When you host a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or brothers or relatives or rich neighbors. Otherwise, they may invite you in return, and you will be repaid. But when you host a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed. Since they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
Luke 14:12-14
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A different guest list
Jesus is a guest himself, at the house of a leader of the Pharisees. Yet he has something to say about the guest list. Not polite, but honest. Invite people who are never included. They can't pay you back, and that is exactly why you are blessed, he says.
These are uncomfortable words, because most of us mainly spend time with people like ourselves. Jesus doesn't forbid friendship. He asks who is never on your list. At your table someone may count for the first time. The reward comes later, at the resurrection.
Question for today
Who could I invite soon who can give me nothing back?
Prayer
Lord, I tend to invite people who fit in with me. Open my table to those nobody invites. Amen.
My prayer
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