Lenten Lesson -- Warnings often unheeded

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Displaying wisdom beyond his years, a young Mike Larson, pastor at Seventh Day Adventist Church, brought a word of warning to the gathering of 128 at Friday's community Lenten service at Memorial United Methodist Church.

According to Luke's Gospel, Chapter 14: 15-24 a great feast had been prepared. Invitations had gone out to many guests and now the day of the banquet had arrived.

And all of the invitees had one excuse or another, each of them blatantly false.

"Who buys property without first checking it out?" asked Larson. "Or oxen?

"Would you buy a house sight unseen? A car? Of course not. Neither would this man buy a field unseen. Something else was going on," continued Larson. He posed several possibilities, the most likely of which was that there was something culturally amiss. For some reason, none of the invited guests were able to attend, and perhaps they preferred not to, because all of them had pressing engagements that had apparently taken them by surprise.

And so the host sent his servants into town to "bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame." And still he had room and so he sent his servants out to the country roads and lanes to bring other guests to his house, dismissing entirely the guests who had declined.

There is a warning here, said Larson. But it goes against our human nature to listen to warnings, even warnings from someone older or someone wiser. Larson shared about the time he was, then a young driver, driving in a snowstorm, apparently too fast for one of his passengers, a more experienced driver, who kept repeating, "Mikey, slow down. Mikey, slow down."

Finally, having endured this repeated warning for the last time he responded, "Gil. What do you want me to do? If I do this..." he said as he hit the brakes hard. He didn't have a chance to finish. He lost traction and, telling the tale Friday, admitted that when the car started spinning he just took his hands off the wheel and started praying. They ended up in the ditch.

"We don't like to listen to warnings. We don't want to hear them. We think we've got it all under control. We know we can do it better. We know we can do it right."

Perhaps this was the mindset of the people Jesus spoke to in this parable. After all, he was a guest at the home of a prominent Pharisee on this Sabbath day, being carefully watched, according to Luke 14:1. Jesus had multiple warnings for this gathering, warnings about whether or not it was right to do good on the Sabbath, warnings about seeking a place of honor, warnings about who gets invited to dinner and why. And then this warning, of offering lame excuses when invited to a great banquet, or more to the point, as Larson said, the "feast in the kingdom of God."

It's sometimes hard for us to understand, some 2,000 years distant from the scene, the Jewish mindset in Jesus' time. They were God's chosen people, and they figured that when the Messiah came, as God's chosen people, they were "good to go," said Larson. They had a free ticket to the kingdom of God, given to them by virtue of keeping the Law, by virtue of their family lineage, by virtue of their peculiar status among all men as sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And yet, when Jesus came, they dismissed him. They had been invited to the feast, but now that the feast was ready, they had every manner of excuse why they should not come, not follow, not believe that this was the feast they had been waiting for.

"Don't miss the warning," said Larson. "Don't let anything in this life keep you from the table at the feast of the kingdom.

"Not selfishness. Not self-pity. Not one piece of self.

"Because only those who are wholly committed to Jesus, only those who have hidden themselves completely in him, will be seated at the table."

The Rev. Clark Bates, pastor at McCook Christian Church served as the worship leader. The McCook quarter "4-Hyms" provided special music, singing "And God Cried," accompanied by Christy Stevens on the piano. Evie Caldwell was the organist.

Free will offerings were collected at the entrance to the sanctuary to benefit the work of the Red Willow County Ministerial Association and at the entrance to the Fellowship Hall to offset the cost of the food. Women from Seventh Day Adventist Church prepared a menu that included sloppy joes, tuna salad sandwiches, chips, salads and desserts.

The community Lenten services continue Friday, 12:05 p.m., at Memorial United Methodist Church with the Rev. Emmanuel Reinbold from Church of the Nazarene speaking on the parable of The Prodigal.

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