We have been reading 3 parables from Jesus where he reveals to the Jewish leaders how they have failed. This is the second part of the third story.
“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. 13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22 v 8-14)
Lesson: Leaders are not indispensable; they can be replaced.
God’s replacements are perhaps not who the religious will choose. And who gets to sit around the table of the Lord? The poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, the misfits, the homeless, the hurting and the lonely.