"I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me."
19'Another said, "I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me."
20‘Still another said, "I have just got married, so I can’t come."
21'The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”
22‘“Sir,” the servant said, “what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.”
23'Then the master told his servant, "Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet."'Familiarity breeds contempt, they say. In my experience that's certainly true where religion is concerned. The hardest people to talk to about Christian faith are invariably the people who've grown up surrounded by it.
G. K. Chesterton, in this connection, tells a story of a young man who lived centuries ago in the rolling downland of Wessex. He'd heard of a huge white horse which had been mysteriously carved into an unknown hillside by ancient hands. He was so captivated by this rumour that he set off in search of the fabled horse, travelling the length and breadth of the West Country. But, alas, he couldn't find it. At length, weary and disappointed, he returned home, reluctantly concluding that the white horse of his dreams didn't exist, after all. Then, as he surveyed his own village from a distant vantage point, after his long absence, he was astonished to see the object of his quest. The white horse had been there all the time. His village lay at the very centre of it,
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