The movie Field of Dreams represents God’s heart in a way. God is always thinking, “Build it and they will come.” God is the consummate inviter or host, waiting for people to come. Being the parent of humankind, I can’t imagine he could want anything less than all of his children to come home.
We spend a lot of time thinking about our own lives, the struggles and challenges we face and the things we want. Maybe we even have a field of dreams that in our own mind or heart. But what of God? What does God want?
I wondered recently what church could be described as the biggest church in the world. According to the Guinness book of records it’s a church in Africa that holds 18,000 people. However, its weekly congregation is about 350. There’s definitely a disconnect in those numbers!
Is bigger better?
The church is built in the tiny township of Yamoussoukro, which the President, Dictator Félix Houphouöt-Bo Hoped, hoped to make into the new capital to celebrate his birthplace. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro turns out to be the biggest cathedral in the world, surpassing St Peter’s Basilica in Rome by the time you 
add the cross atop the dome. It cost $300 million and has an area of 30,000 square meters (322,917 sq. ft.) It’s huge! I am not sure even the Vatican was happy with this structure which is at odds with its environment, seemingly mocking the surrounding poverty since the average family lives on $650 per year.
The problem is not just the size of the building. It’s not just the ornate architecture which doesn’t sync with the local environment. It’s the fact that this massive cathedral in a poverty-stricken country is basically empty.
Perhaps the dictator also thought “if I build it they will come”. Nevertheless, it’s in an area where there isn’t even the remotest possibility of filling it. It’s an oddity more than a place of worship. The building in one sense created an impressive “invitation” but the response must have felt insufficient. It reminded me of a parable that Jesus shared. You know the one! There was a king who invited all kinds of important people to a banquet……
Parable of the Great Feast
“The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come!
4 “So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ 5 But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them.
7 “The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. 8 And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. 9 Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ 10 So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests.
11 “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. 13 Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:1-14
Jesus was talking in parables meaning that what he really wanted to say couldn’t be said because he would be seized and killed, so instead he told stories and declared, “Let those who have ears to hear it, hear it.”
Behind this story is God’s frustration that his son was not received by the religious leaders of the day; the Pharisees among others. They were the ones who were meant to help Jesus have credibility and reach the people of Israel with his message. Jesus came to invite people into the Kingdom. He wanted to celebrate the marriage supper of the lamb. But the people refused him and as the parable suggests even went so far as to execute the prophets that God sent to them.
This tale gets to the heart of God’s problem. He yearns to invite us into relationship with him but we are deaf to the invitation. We don’t hear it or show any interest in responding to it. Maybe you have been invited but didn’t realize it, or life simply got in the way and you are too busy to follow up.
God, the Inviter
I think that God has to be known as the most amazing being in the cosmos. Talk about going beyond rejection!
In this story, the king (God) is excited about his banquet. The calf has been fattened and slaughtered, the wine has aged, the tables are set, and everything is ready. God has made preparations for the feast and wants everyone to be present to honor his son and the bride. God is always inviting, all the time.
The Invitation
But what, exactly, is God inviting us to? What’s in this invitation?
The invitation that the King was extending was to the wedding feast of his son. Why are weddings important? Weddings matter because they are the place where two become one. It’s an amazing feat. You take two disconnected families, perhaps from different cultural or ethnic backgrounds and through the union of a man and woman they become connected.
It’s really God’s plan to create world peace. Yesterday, a young man of mixed race attended our seminar on the Four Realms of Heart. He listed off the ancestry of his parents and grandparents and it was amazing to hear of the different nationalities and races (African, French, German, Irish, South American) brought together in this one person.
It’s through love that our universe enlarges. Through the marriage ceremony a man from one family and a woman from another family are joined together in the presence of God. God’s invitation is to become one family under God – to inherit God’s lineage if you like. Humankind lost our connection to God but our Heavenly Parent wants to invite us back into the family. He doesn’t want to be some distant King or ruler in our lives, but wants to be our parent. He wants the closeness and intimacy found in the parent/child relationship.
When you are family all kinds of formalities are dropped. You can show up at your parents’ house without warning and they are happy to see you. You can sit down to eat and no one is going to charge you for the food.
