Your table is ready

February 26, 2007

By Randy Mantik

Debbie’s birthday and mine fall within five days of each other. We recently celebrated by going to a nice restaurant at a resort near Pembine to which some friends had generously given us a gift certificate.

When we got there, the front door was open, the lights were on, and all the tables were set. But there was not a soul in the place, employee or customer. It’s kind of a weird feeling walking around in an empty restaurant peering around corners and plaintively calling, “Um, hello?”

After a minute or two, a waitress came briskly through the kitchen door with a smiling welcome and took us to our table. It was such a pretty place with crystal chandeliers, candles and white linens, complete with a fireplace and a perfect view of the setting sun just outside the window. One had to wonder where everyone was. Did they know what they were missing? Why weren’t they beating a path to this restaurant?

Yet there we sat, the lone customers in an establishment made for many more! Just for us, there was an executive chef and a wonderful waitress. We asked her about the lack of business and she told us this was the off season for the restaurant and they often had nights like this through the winter, especially when there was less snow than usual. The previous Tuesday, no one had come at all. She spent the evening dusting. Everything was ready, but no one is there.

Jesus spoke of a similar situation:

“A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

“Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

“ ‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet” (Luke 14:16-24, NIV).

How often we make excuses not to spend time with our Heavenly Father, who loves us so much and longs for us to just come and sit in His presence for a while. Too many times we put everything and everyone else before God, leaving Him with the leftover scraps of our time and energy, telling Him we’ll do more for Him and His kingdom when we’re not so busy. Our kids’ ballgame, the family gathering, an offer of overtime pay, the desire to sleep in — all of these things, plus a thousand more, take priority over what we give to God.

We live our lives upside-down and backwards! We make everything else but God and our relationship to Him a top priority, and then we wonder why nothing makes any sense and why we’re so frustrated and unfulfilled.

Try rearranging the pile. Put God on top and see what happens! Don’t ignore the Master of the Banquet. Come partake of the feast He has spread out for you. See all your flimsy excuses for what they are — your willful, sinful nature demanding its own way.

All is in readiness for you. There’s a song that says, “Feast at the table of mercy. Drink from the cup of His grace. Dwell in His infinite goodness. Live in His healing embrace.”

The table is spread, the door is open, the invitation has been given. Come, dear one, the Master calls, come and dine!

Randy Mantik is senior pastor of Crossroads Church of the Assemblies of God in Pembine, Wis.