Pastor's Weekly Word

Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. (Luke 14:23)

On Sunday we celebrated our partnership with our Malawi mission Villages in Partnership. The Rev. Dr. Stephen and Liz Heinzel-Nelson were our guests in worship, sharing God’s word with us and joining us around the table for communion. Communion was the focus of the morning as Stephen talked to us about the type of banquet God intends for us. The above verse is a line from the Parable of the Great Banquet that we read, a story Jesus tells about a person who gives a great dinner but struggles to get anyone to come. So, the host sends servants out into every corner of the region to invite every possible person they can find, including the poor, the blind, the crippled, and the lame.

We were starkly reminded of the sheer size of the table. If you can imagine a table that stretches out the doors of the church into the parking lot, down the street, along the highways, to the edges of our country, across the oceans, and into every corner of the world, that would perhaps begin to get at the nature of what we are talking about when we sit at the table. It is a God-sized table that covers all of creation and inviting all types of people to the banquet. Status does not matter. What other people think of you does not matter. Where you are in life does not matter. You are invited. The table is that big. When we gather for communion, we do so with our friends down the street as well as our brothers and sisters on the other side of the planet in the villages of Malawi. It is a God-sized table, and it is big enough for all of us.