Yesterday’s seminar on the Four Realms of Heart was so beautiful because it emphasized that God doesn’t want to just be some invisible God in our lives but wants us to feel His substantial love in the family. Our Heavenly Parent created the family as the “school of love” so we can know we are loved, we are valued and infinitely precious.
One of the most profound insights that the presenter shared was when he spoke about the way he and his wife handle their occasional disagreements. Each, of course, is convinced of his/her “rightness” and a stony silence ensues. His wife will quietly get up to do the dishes and then he will stand beside her to dry them. Still angry, neither will speak but he does this as a way back to the heart. He said if he cut off completely then God’s love couldn’t flow in his marriage. He reminded us that God loves us through our families and we can’t afford to cut our relationships. It was a beautiful point.
God’s love flows through the members of our family so that we can be skin touch with God. God’s invitation to us is to come to the wedding feast, receive His Blessing so we can be part of God’s family, connected to his lineage substantially.
That’s quite an invite! Jesus’ parable wasn’t an invite to a lecture or a business opportunity, or access to a new self-help technique. It’s an invitation to be a part of God’s family. The question is how do we respond?
The Invitees
I’d like to share a story I heard that might resonate with you. It’s the story of a Jesuit priest who visited Mexico. He happened to observe young families coming up to the cathedral each Sunday morning. As each man approached the church doors, he handed his wife or girlfriend through the door, then took his place outside among the other men. This group of men stood, smoking cigarettes, on the steps of the cathedral until their loved ones emerged from the cool darkness within.
The priest decided he had to address the situation. He walked out through the church door and into the sunlit plaza. It went something like this….
“Good morning, gentlemen.”
“Good morning, Father.”
“I see you escort the ladies to Mass, then wait outside.”
“That’s right.”
“You don’t go into the cathedral yourselves?”
“No, not generally.”
“Well, that’s puzzling. Aren’t you Catholics?”
“Of course we’re Catholics,” one said. “But we’re not fanatics.”
I’d like to share a modern day story that is somewhat similar. A good friend of mine was an avowed atheist and wasn’t interested in relating to God because he associated God with fanaticism. To accept the invite means we have to let go of some concepts. And God kept inviting him until he did.
Perhaps this was the problem with the people the king invited to his banquet. They didn’t want to be seen as fanatics. Others just treated the invitation casually. Nevertheless, it was a big deal – like turning down an invitation to the Oscars.
Eventually, a more than frustrated King decided to just invite everyone. Anyone can come!
“The king’s servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests” (v. 10).
The hall was full and the merrymaking underway and then something strange happened. The King saw someone not properly attired and basically threw them out. That seems at odds with the “Come one, come all invitation.” And just in case you were wondering this is where the famous gnashing of teeth line in the Bible comes from.
“…throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The question is does God really care about a dress code? I like to think not. So what is the meaning of this famous line? The Bible alludes to the need for us to wash our robes and be clothed in righteousness. That requires, in the words of Rev Moon, a revolution of heart.
“Just as we cannot put on new clothes without taking off old ones, so we cannot see the new world as long as we have old concepts.”
I think our Heavenly Parent is looking for sons and daughters who are clothed with the right heart.
“In order to become a true child to your parents, you must inherit their desires…Our task today is to discover the true desire of God, because as believers, our goal is to become the sons and daughters of God.”
Come one, come all
– God invites us regardless of the mistakes we have made…
“We know we appear unworthy. When we critique and analyze ourselves we know we do not measure up as beings able to offer something to You. Yet, let us not forget that we are already Your children. It is our destined relationship, which cannot be broken whatever we do.” – Sun Myung Moon, 8/24/1969
– God invites us without respect to our level of education.
– God invites us without regard to our bank account.
– God invites us without regard to race or gender or religion….
We must not treat God’s invitation casually
In Africa, a huge cathedral stands virtually empty. You’ve got to wonder about that. I like to think that God is building something for us. God is building a future for us. God is building his family that he wants us to be a part of. God is inviting us to come to the wedding banquet.
The last thing we would want to do is to treat such an opportunity casually, indifferently or even with hostility. We want to sincerely be able to say – “Yes, thank you, I accept your invitation.”
