Tag: Party

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The crowd’s response.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel… ‭‭Acts ‭2‬:‭14‬-‭16‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Luke, recording the Day of Pentecost activities, writes that the crowd didn’t know what was happening with the people that gathered. They assumed the group displayed drunk and disorderly conduct! There was a lot of supernatural activity happening – whirlwind, some semblance of fire resting on individuals, and the loud speaking in other languages. Those are signs of drunkenness? Wow. When God does a miraculous thing among us, that’s when we assume the worst?

Have you ever witnessed a mob, mosh-pit, brawl, rave, or riot? Sadly, these are common images on the news or during spring break and we think nothing of it. And, although they are overwhelming to experience, these public displays are somehow normalized, captured and celebrated. But oh, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit with supernatural phenomenon – that’s weird?

Someone needs to speak up when bad human behaviors are normalized, expected and sometimes celebrated compared to a God moment that is dismissed or scrutinized. Peter did so, he spoke up saying, “these people are not drunk,” as they were assuming. What they were witnessing was yet another promise that God had predicted would happen! Joel 2:28-32 records what WILL happen and DID happen, in the last days. And the morning of the Pentecost Sunday – it did happen! Peter brilliantly uses the moment to share the gospel. Basically telling the crowd, they got it wrong. Seeing the supposed mayhem they assumed the WORST in human behavior, yet they were actually witnesses to another one of God’s fulfillment of His promises.

We get it so wrong when we dismiss miracles as drunkenness. I’ll admit, being in the room when something supernatural happens is a little disconcerting, but believe me, it is far better than being in the middle of a drunken brawl between family or friends. I’ve been in both and prefer God’s revival over human revelry.

Prayer

Dad,
Far too often I have seen people dismiss your miraculous moving among us and readily accept a drunken display of stupidity. It’s frustrating to explain that one is real and life changing, the other is destructive, especially in our relationships with each other. I get upset when folks confusingly trade out truth when one is rejected and the other is accepted. How in the world can we be so drawn to the supernatural when it comes to things of darkness and be repelled by Your Spirit doing a miraculous work among us? We’ve got some serious misconceptions of how the spiritual realm works. Yet you still desire to do the miraculous in us! Thank you for your grace even when we’ve mistakenly misplaced our faith in the wrong place.

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Party with Jesus.

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“Hearing this, a man sitting at the table with Jesus exclaimed, “What a blessing it will be to attend a banquet in the Kingdom of God!” Jesus replied with this story: “A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, ‘Come, the banquet is ready.’” Luke‬ ‭14:15-17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

One man comments about how fun it will be to break bread in heaven – when the Kingdom of God is fulfilled. Something he said kind of triggered Jesus, because he keeps the “dinner party” discussion going.

This whole passage that Luke writes about is in the context of Jesus having a meal ON the Sabbath WITH religious leaders. So, Jesus didn’t just eat with street sinners, he also ate with religious sinners 😀. “One Sabbath day Jesus went to eat dinner in the home of a leader of the Pharisees, and the people were watching him closely.” Jesus WANTED them to watch him closely – in fact he wants me to watch him closely as well.

The dinner has the usual conversational conflict that both Jesus and any other self respecting rabbi would live for. It was entertaining for the really smart religious lawyers and pundits to start an argument. It was like watching British parliament with lots of fast words and emotional explosions. One guy there had swollen arms and legs and was obviously struggling. Was he a plant? Just for an conversational appetizer for starters? Maybe. Jesus, loving the opportunity to poke the Pharisees where God’s sonshine should shine, heals the guy…again on the Sabbath.

Then Jesus observes and comments on the natural order of human behavior at a honored guest invite in fancy pants houses of the rich and powerful. Everyone is jockeying for the best seat, the closest to the host. The aura of power that supposedly surrounds the master of the house. It’s so ironic that Jesus just gives out some free advise, you know, etiquette tips for the swanky. One, let the host decide who should be given honor, don’t assume it’s you. Two, don’t just invite a bunch of “kiss-ups,” friends, relatives and rich – that’s boring. Come on, that’s just a narcissistic love-fest. Mix it up by inviting the disenfranchised, the outcast, folks that never get invited because they’re marked as marginalized. This is when some guy raises his wineglass and says, in toast-like fashion, “won’t it be so much fun to hangout with friends like us in the future fulfillment of God’s Kingdom?” Oh! Oh OH! Jesus just can’t leave that comment hanging in the air, sucking the life out of everything he believes in!

