Theme:  Finding excuses to avoid fellowship with God.  

First and foremost, the purpose of this text is to be aware that to be a Christian is like being invited to a wedding feast.

People are always making excuses why they do not want to be part of God. People are always making excuses why they do not have time to pray. People are always making excuses why they don’t want to be part of the church. People are always making excuses for why they do not want to help make the world a better place. Let me amplify.

People have thousand and one excuses, and the excuses are so old, but Jesus’ illustrations are so contemporary. What are the excuses that people gave Jesus? They bought a field. How contemporary. How modern. How appropriate for today’s world. “I got myself a house. I got myself a business. I got a cabin. I am busy taking care of my property…..

Or the example in the parable about the five oxen. Again, how contemporary. That is, I bought a truck. I got a new car. I got a new camper. I need to keep this thing going. Oxen take maintenance; cars take maintenance. Or the excuse that I just got married: we’re young, the new job, the new car, the new house, the new kids. People always have one thousand and one legitimate excuses of why they do not have time for God, for church, or to help the world become a better place. The excuses that we use today seem identical to the ones that Jesus gave.

Excuses have to do with God. At the heart of this parable is that we are invited to be in fellowship with God. You and I are inherently spiritual. We are designed in such a way that we are to be in fellowship with God. I read a sermon by Dr. Morris Wee on this text and he gave that sermon some forty or fifty years ago. He said that we were designed for spirituality. He said that we are not blobs of protoplasm. We are not itches on the epidermis of a pigmy planet. We are not first cousins to an ape which finally learns to shave.

We are human beings. And how are we different than the animals? We are designed for a relationship with God. There is a grandeur to the human soul. We are made for fellowship with God. We are made for prayer. The other animals are not. We are designed to walk with God, talk with God.

And we say, “We don’t have time.  We are too busy, God. I’ve got a job, a family. I am tired. I don’t have time for you.” And Jesus said, “Don’t you know? It is the king who has invited you. It is the king who wants you to be there and be part of his life.  You and I are designed for spiritual relationships and life is best when we are having that spiritual relationship with God.

We need help. We need help in our spiritual relationships, and that is the purpose of the church. You cannot be a spiritual person without spiritual people around you,  helping you to grow in the spirit. That is the purpose of the church. The church is simply spiritual people who help each other grow in the Spirit of Christ.

And some people offer their excuses against the church, “O, I don’t have time. I don’t like the church at all. The church is filled with a bunch of hypocrites. All they want is money. I “got burned” by the church. I am so busy with living life: my home, my family, my work, my recreation. I don’t have any more time available. I have a thousand and one excuses as to why I am not involved in the church.”

Further, we are designed in such a way that we are to make the world a better place. My mentor, Dr. Morris Wee said, that we are to put our shoulders linked to God’s and work together to make this world a better place. People around us are starving and hungry and they are our brothers and sisters, and we are to help in making their world a better place. We are not to give up and say, ‘I give up helping. I abdicate. I quit helping others.”

Let’s summarize. The first part of the parable is an invitation to a wedding, and being a Christian is filled with the happiness, joy and celebration of being at a wedding party. The second part of the parable for today are the excuses people make. People have excuses why they don’t have time for God; people have excuses why they don’t have time for the religious community; people have excuses why they don’t have time to make the world a better place.

The third part of the parable is that God gets frustrated that people have so many excuses why they can’t come to his party, and so God sends out his servants to the alleys and back streets of life, to the poor, the blind, the maimed, and the lame (categories of people in the book of Luke), people from the gutters and side walks of life and bring them into the wedding banquet. The servant does this and comes back to report to God that there is still room in the wedding banquet for more people, and so the king orders the servant to go again and compel the people to come that my house may be full.

God wants God’s house filled … with the poor, maimed, blind and lame. God wants his house filled with anyone and everyone. Got any good excuses?

Rev. Edward Markquart