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“When God Gave a Party and Nobody Came”
A sermon by Dr. James
Flamming, Pastor
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, November 12, 2006
In
the parables of Jesus, a surprising number of times God throws a party! Perhaps
the most famous of all is the one he threw upon the homecoming of the prodigal
son. You’ll find that in Luke 15.
You
recall that the younger son wanted his inheritance and in rebellious attitude,
left home, went to the big city, found friends who enjoyed his money, but
eventually he was broke. And wound up where no Jewish boy would ever want to
wind up, feeding pigs. He came to himself, says the scripture, that’s in verse
17 of the 15th Chapter. He came to his senses; it’s in the first
century a medical word. It means he awoke from a coma. The prodigal woke up
from a spiritual coma. Some people ask why did the father let him have the
money in the first place. But you see, sometimes the quickest way to wake up
from a spiritual coma is to find out that the direction you are going is a
dead-end street. And after all, there was an elder brother. He never left
home, but he never woke up from his spiritual coma.
After he came home, the father ran to meet him and in verse 22, you will find
these words, “But the father said to his servants, quick (no postponement of
this celebration) bring the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his
finger, sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf and kill it, let’s have a
feast, and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive, he’s now … the
one who is lost is found, and they began to celebrate. God gave a party. But
once there was in Jesus’ stories a party that God gave and nobody came.
Turn back one chapter to the 14th chapter, please. Sixteenth verse,
Jesus replied, “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and he invited many
guests. And at the time of the banquet, he sent his servant out to announce
that everything was ready. But they all alike had excuses. The first said, “I
bought a field. I have to go see it.” Another said, “I bought five yoke of
oxen. On my way to try ‘em out, please excuse me.” Still another said, “I just
got married so I can’t come. Come to think about it, that does make sense. The
truth is of the three excuses, none of them are wrong. Two of them have to do
with work, one of them has to do with family. That’s all right. The trouble is
when. And in comparison to what. Everything was ready. The invitations had
been sent out. Good stuff. But how often good stuff crowds out God stuff.
Have you ever noticed that the word evil is the word live spelled backwards?
Same letters, different order. Satan takes our freedom and tempts us by
crowding out God from the good stuff. Now, be honest with me, is it not true
that God can get lost in the shuffle of your life?
And
in getting lost in the shuffle of your life, you are putting on the shelf
spiritual resources that in truth you desperately need. So the first list of
honored guests, who were some bodies, never showed up. The second guest list
were the very people the some bodies rejected. The poor, the crippled, the
blind, the lame. These are the marginalized of society. And in those days, if
you were poor, crippled, blind, lame, the belief was that you had sinned. Or
your parents had sinned. And they blamed it, therefore, on somebody and made
them non-acceptable. And now that Jesus is telling the parable, he is saying,
“They may not be acceptable to society, but they are acceptable to the Father.
Bring them.” And the servant did. And he reported back and he said, “They’ve
come and still there is room.” So guess what the one who was giving the party
did.
He
said (now I’m going to quote the King James), “Go into the highways and the
hedges and bring them in.” When I was younger in a Sunday school, I never could
figure out what in the world highways and hedges meant. I tell you what it
means. It means that don’t have an address. They don’t live anywhere. They
are street people. And what the Father does in this instance is say, “Look, all
of those who are distinguished and live in good neighbors and have addresses,
they won’t come. I tell you who I will bring – I’ll bring the ones who will
come. And they came. But at the end, Jesus said, “I tell you, not one of those
men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.”
I
told you once about Steve Blanchard coming into my office one day. Steve is our
Minister of Missions and he such a heart for including the marginalized of our
society and being an advocate for them. And he said to me, “I want to start a
shower ministry.” And I thought he was talking about baby showers, and I said,
“Steve, we already have a cradle roll.” And he said, “No, no, no, no, no,
Pastor. Let me ask you a question – if you were a street person, where would you
take a bath?” I had never thought of the question before. He said, “You know
the old gymnasium and the showers that are underneath it. All that is down
there now is junk. That’s where we store stuff. Let me redo those and let me
give people who have no home a place to get cleaned up and let us share the Lord
with them.”
