Luke 14:21-24 ‘Go out into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ ‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there still is room.’ Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

Jesus originally told this parable to a house full of Pharisees. You might think these men would have been the first to embrace Jesus. In a sense, God’s invitation had come to them first. They had spent their lives listening to God’s word and studying it. Most of them grew up in homes where parents were active in their synagogues. Their lives were morally straight and free of public scandal.

It turns out they weren’t so interested in a religion about the forgiveness of sins. Seeing their own spiritual sickness and deformities, humbly admitting their own shortcomings, receiving the medicine of God’s grace did not sound appetizing. They wanted God’s love based on their own worthiness. They did not want his pity on their need and incompetence. So they ignored the invitation.

I don’t know anyone who finds admitting their guilt and spiritual incompetence appealing. But these are the prerequisites for finding and receiving forgiveness. For some people, life and circumstances make their great spiritual need for grace easier to see, harder to hide. They have made a moral mess of their lives. They live every day with the consequences of their sinful choices. Then they start to hunger for the Master’s invitation to the banquet.

These are just people who answered Jesus’ call. He found the prostitutes, the tax collectors, and public sinners. They were “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” in Jesus’ parable.

Don’t misunderstand the picture. They did not continue to defend and embrace their sins and remain outside the banquet of grace, hungry. They repented. They were forgiven. They went in.

Now, don’t misjudge the guests. Sometimes Christians seem to be surprised at the shortcomings of their fellow guests at God’s banquet. People in the church can be mean, crude, selfish, off-color, inappropriate, morally weak. No one is defending bad behavior. But what did we think–we were going to be seated in a room full of prim and proper aristocrats with perfect manners?

Jesus invited the spiritually poor, and sometimes they still come up a few bucks short. He called the morally crippled and lame, and sometimes they still walk with a limp. He sought out the blind, and they still struggle with spiritual near-sightedness. That doesn’t mean there is not a place for them at God’s banquet.

And don’t misjudge who has potential to become such guests. In the parable the servant is sent to the roads and country lanes to bring those in who were far away. Two thousand years later on the opposite side of the planet, Jesus is still using us to bring people in. Don’t be surprised if the words Paul once wrote to the Corinthians apply to the kind of people we find: “Brothers, remember what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (1 Cor. 1:26-27).

It is not impressive pedigree, spiritual or otherwise, that Jesus’ seeks. If the person has a pulse and a pile of sins, that’s a candidate. They are qualified to be guests at God’s banquet.

Finally, don’t misjudge the guests that you and I are. We are the same as everyone else. We are no better. We struggle with the same temptations. We have failed our Lord in the same ways. But we, too have been invited. Jesus specifically sought us, forgave us, and brought us in. Only his invitation qualifies us to be his guests.