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STARTER
(In pairs for 5 minutes) Share an experience of being offered a good meal.
WORSHIP
READ PASSAGE ALOUD
(You might like also to read Luke 14:15-23 see below)
RE-READ PASSAGE AND COMMENTARY
(Personal reflection)
PERSONAL FOCUS
(Personal reflection on the passage I commentary & questions in silence 10 minutes)
COMMENTARY
In the Scriptures, meals are always occasions of sharing of life, memories and intimacy. This simple human experience represents the rich life God invites his people to share. The wedding banquet especially looks to the end of time when God and his people will find a final sharing with each other. In this parable the first guests refuse to come (v2). The king tells his servants to invite everyone they meet (v.9),"the good and the bad". The Church will never be a perfect community of saintly people. Ml are invited. The only requirement is to respond to God's invitation. [Baranowski]
As Matthew presents the parable it makes little sense. Compare the original in Lukel4: 15-
23. Matthew has changed the context and added a second parable (vv. 11-14). He has turned it into a coded history of the Early Church. The first servants are the prophets, the second servants the apostolic preachers, the king's army is the Romans and the town destroyed is Jerusalem in AD70. The "good and the bad" are the Gentiles. [McBride]
PERSONAL FOCUS QUESTIONS
(Initially just reflect on the question that chooses you. It may help to clarify your thinking to make notes in the spaces provided. This will also give you material to reflect on in the future)
1. What verse in this reading speaks to you? What is God saying to you?
2. Describe an experience when you received an invitation and made excuses because you did not want to attend. Do you make excuses to God?
3. What does your Church do to make you feel part of the community?
PERSONAL FOCUS QUESTIONS
(Discuss in triplets /pray for each other –25 minutes)
LIFE FOCUS
(Discuss in whole group-15 minutes)
4. What more could your Church do to invite "outsiders" to become part of God's community?
5. What practical outcome is there from our reflection? Do we need to make any plans to make things happen?
GROUP MEMORY TIME
(Review the actions you agreed to carry out at previous meetings)
REVIEW TIME
This was a difficult passage. What did you learn by comparing two versions of the same
story?
What would you like to do differently next time?
PRAYER TIME
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