“If You Grill it, They Will Come”

“

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind… they cannot repay you.” – Luke 14:13-14

The house church we were hosting was just about to begin when the roar of gas trimmers and blowers overcame our eardrums.

Suddenly, a dozen Hispanic landscapers descended on our property.

Great timing. 😉

Sunday morning. Sabbath. Hot.

Why were these men working?

It was eerily reminiscent of Thanksgiving Day 2014.

We lived in one of only a couple of new homes on our street that were not under construction. All day, a Hispanic crew worked on a new home across from us.

We had finished dinner. It was dark. Our company had left.

But we could still hear the men working.

When I peered through the front door, high-beam headlights from their trucks lit up the house while they worked.

C’mon, man, it’s Thanksgiving Day! Why weren’t they with family? It saddened us deeply.

What would happen on Christmas Day? More of the same?

Not on our watch.

Soon after, in a preemptive move, a neighbor and I met with representatives from the three builders in our development with an idea: a large Christmas cookout lunch for these hard-working men.

All the builders had to do was invite their crews. We would do the rest. We agreed it would take place a few days before Christmas and got to work.

If you remember the movie Field of Dreams, farmer Ray Kinsella hears a mysterious voice whispering:

“If you build it, he will come.”

Our situation felt strangely similar.

We had the food. The grills were ready. The tables were set. But we had absolutely no idea if anyone would come.

When the time arrived, we were blessed with a cool, sunny, gorgeous mid-December day.

And then they started appearing.

Instead of baseball players emerging from a cornfield, construction workers slowly emerged from every direction.

They came in waves.

When lunch was over, every bit of food was gone.

We had prepared enough hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, and cookies for seventy people.

Nothing was left.

Move over, Ray Kinsella. If you grill it, they will come.

When Jesus fed thousands of people with a few loaves and a couple of fish, I suspect He was doing more than meeting a physical need.

He was teaching us how to see people.

Sometimes loving our neighbor begins by noticing the person everyone else has learned to look past.

Luke 14 reminds us to notice people who can easily become invisible to us. People with little status. People who may have nothing to offer us in return.

Jesus looks through different eyes.

He sees a person’s value coming from the One whose image they bear, not from their occupation, status, usefulness, or ability to repay us.

We live in a different neighborhood now, but similar opportunities still surround us.

People work while many of us worship, rest, eat, play, and go about our comfortable routines.

And sometimes, without realizing it, we stop seeing them.

This past Sunday, the roar of those trimmers and blowers may have been more than an interruption.

Maybe it was a reminder.

I think it might be time to fire up those grills again.

Run the play. Help someone who can’t repay you today.

Finding Our Place in the Story

Who has become nearly invisible in the routines of your life, and what might it look like to see and serve them the way Jesus does?