The Party (Part I - Presence)

Good evening! I'm enjoying a hand-crafted (by my own hands) cappuccino at the moment, while reflecting on some ideas I shared with our church community this past Sunday. I suppose it was my best and halting attempt at a written parable trying to express my hopes and dreams for how we as followers of Jesus would interact with our local community. It was inspired by one of Jesus' shorter parables, in which he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast used by a woman making bread. Even though she used a large amount of flour, the yeast permeated every part of the dough.”

The great power of Jesus' parables are in their ability to catch people off-guard, and, in effect, take the back door route into the hearts of his audience, setting them up for the truth he's delivering. In that vein, I offer my meager attempt at creating at least the framework of a parable to try to communicate truth to our church community.

Imagine with me this morning that we were going to throw a huge party for our community. Imagine if we were going to invite the community to attend our party, and we could send out an invitation in the mail to every single resident of South Kingstown. Make this party in your mind a real high-class affair, the kind that you’d get dressed up for, and that we wanted to make the invitation formal enough to match the occasion. So we send out this invitation that says, “New Life Assembly requests the honor of your presence at its Gala Celebration…”

Believe it or not, our invitations are actually received and accepted. Replies begin to pour in from around the town, with only a few declining the invitation. The tension mounts among us as we wonder what we'll do when they arrive. The preparations begin in earnest as the appointed day draws closer.

Finally the night arrives. It's a beautiful mid-summer evening, with a light breeze blowing off the ocean that makes the temperature just right. And there are streams and streams of cars driving from all over South Kingstown, parking up and down the streets around us, making their way to the doors of the building. Inside the building and out on the lawn the arrangements are all in place. The background music is playing and the scent of perfectly prepared seafood fills the night air. They can see in the windows and under the tents that everything is prepared but that the doors are locked, and there’s no one there to greet them, welcome them, and find their seats for them.

Looking in the doors our guests have the sinking feeling that they've somehow been duped - like guests that show up to a wedding only to find the bride and groom have flown to Vegas and gotten married in front of Elvis and two witnesses. "You would think," one says, "that they would have the courtesy to show up for their own party!"

Meanwhile the church gathers in the basement, huddled together (for strength is in numbers) too afraid (for all their strength) to open the doors and let its presence be felt among their guests. Too afraid that somehow the throngs of people at the door will overwhelm them, and turn against them if the food isn't up to quality, or the musical entertainment for the night is sub-par. Forgetting all the while that the King of their Kingdom has been waiting for the celebration to make his presence felt through them; they retreat, hoping to survive just one more day.