To truly follow Christ, one must align themselves with Christ, meaning we must change our ways to fit into His Way. Therefore, the greatest problem isn’t seeing the need for change but rather bringing about change; because the moment we decide to embrace any meaningful effort in our life, Satan plies us with a myriad of excuses to stay the same.
This is what lies at the heart of today’s gospel parable. Jesus equates the call to follow Him as an invitation to a Great Banquet; yet in the parable, when the banquet was ready, the invited guests all began making excuses as to why they cannot attend. They saw other opportunities as being more pressing or important. Thus, they did not benefit from their invite and snubbed their host.
Receiving such a personal invite should have been considered a great honor. But because they didn’t appreciate its value, they easily made excuses, and silly excuses at that, citing things that could have been accomplished upon another time or day.
Heeding God’s invitation to attend church might mean that we must put something aside for a time, yet in doing so we receive so much more. Sadly, those who make excuses or choose not to participate often do so because they think that they are losing an opportunity, while the real opportunity that is lost is to be with God.
