That His House May be Full: A Disability Awareness Sunday

     This Sunday Ryan and I, and several other families, will be on a panel for a question and answer time regarding the inclusion of those with disabilities in our worship services. We are very excited for the sensory room, and other aspects of this ministry,  to be fully introduced to the congregation and it got me thinking about one of my favorite parables. Here it is from Luke 14:

The Parable of the Great Banquet

"12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

This parable was featured at a conference that we attended with my in-laws a few years ago and it has stuck with me ever since.   My Sunday morning includes diaper changes on our teenage daughter, giving her meds, feeding her, dressing her, leg braces, and keeping her clean and out of trouble while I get the baby fed and dressed and in a car seat. The boys are thankfully pretty self-sufficient at this point. To be honest, there are many Sundays I don't really feel like putting in the effort to get there.  My husband is a pastor, and I usually do Sunday morning alone as he is out the door before we are even awake. Our church is big enough I could probably get away with it if I tried! (Although, my pastor/husband would probably notice....haha) But then I think about Abbey and how she is so vital to the body of Christ. I think about how the way she worships brings people to tears if they haven't seen it before, how she is pretty much the world's-best-greeter, and how I don't have the right to keep her all to myself.  Oh yeah, and I'm a part of the body too! 

Anyway, the point is that Lord has a heart for the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. I hope that you will find some small way to make sure that these people are invited to the "banquet" this Sunday.  There are about a thousand ways you can make that happen, and I encourage you to seek the Lord as to what way you or your family might be able to do. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see His house full!