There’s always a lot of work to do to get ready for our Thanksgiving feast. I remember holidays at my grandparents when I was growing up. Mom is one of nine children. We had at least fifteen cousins. Grandma would also invite friends and distant relatives to celebrate Thanksgiving dinner with the family. We also thought of neighbors and those who may be alone for the holiday. It was a lot of work to cook for that many people for Grandma, my aunts, and my Mom. Everyone would have a job to help get the food on the table.
We all got together to eat at a really long table on the back porch of Grandma’s house. Over time, we had to eat all over the house. A lot of the men would find an excuse to eat and watch a football game. Grandma always cooked more food than we needed just in case there was one more person who came to join us at the Thanksgiving feast.
Jesus tells us in a parable of the great banquet in Luke 14:15-23. "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.' "But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.' "Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.' "Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.' "The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.' "'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.' "Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.’
Jesus wants us to go out to the streets and bring in the people that are not obvious to invite to our table. He wants us to go out to the back roads and country lanes in Ferrum, Rocky Mount, and Callaway and make them come in so that New Hope will be full. In fact, the people who were on the first invitation list made excuses why they couldn’t come to the Thanksgiving Banquet. Jesus said that we should invite those who are the least, the lost, and the unloved.
I was inspired by a friend of mine. His name is Gary Ellis. He realized that there were a lot of people who wouldn’t have a thanksgiving dinner this year because money is tight in Franklin County. He started talking to friends to get contributions. He talked to Kroger to negotiate a good price for 500 turkeys. He saw a need to feed families this year. He saw the need and found a way to welcome people who would have been forgotten at the banquet table.
Jesus reached out during his entire time to those that were forgotten. He loved the smelly fishermen. He ate with the despised tax collectors. He ministered to the invisible children. Jesus told the apostles: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” This is from Luke 18:16
There’s a lesson here this Thanksgiving season that we should not hinder people from coming to God’s banquet table. In fact, we need to search out those that need God’s spiritual food.
Okay, so who should we invite to God’s banquet table here at New Hope United Methodist Church? Let’s look for some ideas from the faith chapter, Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 tells how people changed when they stepped out on faith. The tough point is we cannot recognize the people God will use. They don’t look or act anything like the “mighty men and women of faith” that they become.
So who are the people that God invited to his banquet table in Hebrews 11? The first is an elderly couple who wasn’t sure that God would give them a child so they took things in their own hands. That couple was Abraham and Sarah. Two men committed murder. The two men were David and Moses. God used Moses for the first time years after he murdered the Egyptian overseer. David was faithful before and after he had a man killed in battle. A prostitute, Rahab, protected the men spying on Jericho. Sampson was a prideful man. Paul killed and persecuted many Christians before God blinded him to get his attention. Jesus told stories about the woman at the well who committed adultery. Jesus told about a woman with a bad reputation who washed his feet with her tears and dried his feet with her hair.
Jesus fought the Sadducees and Pharisees because they only wanted to welcome the wealthy and the powerful. I love Hebrews 11 because it gives me hope that God can use even me. Jesus fought to invite EVERYONE to his banquet table. God turned murderers, adulterers and prostitutes into amazing men and women of faith. We tell stories about the faith of Moses and the faith of the boy shepherd who became King David. We tell stories about Sampson’s strength and we love the Apostle Paul.
If God can use these men and women, why can’t we have faith in them, too? Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” We need to love the same people that Jesus loves.
God is the judge. We are not the judge and jury. We need to look at people through the eyes of faith instead of the eyes of doubt. We need to see what is possible in people before it is seen in those people. We need to have faith and love people with the love of Jesus Christ. We must welcome them into our church, our lives, and our Thanksgiving banquet table.
The Bible has wonderful stories of people who were transformed. God can take us and transform us today as well. We need to have faith in our church family that God can use each and every one of us.
I visited Gwin Phillips this week. She saw God using me as a pastor before I saw it for myself. Many times, children will strive to live up to the words spoken about them.
If Moses came to our church would he be welcomed? If a single Mom brought a baby to church she found floating in the Blackwater River, would we welcome her or call social services? If a Jewish boy educated in a Muslim school came from Egypt would we welcome him? If a young man came to church who tried to get a slave overseer to stop whipping a slave, but instead killed the slave overseer. Would we welcome that murderer to our banquet table? Would we say what people said in Exodus 2:14 “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?”
If Moses hid in our church because Pharaoh’s men were trying to find him and kill him because he was a murderer, would we hide Moses and protect him or turn Moses over to Pharaoh?
If Moses had spent the summer in the mountain pastures and smelled like dirty sheep and cattle, would we tell him to come in or would we tell him to go home, take a bath, get new clothes, and come back to church next week?
If Moses came to our church to talk about a bush that burned but never burned up, would we ask him about God or would we call the hospital to ask for a psychiatrist. If Moses came to us to tell us that he wanted our help to free the Jewish slaves in Egypt, would we believe him and go with him on his journey. God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. God’s grace is sufficient.
We need to be willing to welcome Moses into our church, our lives, and our banquet table BEFORE he becomes the man of God who brought the Jewish people out of Egypt, BEOFRE he performed so many miracles in the name of God, and before he inspired the Jewish people to turn toward God. It is our job to see people with the eyes of faith and love. We need to see the potential in people to be used by God before that potential is visible and realized.
We need to speak about a person’s potential to them and to others BEFORE it happens so that the potential in that person can be realized. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
God is asking us to impress our faith on the children of God. In Matthew 18:2-4, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself life this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.”
It is our duty “to search for the strays, care for the injured, strengthen the weak,” and to welcome all of God’s children to our Thanksgiving banquet table. We are God’s people and we will enter his arms with thanksgiving this year and every year. Amen! (paraphrase of Ezekiel 34:16 and Psalm 100)
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