The aroma of dinner

Sunday Evening

Luke 18

Bread rolls (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

⁸ When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

If it’s up to us, he probably won’t.  Will there be a community abiding in prayer for the day of God’s justice to dawn?  Will there be a community trusting the promise that the lion shall lie down with the lamb?  Will there be a community living now the forgiveness that is to come?  If it’s up to us, probably not.  To be honest, certainly not.  The power of “the flesh”, the innate reality we call “original sin”, our biological self-concern is too strong.

But we are not alone with our “flesh”.  God speaks.  God calls.  God gathers and enlightens.  The Gospel summons our hearts.  The words and deeds of Jesus have a compelling power.  The Spirit breathes upon us.  God wrestles with us at our River Jabbok to make us his own.

The aroma of dinner lures us in; the power of the breaking bread works its work within us.  God creates faith.

⁸ When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

The question is not meant to provoke in us a defiant determination not to lose faith – like Peter declaring that everyone else may deny Jesus but he never will.  That didn’t end well.  The question is meant to drive us to prayer.  To send us to God.  To create within us the earnest and continuing prayer that God will keep us faithful, that God will enable us to abide in God’s promise, that God may grace us to live for God’s will.

The question is meant to do what the whole parable does – create a faithful community abiding in prayer for the day of God’s promise, the day when righteousness reigns.

We are frail and imperfect communities, more often interested in ourselves than the mission of God, easily disheartened by our own failures, by life’s sorrows, by the grave distance between the promise and the reality of our world.  But God speaks.  Again and again speaking his promise.  Again and again bearing witness by his deeds.  Again and again breathing into us anew his Spirit.  Again and again drawing near to us in grace and life.

God keeps inviting us to dinner at his house.  And he rubs off on us.