So, Jesus tells a story. A massive dinner party story. A dinner party so grand and glorious that it’s declared a BANQUET, a feast. All the who’s who will be invited. All the “A” listers, influencers and mover-shakers in town. But oh-no, plot twist!

One by one, these upper-echelon guests start turning the host down, they’ve got scheduling “conflicts” and passé, snooty excuses. A strange list of reasons for turning it down follows. A field, oxen and newlyweds and all send their regrets. At this moment, every socialite in the room is furiously hanging on every word as Jesus weaves in the truth. The room must be mumbling, “how rude,” “so disrespectful,” “How uncouth!” Who would ever do such a thing.

Jesus lands his point. The host, the master was FURIOUS.

Every person at that dinner party agreed with Jesus. “That’s right, the host should be enraged…I know I would be!” they must have thought. Then Jesus tells them the host went out and invited the opposite of what was fashionable, popular or elitefully expected! Oddly, the room probably shifted to cheer this as well. “Yeah, that’s right,” they might have yelled, “that’ll show those deadbeats who embarrassed their host.” And all of a sudden they have found themselves thinking differently about these former “F” listers, who would have never been considered worthy to attend such a feast. There’s a chance, as they were carried along in the story, they thought, “those people deserve to be a part too!” Then Jesus dropped the last line and it had to have hit home in the hearts of the hearers – “For none of those I first invited will get even the smallest taste of my banquet.” Go Jesus… bread and mouths drop. His job is done here.

Prayer

Dad,
Not only do I want to be at that Kingdom of God, wedding feast of the lamb, I want to invite and hope to see as many there as possible.

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The Real Housewives of Israel

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“What sorrow for those who get up early in the morning looking for a drink of alcohol and spend long evenings drinking wine to make themselves flaming drunk. They furnish wine and lovely music at their grand parties— lyre and harp, tambourine and flute— but they never think about the Lord or notice what he is doing.” Isaiah‬ ‭5:11-12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Holy cow! Did Isaiah get some kind of preview of U.S. reality shows in the 21st century? Was The Real Housewives of Israel or The Bachelor on ancient streaming services?

I grew up in the sixties, basically watching 50’s TV shows and some movies. Here’s what I saw, EVERYONE smoked and everyone drank hard liquor. Now, some of the “family shows” toned down both, but an average American house had a booze cart waiting for the man to get home to knock one down and people were constantly talking about a nightcap. Drinking brandy, bourbon, and cream-based liqueurs were thought to be a sleep aid? And, jokingly having morning margaritas or martinis was so vogue!

Oh, now it’s wine that pushed on every show or movie, and puttin’ down a bottle because they’re so stressed by life. Even whiskey and shockingly tequila has made a big comeback! Just about every party you see on media has got booze. Are you kidding me? Humans don’t change, we just rotate our ridiculousness. I am positive that God is not into promoting drunkenness, but He does want us to live a full, good life.

Personally, I don’t prescribe booze, “social” or otherwise, I’ll eat my sin in cheeses and carbs thank you. Isaiah hits hard with this whole idea. We can often wake up WITH sorrow, party-hardy all day and night and not once think about God AND not once even notice what He’s doing in the world around us. So we wake up with sorrow and crash on the pillow the same way.

I think we have seriously mis-read the “good life.” The good life is a godly life. The good life is walking with the good God who created us. The God life is the BEST life! Isaiah’s warnings fall on deaf ears, which still happens today. Isaiah tells Israel, God is going to give them a massive time out – a 70 year captivity under another nation. They all had to go cold turkey with no booze and parties for an entire generation. What’s the point?

You want to live like slaves to pleasure, never thinking about God who wants to do life with us, well here ya go Israel. Welcome to captivity. If folks are wondering if the only thing to get out of life is these cycles of pleasure, emptiness and sorrow, then they know nothing about the life wants us to live – all of us. Jesus came to give a FULL LIFE, not a cheap knockoff of some kind of fake scripted reality show.

Prayer

Dad,
Admittedly, I don’t use booze to boost my emotions and I haven’t thrown a party with live flutes in… well, never. However, I do struggle to find and engage in ways to be happy, oftentimes outside of you. I know the life you want me to live and I’m pushing the boundaries of my own fears and serious limitations to be obedient to the purpose you have for me. I’m sure there have been times you put me in a time-out, thankfully not for 70 years though. I want to find joy in you and be fully aware and fully engaged in what you are doing on our planet.