My children took part in Vacation Bible School last week and it was some of the most enlivened and exhilarating and anticipated parts of the kids’ summer. Since the early part of May, we have been rehearsing the songs in each car ride with the program CD. The church that hosts the VBS is also the church that houses the Pre-School that all of our children have attended over the past several years.
A couple of weeks before VBS started my son and I had an interesting conversation. As we are driving, he starts telling a story of his time in Pre-school. “ Dad, you know that I really like VBS and preschool at Noah’s Ark. But one thing that I remember is the seating at preschool. I really didn’t like where I sat. At the beginning of the year, you have to choose a place to sit down, and then that is your place for the remainder of the school year. I really didn’t like to sit in that same seat each day.” As the dad, I followed up with the usual question “Could you have asked to move?” and his reply was “I didn’t ask.” In this little conversation, I was able to see that his mind still associated the place with a feeling of questioning and a feeling of familiarity. How interesting that this particular event would still play a vital role in his memory 4 years later.
7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers[b] or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
In the reading and parable, Jesus allows us to analyze ourselves and listen for guidance of our proper placement in life and in service. We cannot arbitrarily create a place of honor and prestige for ourselves above others. God is the giver of goodness of life. He is welcoming to all that are in search of Him and He wants us to give to our brothers and sisters that are in need as well. We have to be aware that we can at anytime be the poor, the crippled, the lame, or the blind, so we must be patient and loving to others because we will be blessing God in turn. We must ask if we are seating in the right place or is there a different place to sit.
Be Blessed in Steadfast love. Psalm 118