St. Andrew’s Pictou, August 1, 2004

 

What Kind of Invitation?

 

Hosea 11:1-11

Psalm 107:1-9, 43

Luke 12:13-21

 

Have you noticed that life is full of invitations?

 

There are invitations to dinner, to family reunions, to weddings, to socials, to join organizations, to go fishing or hunting, to drop over sometime, to go into a business partnership, to go on a trip, or to be a partner in marriage.

 

I was even invited to be the minister of this church, and when the call was presented at the meeting of the Presbytery of East Toronto, I am supposed to indicate my acceptance of the invitation to be the minister here.

 

There are different kinds of invitations.

 

When I accepted the call to be the minister here, I think that we would all agree that it is not like coming over for dinner. We expect that I am supposed to stay longer then that.

 

Accepting the call to be a minister is a kind of invitation that in fact, is an invitation to a relationship.

 

A marriage proposal is am invitation to a relationship for life.

 

The reason that we give out invitations is to increase the likelihood of a positive response; we ask, we request the presence or the participation of the other person. We may even formally request the other person in writing to encourage them to participate or belong to what we request.

 

It is extremely important to affirm the understanding that invitations indicate dignity and respect between the parties involved. We may even make attempts at coercion with our invitations, but the bottom line is that it is up to us to accept or reject invitations we receive.

 

If you desire to deepen your experience of faith, and wish to enrich your experience of life, then on behalf of the Kirk Session, I would invite you to become a communicant member of this church; to proclaim and affirm your faith in God and in Jesus Christ. I am offering you an invitation; God’s invitation to life and love; to belong and celebrate your relationship with God, just as a marriage is to celebrate life and love.

 

With dignity and respect, God always invites us into relationship; an invitation we are free to accept or reject. What we might find difficult to believe is that the invitation is open ended, and made without hesitation by God.

 

We can reject God, try to forget about God, get angry at God, choose other gods, but amazingly God is still always there ready and willing to accept us with open arms.

 

What Kind of relationship is that?

 

The prophet Hosea outlines God’s open ended, loving invitation:

“When Israel was a child, I loved him,

and out of Egypt I called my son.

the more I called them,

the more they went from me;

They kept sacrificing to the Baals,

And offering incense to idols.”

 

Sounds like the lament of a parent with a wayward child does it not? “The more I tried to help them, the worse it got and the more distant they became.”

 

In spite of all this rejection, the words of the prophet have God:

-teaching them to walk,

-taking them in his arms,

-leading them with cords of human kindness and bands of love.

 

“I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.

I bent down and fed them.”

 

Yet in spite of God’s pain of rejection and the angst of estrangement, God just cannot reject his people: “…my compassion grows warm and tender.”

 

If we wonder what kind of relationship it is, we get the answer:

“ For I am God and no mortal,

the Holy One in your midst,

and I will not come in wrath.

… I will return them to their homes.”

 

Folks, this unconditional loving kind of invitation is a God-kind of invitation!

 

But let there be no misunderstanding here that a relationship with God is a serious thing; it is not trivial, and a relationship with God affects your priorities like any choice you make or any relationship you have.

 

Jesus explains it well, when he is asked by a man to arbitrate between he and his brother with regards to their father’s estate. Jesus gets angry and says:

“Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”

This parable called, “The Parable of the Rich Fool” is all about priorities.

 

We have often heard about the rich man who was building bigger barns to hold all of his wealth, when that very same day, his soul was required of him and all of his wealth then belonged to someone else.

 

Jesus prefaces the parable by saying:

“Take care! Be on guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

 

In this parable, Jesus talks about being rich towards God.  

 

The rich and wise man became a rich and foolish man when he came to the point where he said to himself, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”

 

The problem here was not his wealth, or building the bigger barns, the problem was thinking his self-sufficiency was the priority instead of being rich towards God:

If God offers you all of this love and abundance, then you have to offer and share that love and abundance with others. 

 

That is the kind of relationship that God offers: you pass on to others what God passes on to you.

 

What kind of relationships do you and I have with God and with others?

 

Minimum, medium, maximum?

Rejection, simple acceptance, or are we involved in a loving and committed relationship.

 

Do we say to God, “I am going to affirm that you are there, so that when I die, I will have all the bases covered and I can get into heaven with minimum involvement and effort by me.”

 

Or do we say, “Lord God, I invite you into the centre of my being. Infuse me with your spirit that I may love the unloved and refuse to judge the judged. May I represent the best of you as your ambassador of love in how I treat all of the people I meet in my life’s journey.”

 

What about the people we meet?

 

When someone dies do we add to the misery of the bereaved and tell them to call us if they ever need anything, or do we anticipate their needs and just show up?

 

Do we treat other people in a way that (as Jesus says) makes us rich towards God?

 

The reason that Jesus got angry at the brother who wanted Jesus to Judge between he and his brother was because he coveted the share of the estate that his brother was to have.

 

The security of the rich man in Jesus’ parable was in his possessions. You and I have to examine where our security is.

 

Do we accept God’s invitation? Are we rich towards God? Is our security truly held by our faith in God, and in knowing that we are God’s beloved?

 

The world is at it is, but when we accept God’s invitation, we transform the world by the love and wisdom that we pass on from God as the infinite source of our security.

 

All businesses have a bottom line and God has a bottom line, too. God wants us to be wealthy beyond measure in richness towards him. We will have love and blessings more than we can count if we accept God’s invitation and then extend that invitation to those we meet.

 

AMEN   Rev. Alan Stewart