Her table is beautiful and everybody at it can have her back.
She would be genuinely upset to hear it put that way, and I want to be fair, because she is not calculating. There is no ledger. She has never once sat down and worked out who owes her.
But look at the list.
Six couples. Two neighbors. Her sister. A woman from work she has grown fond of.
Every single one of them has a house, a table, and the capacity to invite her next month. The whole thing circulates. It is warm and it is real and nothing ever leaves the circle.
And there are two people she knows, and thinks about, who are not on the list and never have been.
One of them could not have her back. His flat is not in a state for it and he knows it is not, and both of them know she knows.
The other one would find it complicated to be a guest, which is a way of saying it would be complicated for the rest of the table.
She is fifty. Her hospitality has been flowing steadily for twenty years, in a closed loop, and she has never once noticed the shape of it.
So let me ask you.
Who is at your table because they can have you back?
He gives the reason out loud
Jesus is at a dinner and He says something to His host that would have been startling at the table, and He does not soften it or leave the logic implied.
He has just said not to invite your friends, your relatives or your rich neighbors, because they will invite you back. And then He says this.
But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.Luke 14:13
Although they cannot repay you.
He names the inability to reciprocate as the point. Not as a sad feature to be overlooked. As the actual reason for the invitation.
Luke 14 makes the guest's inability to return the favor the qualifying condition rather than an awkwardness, and the Spirit was in that reversal, so a list where everybody can have you back has never once been the table He described.
Now, come and sit with me a moment, because I am not going to let you turn this into shame and I am not going to let you off either.
You are not a calculating woman. I believe that completely. There is no ledger and you have never excluded anybody on purpose.
But an unexamined instinct produces a very tidy list, and yours has produced one, and twenty years is long enough for it to have become architecture.
Luke 14 has Him listing people who would change the shape of an evening, and the Spirit put them in the invitation rather than in a footnote, which means the two names you think about and never write down were the two the verse was pointing at.
And notice what He does not say, because this is where people get it wrong and end up doing something cold.
He does not say to stop having your friends. He is not banning the six couples.
He says when you give a banquet, invite the poor. It is an addition to the table, not a replacement of the people at it.
Luke 14 asks for the list to be widened rather than emptied, and the Spirit was in that widening, so setting one more place has never once required you to un-invite a single soul.
Now the turn, and it is one place setting.
Set one more place.
Not a new philosophy of hospitality. Not a project. One chair, at the next thing you were already doing, for somebody who cannot have you back. Luke 14 names the inability to repay as the reason rather than the difficulty, and the Spirit was in that naming, so you are widening a table and never lowering one.
You will worry about the mix. You will worry whether they will be comfortable. Some of that worry is love and some of it is management, and you are going to have to do it before you can tell which.
Luke 14 names the inability to repay as the reason rather than the problem, and the Spirit was in that naming, so inviting somebody who cannot return it has never once been charity handed down.
Twenty years of a closed loop. One chair.
Declare this over yourself
Say these where you can hear yourself. Know what holds them up. This authority is not yours by nature, it is Christ's, and in Christ it has been given to you, so you speak as one representing the King. And you speak under His will, never over it. However He answers, and in whatever way He comes, the outcome is His.
- List, you are who I invite and every single name on you can have me back next month. Luke 14 says when you give a banquet, invite the poor, and gives the reason as the fact that they cannot repay you.
- Unexamined instinct that has run a warm closed loop for twenty years, you are not a ledger and you have still built the architecture of my table, and in the name of Jesus you are opened. The Spirit put those guests into the invitation rather than into a footnote.
- Lord, Luke 14 asks for the list to be widened and never for it to be emptied. I am setting one more place this week for somebody who cannot return it, and I have known both of their names the whole time.
Luke 14:13
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