URC Daily Devotion 26 February 2025
St Luke 14: 7 – 14
When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’ He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’
Reflection
Welcome to our church – we hope you will find a home here. This is your service sheet that tells you how we do things here. This is your hymn book that contains all the music we include here. Feel free to sit anywhere – but not there as that is someone’s seat. Oh, and not there unless you have a good voice as that is where the choir sit. Oh and don’t sit at the back because our regular members sit there. But welcome.
Sound familiar?
So often we think we are welcoming as we greet people at the door, but then immediately set restrictions on what they can do, where they can sit, and how they need to behave. We have reduced our welcome to a “hello” and then insist that anyone new becomes like us.
This is so far removed from the “Church” that Jesus was going to build on Peter the Rock. If we never allow for difference, how will we change? If we never allow for change, how will we grow (and not just in numbers)? Worship is not about a God who is hidden behind the altar while we get on with what we have always done. Worship is about a God who has done amazing things in our lives and we want to shout about it, or sing about it, or dance through it – but can’t, because that is not “done” here.
Rather than restricting change because it is different, let us embrace diversity because it is from God. New ideas, new voices, new music bring a new perspective and a new challenge to our daily lives that we may not have seen before. It can consolidate what we already believe or challenge us to think differently – but only if we are open to it.
May our welcome be open and genuine, our worship be expressive and real, and our God be allowed out of the box to work in our lives and those of our community.
Prayer
God of welcome, as we come to your table, may we welcome diversity – not to relegate those who are different to the “cheap seats” but to embrace all into the full fellowship of your meal that we may learn from each other and grow more in our worship of you. For you are worthy of all praise for all you have done for us, within us and in those around us. Amen.