Our Desire to Belong is Corrupted by Our Need to Exclude
Yesterday’s RZIM Slice of Infinity (the only email devotional I read Monday-Friday) was another stellar essay by Jill Carrattini:
I encourage you to read the entire devotional (and sign up to receive it regularly too—I’ve never received ANY solicitations or SPAM from them. Ever. And the essays are usually very good).
But since I’m running out the door right now to take almost-final-SALE-orders to the post office, bring our poor little car to the shop (could this be the end of our Honda?), get Soph to swim lessons and Lilikoi to the vet (hooray for domestic-diva-Momma-days, eh?!), I only have time to leave you with this tiny snippet from the essay to tempt you to read on:
“We typically fill our parties with people similar to ourselves. We invite into our homes those we work with, play with, or otherwise have something in common with …
The man in the parable of the great banquet is no different. The story is told in Luke chapter 14 of an affluent master of ceremonies who had invited a great number of people like himself to a meal. The list was likely distinguished …but none would come.
Anthropologists characterize the culture of Jesus’s day as an ‘honor/shame’ society, where one’s quality of life was directly affected by the amount of honor or shame socially attributed to him or her. The public eye was paramount; every interaction either furthered or diminished one’s standing, honor, and regard in the eyes of the world.
Thus, in this parable, the master of the banquet had just been deliberately and publicly shamed. He was pushed to the margins of society and treated with the force of contempt. Hearers of this parable would have been waiting with baited breath to hear how this man would attempt to reclaim his honor. But in fact, the master of the feast did not attempt to reverse his public shame. Altogether curiously, he embraced it …
It is a staggering portrayal of a God who is shamed by the rejection of his people, and yet continues to respond with unfathomable grace and profound invitation into his presence …
The longing to belong in the right circles is a desire that touches us all. Even so, one only has to watch a group of kids on playground to see how easily our desire to belong is corrupted by our need to exclude. The inner circle is not inner if there are no outsiders. Lines of honor and shame are futile if the majority is not on the wrong side. But God has broken these lines of demarcation …“