Admission is free and each of us is welcome to share in it.
Perhaps for some this is a problem. As the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame felt out of place at a Pharisee's table, so they feel like a fish out of water in church. 'I'm not the religious type,' they say. 'It's no good these church-goers inviting me to become a Christian; they don't know what I'm like. If they did know, they'd immediately show me the door. I'm just not good enough. If they knew what a mess I'd made of my life, if they knew all the habits and sins hidden beneath this polite and respectable exterior of mine, they would know I could never become a Christian. There can be no place for me in Jesus' kingdom of God. The invitation can't be for me.'
Alternatively, like those in the roads and country lanes who didn't even know the banquet had been arranged, some may feel completely bewildered by Jesus' invitation. Perhaps they come from a culture completely alien to Christianity; a country where another religion altogether claims the allegiance of the majority of the people. 'It's all very well for Europeans and Americans to think they're invited to this party,' they say to themselves. 'It can't be for me. I'm from Asia (or Africa). I'm a Hindu (or a Muslim). Me a Christian? That's impossible; unthinkable. There can't be any place for me in Jesus' kingdom. The invitation can't be for me.'
But Jesus in fact tells this story precisely to point out that you are wrong to feel excluded in that way. This story reveals that there is more room in the kingdom of God for people like you than for anybody else. Notice the word the host uses to command the servant: 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in' (Luke 14:23). The verb 'make' is a very strong one. Some translations render it, 'Compel them to come in.' Translated like that, it has occasionally led to illegitimate conclusions, as when it was quoted to defend the Spanish Inquisition.
