Trapped on the Toilet Table? God Has Turned the Tables for You!Sample

The Laptop Table & the Open Invite Table

In series two of the parenting sitcom in which the toilet table features, the parents gather in a different coffee shop, but the table tensions continue! This time, the sought-after table is the table next to the plug socket. One of the main characters rushes in each morning to grab this table as she wants to use it as a base to work from - she needs the plug to power her laptop. There's another customer who also wants to sit beside the plug, so the table tension escalates. She mistreats this guy, trying to get him to act as her assistant and do errands for her.

The laptop table is all about getting your wants and needs met - there is no community, inclusion, or love at this table. It’s about my agenda, my battery getting charged, and not giving anyone else’s needs a second thought.

In Matthew 22, we read of a very different table, where there is an invitation and provision for all. A wedding feast is being held for the King’s son, though strangely, the guests who were originally invited, decline the offer. The table is then opened to anyone and everyone. This mirrors how Jesus first came for the Jews, but then the kingdom of God was opened wide to include the Gentiles - God’s table became accessible to all.

God wants everyone to come to the table and share in the glorious experience of participation in the Kingdom and community of God. However, as the parable highlights, we all have a choice to either accept or reject his invitation. Our attendance is not inevitable! It must be a deliberate decision on our part to choose to take our seat at God's table.

We can come and feast without fee at God’s banqueting table. Yet it is also a costly decision. God wants people around his table who (unlike at the laptop table), put him and others first. God wants divine diners who are so blown away by his grace that they are moved to pull up a chair to help include others at his transformative table.

It’s also important that we are dressed in our best ‘table togs’ - clothed in white robes representing the righteousness of Jesus. By rockin’ these righteous robes, we show that we are relying on God’s mercy and grace alone to qualify us to sit at the table.

Reflection

Have you accepted God’s banquet invite, and are you helping others to find their seat at the table?