Submitted by Pastor David Shadinger, Rock Port & Watson United Methodist Churches

Jesus was always teaching. He gave the guests at a banquet, who were anxiously looking for their place cards, a bit of principled advice. He told them that if someone invites you to a dinner party and your place card reads, ‘Head Table,’ go sit instead at that table off behind the pillar. You know the one with the wobbly leg, where the clattering of pans from the kitchen makes it difficult to carry on a conversation.

It is a hard lesson because it runs counter to just about every message we typically absorb from our culture. But there’s a powerful truth in it. At the end of the day that we call our life, all the accumulation of gold – meaning not only money, but also those achievements we spend our lives chasing and jealously guarding – is of little importance. It no longer matters.

The one thing that does last is the simple, golden currency of God’s love. That love is poured out upon this universe in abundance by its Creator. We all receive it, as long as we accept the invitation to do so.

But, none of us can bank it. We can’t save love for a rainy day. We can’t hide it behind the walls of Fort Knox. We can only spend it! And we should spend it wildly, freely – even frivolously – because it never runs out. The more of God’s love we give away, the more we discover we have.

Whenever we gather at the Lord’s table, we engage in a sort of dress rehearsal for the greater feast in the heavenly places. There’s no preferred seating at God’s table, no favored place. We all come to it equally hungry. By the grace of God, we will all leave it equally satisfied.