In her novel A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley shows readers a highly dysfunctional family which nevertheless attended church each Sunday.
Yet this is how the novel’s narrator sums up this religious practice: “We came to church to pay our respects, not to give thanks.”
When faith becomes a compartment of life instead of life’s vibrant center, when you’re just stopping off to put in your time or pay your respects, squeezing God in between everything else that you clearly value much more highly, then you reveal yourself as an ill-clad impostor.
You haven’t put on a festive wedding garment as Jesus asks you to put on (Matthew 22:11-14). You’re still refusing to wear that funny party hat because you fail to realize that the kingdom of God IS a high and holy and hilarious feast thrown by a King who has prepared the best of everything for you on a Sunday morning.
Thanks to Scott Hoezee
Why or why not after the pandemic have you made your way back to the wedding feast at church on Sunday that Jesus has prepared for you?
GOD NEVER ENDS ANYTHING ON A NEGATIVE. GOD ALWAYS ENDS ON A POSITIVE!