Do
you know – after all of these years of doing that, our wonderful volunteers who
week after week after week do this and it increases in number, they make an
appointment, they are given a little baggie with all the essential stuff like
soap and a toothbrush and toothpaste and the like, and shampoo like the kind you
get when you go someplace in a hotel. I wonder how they make them that small?
Anyway, that’s what’s in that little baggie. We have learned we have to ration
the amount of time that they can spend in the shower. In the meantime, sometime
is sharing with them the Lord. Those are the kinds of people that are mentioned
here in the parable. And the Lord God says, “Bring them in.” Now notice the
warning, friends. The door can be shut.
A
Lutheran minister who was going to preach on this parable decided that he needed
in some way, somehow, to let the congregation know that this was serious
business. Because his congregation like mine had addresses. And they wore good
clothes. And they were good people. But he wasn’t quite sure they came to
God’s party. And so he made up a parable of his own and I share it with you.
It’s about a man named Herman who came home from work in the dead of winter.
And he closed the front door softly, went to the front closet, took off his
coat, carefully hung it up, took off his overshoes, and was going to put them ..
and lo, and behold, the floor of the closet was just cluttered. Mumbled to
himself. Arranged it a little better so he could slip his overshoes there. He
closed the door but it wouldn’t close because his coat had pushed a parka out
and the door wouldn’t close. He mumbled again. Rearranged things. Said to
himself, “I wonder if I slammed the door if everything would fit? Just like
everybody else does.” And then he thought, “No, that’s just not the way I can
do it.” So he closed the door carefully. About this time, the cat came and
rubbed up against his leg and he looked down and he said, “Hello, Mrs.
Beazley.” Funny name for a cat. He’d wanted to call her Tabby or Kitty or
something like that but his daughter Tammy insisted on Mrs. Beazley. She named
it after a television character. And Lorraine said, “Look, it’s her cat. Let
her name it what she will.” And he did. Cat followed him to the refrigerator.
He was pouring some milk out in a dish and said, “Mrs. Beazley, where is
everybody? It’s so quiet around here.” As if Mrs. Beazley could reply to him.
He stood there and he thought about work. Rumors circulating everywhere that
his company was going to be bought out by another company. Maybe he would lose
his job or maybe he would be transferred. Maybe he’d have to sell the house, or
worst yet, maybe Jennings would get his job. He thought about Jennings, always
talking, always interrupting, an idea man. You see, Herman was a go down the
list type. He walked into the bedroom to take his coat off. It was a
shambles. Lorraine’s slacks and blouse were thrown on the bed and the closet
doors were flung open and she obviously picked a dress out in a hurry because
everything was at an awkward angle. He sighed, “Life would be so much easier if
people would just pick up after themselves.” Mrs. Beazley rubbed against his
leg and as he picked her up, he looked at his watch and asked out loud,
“Wherever could everybody be?” Disgusted, he began to sort out the mail and
that’s when he saw the note. “Herman, we waited until almost five for you. But
then we had to leave. The other children would be arriving. Please join us.
You missed Tammy’s birthday party last year. Try not to miss it again this
year.” Love, Lorraine.
Tammy’s birthday. At a restaurant that caters such things. He had helped
arrange it. He had even helped address the invitations and clearly they said
from 5 to 6:30 and he looked at his watch, and it was 6:30. And deep in his
soul, he felt a door slam shut.
O,
dear friend, there is a prophet named Isaiah who said and let me put it in my
phraseology, “Go to God’s party when He announces it. Seek the Lord while He
may be found.” Every day, God has a party for you that is full of joy and
points to the day and its meaning. And I wonder how often we have read the
invitation and instead the door slams shut. Every day of your life, God is
giving a party. Do you show up?
Pray with me will you? With your head bowed and your eyes closed, as the Lord
speaks to you in this minute, ask yourself, “Do I show up?” And if this day,
maybe like the prodigal, you go home and you join God’s party, may it be that
His heart and yours become one. His joy and yours become one. His celebration
becomes yours.
O,
Lord Jesus, forgive us for being so preoccupied and so busy that so often we
don’t have time for you. Help us just now to get a conviction that it’s time
for us to show up at God’s party. In Jesus’ name. AMEN.
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