Lame excuses

Often we try and excuse ourselves from devoting time to Christ "I'm too busy" or "God's cool with it" or the classic one for those of us who work in ministry "It's my day off" and all these things sound legitimate to us, or we don't think we're not avoiding Christ, but really all they are are just lame excuses.

This is nothing new, as Jesus speaks of people who miss heaven because of lame excuses:
When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”
16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ (Luke 14:15-17 NIV)
Jesus has been eating with a bunch of Pharisees and one of those makes a comment about heaven. The feast and the great banquet on offer here are images of heaven, and this would have been plain to the audience that Jesus was speaking to (especially given one of them just used that metaphor) but perhaps need restating to us, as we see heaven more as a location than an event.

Then we see the first invitee:
“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.’ (Luke 14:18 NIV)
The image would not have been lost on Jesus' audience, this man (and those to follow) are turning down an invitation to heaven. Not only that, but it's a pretty lame excuse, did this man really just buy a field without even looking at it?! This man is so wrapped up in the world that he's making poor decisions just to amass more stuff and cares nothing for heaven.

Well how about the next guy:
“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ (Luke 14:19 NIV)
Again it's another man making a poor financial decision because he's so wrapped up in the world and having stuff, did he really buy these oxen without trying them out?! The modern comparison would be "I have just bought a car, and I'm on my way to try it out", it's generally not smart to buy a car without taking it for a test-drive first. But even allowing for that, must he really try them out right now? Clearly this feast is more important, and the oxen (and the field for the prior man) would still be there when he got back, can't he just wait?

Then we come to the final man:
“Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ (Luke 14:20 NIV)
Now this one seems to be a fair enough reason to say no to the feast, after all, he just got married, that's pretty important and in the Jewish law men who were newly married (1st year of marriage) didn't have to go to war (interestingly this is how America worked during the draft for the Vietnam war). But there are a few issues with this, first off, this is a banquet, it's not a war so it isn't covered by that regulation, nor would it last as long. I've been fortunate to eat at some very nice restaurants but even then the longest I was there for A LOT of food was 3 hours, even if we double that for this banquet it's still not even half a day. Besides all that, why can't his wife come? It's fairly safe to assume that this man inviting him is a friend of the newlywed so it's not a stretch to assume that he knows he is just married and would love his wife to come as well. The final issue is whether he is what the man means by 'just', we've already assumed that the man inviting is a friend of the newlywed so it'd probably be safe to assume that he would have been at the wedding and know he was a newlywed, so one would suspect that he isn't 'just' married but rather his wedding was a while ago.

And so they miss out:
“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.’

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

23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. 24 I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’” (Luke 14:21-23 NIV)
The man has prepared this great banquet and it's not going to go to waste, so he invites anybody else to come in, inviting everybody he possibly can, but those who refused him will not get a second chance. We face the same decision with heaven, we can choose to come but once we're dead, that's it, God's not going to give us another chance, we had out whole lives to make that decision.

For us today the lesson is simple. We cannot be so wrapped up in this world and all it's stuff, even things that seem to be Godly like our spouse, that we neglect God. None of these things were sinful (property ownership, oxen to plough a field and marriage) but when these things distract us from God, that's when they are sinful. I think we all have things that have done that to us, we've all used lame excuses, I know that too often I fall under the "but it's my day off" category, let's use today as a chance to repent from that and devote ourselves to God.