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SCRIPTURE READINGS
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Gospel Reading
(Luke 14:12-24)
He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’ “
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Epistle Reading
(2Thessalonians 1:1-12)
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Commentary
The story of God’s compassion toward the poor appears only in Luke. To share hospitality with the needy is to imitate God’s love which welcomes the lowly into the banquet of His Kingdom. “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God” is an inspirational , although little-known beatitude. The purpose of life is to join in the sharing of “bread in the Kingdom of God,” a partaking of the eternal love of God. The parable of the “great dinner” exemplifies God’s Kingdom, imaged in the ministry of Christ and later in the Church. The Kingdom is filled with outcasts and Gentiles, while the unresponsive privileged guests shut themselves out with their “excuses.” “Compel the people” indicates that God’s plan is to fill His messianic banquet, and that even with refusals and excuses, His desire to fill His “House” will not be frustrated. We will all be called to the “great dinner;” we will all be called to share in the eternal Kingdom of God. If we are called today, how many of us are ready to participate? How many of us will “shut ourselves out” because of our many excuses. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
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