When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters
or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
The problem with only focusing only on those people, places, and situations that we find rewarding is that it tends to lead us to narrow our focus and develop blind spots. If we aren't intentional about periodically deviating from our routine reward seeking we may gradually lose our freedom to do so. Jesus is present in our family and friends. But he is also present in the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and others. When we neglect his presence in these people we neglect encounters with Jesus which he might otherwise been able to fill with an abundance of his grace. In short, it is not only those whom we don't invite that miss out. It is also we ourselves.
Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
How will we be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous? It isn't as though we will benefit from cash, precious metals, or a direct deposit to our accounts. Even cryptocurrency can't be transferred to that destination. Instead, doing what Jesus advised will lead to repayment in the form of becoming more like him. After all, Jesus himself, more than anyone else, set a feast beyond imagining and invited only those with no way to repay him. In becoming merciful as he merciful we increase our capacity to enjoy relationship with him, which is the greatest possible reward.
For who has known the mind of the Lord
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given him anything
that he may be repaid?
We will never give God anything in payment that he himself did not first give us to offer. The situation is like a parent who pays so that his child may give him a birthday present. Yet the enjoyment of that parent-child relationship is itself intrinsically valuable. That ritual of exchange creates joy that would otherwise be missed. So too, and more, when we offer back to God the gifts he has first given to us. We will never know enough that we will be able to offer him suggestions about how to do his job. But as we take the opportunities he gives us to share in his job, to be his coworkers, we will come to understand him more and more. We will say with Paul that "we have the mind of Christ" (see First Corinthians 2:16).
Michelle Swift - God And Man At Table Our Sat Down
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