Living in the Spirit

October 11, 2020

Scripture Reading: Matthew 22:1-14

‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.‘ –Matthew 11-14

One of the hardest things we must recognize is that people are all people. There is no hierarchy of worth. A poor person can be just as greedy as a rich one. An influential person is as capable of being as humble as anyone else. I find it interesting that, while trying to address the inequalities in life, we take steps backward when anyone in the oppressed group makes the same mistake that the privileged make. The privilege cry out, see we were right all along; they are not as good as we are. One of the first things I learned about George Floyd was he had tried to pay for his purchase with a counterfeit $20 bill. I wondered how many times that clerk had run the counterfeit test, saw it failed, and handed the bill back to the one making the purchase. Any of us could get a counterfeit bill back in change and not know it. The store called the police on George Floyd.

 I would love to see a grand jury’s findings trying the Breonna Taylor case, whose members did not know the issue before they entered the courtroom. What would have been the response if they were presented the same evidence, except the prosecutor was white? The victim’s picture was of a beautiful, wholesome-looking, white 20-something woman working as an emergency med-tech earning money to become a nurse.

The scripture above is the continuation of the story related to privileged people ignoring the invitation-of-a-lifetime because they felt they had life right anyway. They did not want to be bothered by accepting an invitation to celebrate love. So, the invitation was issued to everyone, commoners, and even the oppressed. They came, but at least one of them failed to take the invitation seriously. Perhaps came just to watch or eat the refreshments but had no intention of celebrating the gift of God’s love.

Each of us is somewhere in this story. God grants us the choice of loving God and loving one another. We are either in or out. There are no gradations in our selections—we cannot choose to say I will love God when I have the time, and it does not interfere with my greed, I will love this person but not that person.

Prayer: God, forgive us when we turn to lesser gods and choosing to love some but not all of your children. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.