Banquets, Fields, and Cows

Can you believe how fast Christmas season 2009 is going? Already a week of December has gone by and I hardly saw it. Some say that time flies when you are having fun; but, I think it is more accurate to say that time flies when you are busy.

My brother’s visitation was Friday night followed by his funeral on Saturday morning. My granddaughters spent Saturday afternoon and evening with me while my husband and two daughters worked at the restaurant where they catered a big party.

Sunday morning we got up and left for a church 1½ hours away to see our son sing a song he had written at the birth of his son, and then we lovingly watched that grandson be dedicated to the Lord. I wish you could hear the song—it is fabulous. No, it really is! If I can figure out how, I will put it on the blog. Also he wrote and sings a Christmas song that is sooooo good. I’d love to play it, too.

We got back into town as it was getting dark and went to the church where the Rock Group was doing a live nativity scene outside in the cold. Bless their hearts! They were such good sports to stand out in the frigid air to demonstrate their faith in God’s gift, the Christ Child, to everyone who went past. We kept the hot chocolate warm inside so when they came in, they could thaw out. I’m so impressed with their willingness to leave their warm homes in order to make a public statement of their faith. It’s much easier to let someone else do it.

Then it was a Monday morning workday, and I was hosting a party on Monday evening. The party was a big success, largely because of the cool ladies who came and because of my dining room table. I love my table. Sixteen of us sat around it, and we did not have all the leaves put in. That table has probably been my favorite Christmas present ever in my adult life. It makes me wonder how big God’s table is as Jesus tells about a banquet in the kingdom of heaven, as well as those who refuse to accept his invitation to attend. Matthew 22:1-4

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.

A very grave consequence followed for them (and us) who disregard the invitation because they were too busy or uninterested:

But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Whatever you and I do this Christmas, let’s not get too busy or too self-absorbed to accept the invitation of the King. And never, never, never, never, never sing this song:

♫ I cannot come
I cannot come to the banquet
Don’t trouble me now
I have married a wife
I have bought me a cow
I have fields and commitments
That cost a pretty sum
Please hold me excused, I cannot come.