Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!

Day 58 Today’s Reading: Luke 14 You’ve been invited to a big party. Not just a party but God’s party. And it lasts a really long time . . . for eternity. In order to understand how this party works, Jesus told a parable. And what makes this parable amazing is when and where He told it. I come from a family in which dinner table talk was the norm. Dinner would last a long time not because eating took long but because the conversation did. And here in Luke 14, this dinner conversation started in verse 1 and ended at verse 24—and the topics were intense. The conversation started with healing and proceeded all the way to the big party. At our dinner table I learned the art of debate and how to defend your point of view over anything from politics to theology. Nothing was off limits. We are Italians, so the conversations would get loud and emotional, but always ended with dessert and coffee. This Luke 14 dinner conversation with Jesus didn’t end with cheesecake and coffee but did end with an intense talk about God’s final party in heaven and why people will miss it. In New Testament times, two invitations were usually given to a party or banquet. The first was given well in advance so that people could RSVP. Then when everything was ready for the party to begin, the host sent servants with a second invitation to tell everybody to “come, for everything is now ready.” You’d think that receiving such a wonderful invitation and news would cause people to stop whatever they were engaged in and go to the party, but that is not what Jesus said happened in this parable: He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’” (Luke 14:16-24) This invitation came at a time that something would have to be interrupted . . . something great would have to be chosen over something good. We have to choose the lasting over the temporal, the great over the good if we want to go to the party. In the parable, Jesus said that some chose not to come because the party interfered with their business, possessions, and relationships. In each case the excuses were legitimate but not sufficient. Legitimate but not sufficient. The point is—if you miss God’s party, it isn’t because you were not invited. It’s because you chose to make other things a priority over responding to Him. The people who were invited all began to make excuses. The definition of excuse: that which makes (an offense or a crime) seem less serious or something used to justify a fault. <p