I hope everyone had meaningful Thanksgiving celebrations this passed week. Thanksgiving is one of those annual feasts many families celebrate together. It is one of those times we intentionally gather to share good food and good fellowship.
Sometimes feasts are all we have to connect us to some family members. There was a time when my uncle would see me, regardless of the time of year, and say ‘it must be Christmas’ because distance and the busyness of life meant that this was the time, we were most likely to see one another. We all have people in our lives we only see at holidays and some we only see at weddings and funerals.
These feasts, then, are about more than the food. They are about more than the particular event or celebration. These feasts create opportunities for us to experience belonging and connection with others. These are reminders that we are part of a larger family, a larger community of people who care and support us.
Imagine, then, what it would feel like to be a king who has set a feast and those invited refuse to attend. What message are these so-called friends and family sending to the king? What does it say when they decide their farm, or their business is more important than gathering as a community in celebration? What does it say when they make light of the king for creating a space for good food and fellowship? What does it say when they mistreat the servants to reinforce their choice not to participate?
How many of us can sympathise with the king in this story? How many of us understand the heartbreak felt at so many people mistreating his generosity and hope to gather people together to celebrate? How many recognise that this moment wasn’t solely about the son’s marriage, it was a gift to the community, a chance to reclaim that sense of belonging and family? Is it any wonder that the king would turn away from those who mocked his offering and create space for those too often left on the margins to know what it is like to belong?
Feasts are about more than the food, more than a particular event or celebration. Feasts create opportunities for us to experience belonging and connection with others. These are reminders that we are part of a larger family, a larger community of people who care and support us.
The same can be said about Church. Worship through Church is a feast set by God to create opportunities for us to experience belonging and connection with others. There is no obligation to attend. We don’t ascribe to the belief that someone is taking attendance and using that to determine our eternal fates. We see Church as an invitation from God, a gift offered to us to remind us that we are part of something more than we can ask or imagine.
Church is an invitation from God, a gift offered to us to remind us that we are part of something more than we can ask or imagine. The people who gather in this space, as diverse as we may be, create a community, a family of faith. Trusting in God’s good gifts, we don’t expect conformity to some Church ideal. Instead, following the example of Jesus Christ, we seek to welcome people as they are, to use their gifts as they choose, trusting, knowing that we are better because our community values the gifts of God’s Beloved Children in all their diversity and wonder.
More than anything else, what makes our worship special is the people that are here. You, each and every one of you, however you come, whatever you think is important, whatever you may carry, you are part of this family, a gift from God, who continually invites us to gather and remember who we are and whose we are.
Worship through Church is a feast set by God to create opportunities for us to experience belonging and connection with others. May our gathering today remind us that we belong to this family of faith. May that sense of belonging nourish us as we go forth to be the body of Christ for others today and every day. This we pray as we sing: 73 One Bread, One Body