Humility and Hospitality

Salem Bible Study
Teachings on Community
Luke 14:7-14 (The Message)
Invite the Misfits
 ^7-9He went on to tell a story to the guests around the table. Noticing how each had tried to elbow into the place of honor, he said, "When someone invites you to dinner, don't take the place of honor. Somebody more important than you might have been invited by the host. Then he'll come and call out in front of everybody, 'You're in the wrong place. The place of honor belongs to this man.' Red-faced, you'll have to make your way to the very last table, the only place left.
 ^10-11"When you're invited to dinner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, 'Friend, come up to the front.' That will give the dinner guests something to talk about! What I'm saying is, If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face. But if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."
 ^12-14Then he turned to the host. "The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You'll be—and experience—a blessing. They won't be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the resurrection of God's people."

For Reflection:
The new and quite popular TV show, Glee, is in large part, about the success of misfits. In our life we will encounter and occasionally become misfits.  While teaching and coaching speech students at Marshall University our forensics team won national championship standing with students who other faculty thought were misfits.  Our team of speakers and actors were always under pressure from some faculty to add the "popular" or in some people's mind "more gifted" student to replace others.

To what extent do you appreciate and embrace the misfits?  Do you avoid association with misfits?  Give it up!  You are a misfit too.  There is room in God's community for all. The gift of God's Kingdom is that we are all misfits.

Pray for those who suffer under the criticism of others.  Pray for those whose only measure of themselves is realized by diminishing others.  Pray that you will be come a blessing and be blessed by embracing and appreciating all people.