There’s another wedding coming up in our extended family. As we sent our RSVP to reserve our place at the event, I was reminded of a song we used to sing in the seventies, called The Wedding Banquet. It quotes the pleas of those who were too busy to attend a special wedding banquet:
“I cannot come to the banquet, don’t trouble me now.
I have married a wife; I have bought me a cow.
I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum.
Pray, hold me excused, I cannot come.”
The song is a representation of the parable Jesus shared when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.” (Matthew 22:1-14) The parable goes on to describe how the king sent more servants to tell the invited guests how extravagant the banquet would be. Still they refused to come as they were too busy with the business (and busyness) of life. Some of the invitees even mistreated and killed those bringing the wedding invitations! So the king punished those who refused to come and sent more servants to the streets to invite anyone who would come, the “the bad as well as the good” and the wedding hall was filled.
The story reminds us that many are invited but few will come because they will be too busy. It seems that “keeping busy” is not only one of the biggest threats to our spiritual health but also is held up to be one of our greatest virtues. We value busyness, perhaps because it seems to be a mark of productivity. Like the vacation driver who told his family, “We can’t stop now. We’re making good time,” we might tend to think that our journey is all about keeping busy. And compared to idleness and laziness, busyness seems to be a good thing. But there’s a ditch on both sides of the road we travel. Veer to one side and we fall into laziness; veer to the other and we fall into the trap of busyness. The story Jesus told warns us that we should not be too busy to celebrate the greatest blessings of life.
Busyness keeps some of us from accepting God’s great invitation to join him at the wedding banquet. For others, being too busy keeps us from attending the banquet he has prepared for us right now. We get so tied up with the worries and success of life – even with good things we do – that we miss today’s blessings and opportunities.
God’s invitation is not just to come to the wedding banquet but to enjoy the celebration he has given for us to enjoy today. What celebration is that? It is the celebration of being truly united with him, of experiencing victory over circumstances, of being free from sin and worry. It is the celebration of being fully alive today while living in joyful anticipation of the real event yet to come! Don’t let busyness keep you from the great celebration – the one yet to come and the one before you today!
Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” Revelation 19:9