One of my favourite invitations to get is a wedding invitation. Its usually a great gig isn’t it, great food, friends, free bar – but also… someone has thought about you. Someone has wanted you to be there. There is a place for you at the table.

And most of us know that when we receive an invitation, we are expected to do something about it. We reply. We put the date in the diary. Ladies, we think carefully about what we are going to wear. And, above all, we turn up.

That is really what Jesus is talking about in this rather complicated parable.

At its heart, it is a simple story about an invitation.

The king gives a wedding feast for his son. Everything is ready. The food is prepared. The tables are set. The guests have been invited. But the guests are too busy or not interested enough to come. So the invitation goes wider, to everyone and anyone that can be found the good, the bad, the respectable, the unlikely, the people who would never normally have expected to be on the guest list. And suddenly the wedding hall is full.

It is a picture of God's kingdom.

Come. The table is ready. You are invited.

But Jesus also issues a warning..

The problem is not just those who can’t be bothered to accept the invitation. The problem is also those who accept it casually. That is where the man who is wearing the wrong clothes comes in. If we are invited to a wedding, we need to reply.

If we are invited to a place at God’s table, we need to respond. We must allow the grace of the invitation to change the way we live.

It is the same thing we saw in the parable of the vineyard last week. There, too, God plants, provides and invites, and the tenants reject the invitation, and refuse to change their ways.

And here in the parable of the wedding feast, we see the same pattern.

God keeps inviting. People keep finding reasons not to respond.

This parable, of course, is meant for the Pharisees and Jews who refuse to align themselves with God’s kingdom.

But here’s the reality for us today - church can become like that.

We can become so familiar with God that we stop noticing the invitation.

We know the words. We know the hymns. We know where we are sitting. We know what happens next.

But somewhere along the way, faith can become something we attend rather than something we live. If our faith isn’t changing us, can it really be called faith at all?

In our reading from Philippians, Paul shows us what it looks like to actually live like someone who has accepted God’s invitation. It is about becoming present.

Present to God. Present to one another in here. Present to one another out there.

What difference does God's invitation make to the way we live?

If it hasn’t given us more generous hearts, if it hasn’t opened our eyes to need, if it hasn’t made room for God at the very centre of our person….if it hasn’t changed us….is it really faith at all?

As we are only 10 weeks away from Christmas, I thought I’d use that well known story of the Christmas Carol as an example. Scrooge is given the extraordinary gift of seeing his life differently. He sees his past and present…and possible future. He is given an invitation, and he needs to respond. When he wakes on Christmas morning, he is still the same man — but he is no longer the same person.

His circumstances haven't changed.

He has.

He becomes generous, joyful and attentive to others. "The invitation of God is not simply an invitation to Come to the feast." It is an encounter with a grace so generous that, like Scrooge you cannot remain exactly as you were.

God's invitation is not to a dull, restricted life. It is an invitation into the life of Christ: into love, peace, joy, friendship, forgiveness and above all……..transformation.

We are called to respond to it.

So this week, when we hear the invitation of God in a situation or conversation, let us not simply admire it and move on. Let us respond.

The question is not whether God is still inviting us.

He is.

The question is whether we are ready to say yes — and to let that yes change the way we live.

Amen.