and one another and admit that we’re not perfect…we allow ourselves to become vulnerable…and then, the moment we do…we hear not a punishment, but a word that reminds us that we’re forgiven for all of them! I can’t think of another place where this happens.

Bishop Payne once pointed out to a group gathered here that church, in today’s world is one of the only places where people sing together. No matter what your voice sounds like…if you’re more at the “Pavarotti” end of the spectrum…or if you live in my musical neighborhood…you still get to sing together…to God.

We do something else here when we gather that’s unique…we stop what we’re doing to get up out of our comfortable seats to cross the aisle and shake hands, hug, and offer peace to people. Can you think of another place where this happens?

When we gather, we approach a table and share a meal where there is always enough for everyone, and there is always room for everyone…and we don’t ever clear the dishes until everyone has had something to eat and drink…that , I think, is truly unique.
Finally, and to me, this is one of the best parts of WORSHIP…we never say that we’re finished until we receive God’s blessing, and THANK God for sending us out into the world to share the love we’ve found in here with other people!

When we invest our time in WORSHIP, our laundry won’t get clean, but our souls will get cleansed…the leaves in our yard will still pile up, but all of the guilt from our mistakes will be carted away…our to-do list might not shrink, but our sense of being overwhelmed by it all just might…Our bank account may not grow, but I guarantee you, our hearts will!

When WORSHIP…trusting God to be in charge of everything, becomes the center of our life…we GROW…in love for God and in love for one another and the world God made.

For some of us, it may seem like bad news that our investment this morning won’t accomplish too much…but, I’ve got worse news for you…there are many people that you and I know and love…and many people who we have yet to know…who at this very moment are trying to make investments all by themselves, and wondering why none of them are working out. There are people fretting over mountains of dirty laundry at this very moment…there are people crying because the leaves keep falling faster than they can clear them…there are people trying to get everything on the to-do list done all by themselves and working themselves to exhaustion…and there are certainly many people worrying about the balance in their checkbook…You will run into some of these people tomorrow morning…you’ll sit next to them on the bus…you’ll stand beside them in the coffee shop…you’ll say “Good Morning” to them at work…You’ll do it all after coming here, and receiving the PRICELESS return from the investment that God made for you, but they will be struggling without knowing the benefit of it. WORSHIP is at the center of our lives, but we’ll find out next week that it always leads us to invest, not in a return for ourselves, but in the life of someone else…Maybe you can get a headstart on investing this week by inviting one of those many people into God’s investment plan…His life for yours and theirs.