The Uninvited One

“Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil.” Luke 7:36

I love this story where pride collides with humility...where despair and sin understand the need for engagement and a Savior...where the legalism of the host is trumped by the longing of the uninvited. No doubt there were many things on Simon’s mind when he orchestrated a dinner for a man named Jesus. The table had been set perfectly I’m sure...the lounging cushions arranged in an intentional way...the guest list pridefully chosen to showcase his guest. Meanwhile, word of this special dinner with this Jesus person echoes in the heart of this sinful woman. She lays her reputation aside and gathers her most precious belonging...her expensive perfume. She fully understands that she will be perceived as an uninvited guest, a party-crasher, and an outsider. I wonder how long she stood outside before she entered the home. How she must have longed for fellowship and acceptance of family instead of the isolation of bad choices? Did she have to muster up the courage or was she so desperate for a Savior that she bolted right in? She was about to exchange her loneliness for community with Jesus. She was about to join His circle instead of being an outsider looking in.

This beautifully painted picture resonates deep in my heart, soul, and spirit today. It nudged my memory of when our daughter was in an in-patient facility as a young teen. We were trying to help her navigate through wounded feelings she was presently experiencing. One day in family counseling (including her siblings) the counselor had us sit in a circle of chairs. She asked our daughter to take a chair and place it in the circle based on her feelings. As she approached the circle and picked up a chair, I figured she would place it next to me. Instead, she took a chair and walked out of the circle with it and placed it in a corner of the room and sat down. It broke my heart to think that she either didn’t want to be in our circle or didn’t feel loved and invited into it. We desperately wanted fellowship with her on the deepest levels. We wanted her to see that there was always an invitation and deep desire for us to love her, welcome her, and protect her.

And so does Jesus. He invites everyone to His table regardless if mankind excludes them. Don’t we all feel unworthy to approach Jesus at certain points of our lives? Sometimes wouldn’t we all rather withdraw and isolate instead of courageously approaching Jesus with our brokenness and sin? The woman who washed His feet, dried them with her hair, kissed them with her lips, and anointed them with her greatest gift was not only looking for forgiveness but was longing for a place next to Jesus of belonging and community.

When we come to Jesus in humility, we become the woman in Luke’s story. The uninvited one who becomes the exalted one...the uninvited one who becomes the honored one... the uninvited one who brings our chair back into the circle.

Reflecting God's Glory

“If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.  And the LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” (RSV).

 

I have always loved pictures of Jesus meeting with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration prior to his final days leading up to the cross.  I seemingly have painted a pretty picture of this meeting, relatively harmless and spiritually edifying.  But this morning I realize that my understanding was more of a childlike bedtime story.  God loaned His heavenly saints to Jesus to prepare Him for the suffering that would be His.  The Bible is silent on that sacred conversation between Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.  But I guarantee God wanted extra encouragement for Jesus to help Him understand that what was getting ready to occur was both the will and way to bring Jesus home as well as saving humanity.  Fully knowing that His son was getting ready to unimaginably suffer, He sent His finest messengers to strengthen Him...encourage Him...most likely sharing unknown things with Him.  I’ve never thought about the word transfiguration in any other way than a positive light.  Don’t get me wrong by that inference because with transfiguration comes the glory of God.  However, I discovered today that transfiguration always includes suffering. 

 

“The idea of transfiguration follows very naturally and logically from acceptance, gratitude, and offering.  If we receive the things that God wants to give us, if we thank Him for them and if we make those things an offering back to God, then this is what’s going to happen – transfiguration.” Suffering is Never for Nothing,Elisabeth Elliot, p.93.  This brings me to my original point.  Glory follows suffering when we accept the things we have in our lives that we don’t want and accept the things we don’t have in our lives that we desire.  Hopefully acceptance breeds gratitude for God walking us through it all, and we begin to offer our testimonies for the encouragement and benefit of others.  What follows our offering is God’s glory in us, through us, and surrounding us.  The three parts of suffering that will bring glory to God and God’s glory to us is acceptance, gratitude, and offering.

 

“If your faith rests in your idea of how God is supposed to answer your prayers, then that kind of faith is very shaky and is bound to be demolished when the storms of life hit.  But if your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal I AM, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure” p. 93.

 

Jesus embodied the words of Isaiah 58:10-11 as an example of how we can triumphally walk through this life as an example for our circle of influence.  As we pour ourselves out from our suffering for the sake of helping others get through their suffering, we reflect the face of Jesus.

An Oatmeal Cookie Offering

“There’s a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that’s a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this.” John 6:9

When I was a little girl, our mother always packed our lunches. Most of the time I knew what I would have for lunch. But occasionally, I would open that little brown bag with my name written on the front to discover something I had not expected...one of my favorite things being a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cookie! By the time lunch rolled around I couldn’t wait to sit with my friends and see what they had in their lunchbox. Sometimes we would swap things if we saw something we liked better. But I never wanted to offer my oatmeal cookie...it was just too difficult to give up.

When Jesus asked the disciples how they were going to feed all of the people who had come to hear Him, Andrew pointed out a little boy who had some food which may have fed a few people. Now John stays silent on the conversation between the boy with the lunch and the person who asked him for it. All we know is that one minute he had his lunch and the next he did not. What if he favored his loaves and fish just like I did my oatmeal cookies? Did he gladly give up something special for himself to benefit so many others?

Every single thing we have in this life is a gift from God, making it potential material for sacrifice. Some things given to us bring great joy while other things create deep suffering. Some of the greatest people who have influenced my life have been those who have suffered but have given of themselves to help others in their suffering. Our suffering cannot become our religion and our brokenness can only be healed by offering it up to Jesus. Elisabeth Elliot, author of Suffering Is Never for Nothing writes, ‘Let it go. Offer it up. A sacrifice. If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it may be because pieces will feed a multitude when a loaf would satisfy only a little boy. God took a little boy’s lunch and He turns it into something for the good of the world because that individual let it go.’ p. 83, 85.

Will we?