| ps from ps/pkLet Go of the Ordinary – reflections from Rev Brian Blount“Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the reign of God” (Luke 14:15). For the person who makes this proclamation, “anyone” is more expansive than he knows. He is thinking about people like himself— the well-positioned and well-to-do who invite peers to their parties. Persons self-important enough that when they enter they seek the highest seat so that they can be appropriately recognized. This is ordinary social behavior. This is why the householder in Jesus’ parable starts out by inviting people like himself. He, too, does the ordinary. And all is well. Until his people decline his fabulous invitation in order to tend to their mundane affairs.Humiliated, the householder repents of his ordinariness and leans into the extraordinary. He does not invite another lateral group of socialites, or those the next level down on the social ladder. Instead, he extends his welcome to those who have nothing. He declares his intent to share his feast and his company with those whom life has broken: “the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame.” The paupers who have been banished from proper community will inherit the bounty that the high and mighty reject.The reign of God is like that! It redefines the meaning of communal belonging. Ordinarily, the host of a banquet invites and serves the very people who have no need of the banquet’s bounty. The extraordinary people who hope to emulate God’s transcendent love invite into their company not just those who have, but those who need. They make the broken ones socially whole and physically welcome.The season of Lent reminds us that God has extended such an extraordinary welcome. To us. In Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, God, holy beyond all human standing, invited us, in all of our brokenness, into the community of divine presence. Not because we earned a place, but because God created space. Lent offers us the opportunity to remove all the distractions and focus on the invitation. We are the broken. God is the householder. Jesus is the invitation. All we have to do is say “yes.”Reflect:How are you responding to God’s invitation this Lent?BlessingsPS and PK |
