Richard Littledale
Richard Littledale
radio microphone
BBC Radio 2Janice Long Show
Alex Lester Show
Pause for Thought
Richard Littledale: Series 16, Number 5
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Friday 29 April 2011

Are you busy at 11.00am tomorrow? Well, I suppose if you had been invited to the wedding you would have heard about it a long time ago. Your gold embossed invitation would already be sitting there on the mantetlpiece. There in swirly font it would have told you that the Lord Chamberlain was commanded by the Queen to invite you to the wedding and reception. Not had one? Oh well, too late now. You'll have to settle for watching it on the telly or tuning in on the radio.

You might not think it, but there's loads of stories in the Bible about parties - and wedding parties in particular. Some of them centre on the need to get ready in time. Others are all about the guest list - who's in and who's out - which is not always who you think.

The story going through my head tonight, though, is about a huge banquet. The tables were set with glittering silverware, crisp linen tablecloths and groaning with food. The band were ready to play and the host was ready to welcome his guests ... but nobody turned up. One by one he began to contact them, and one by one they all trotted out their excuses. "I've just bought a field and I haven't seen it yet". "I've just bought some oxen and I want to try them out" and so on. The poor host was in despair - but rather than letting the banquet go to waste he sent his servants out to gather the poorest people from the streets. When they'd done that there were still spaces -so they went out again and found the poorest of the poor so that they could eat. The banquet went ahead and some very hungry people got fed.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a "Great Banquet" of my own. A local church decided that rather than turning away the homeless from the church garden they would invite them in to a "great banquet". They get food for body and soul, a listening ear, and help with practical things like haircuts and legal forms. The event has been running for years now - a great banquet once each week for those not usually on anybody's guest list.

We can't ALL go the wedding reception today - or there would be no room for the happy couple themselves! Everybody needs to be special to somebody though. Who could you treat like an honoured guest today?

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© BBC 2011
This talk by Richard Littledale was first broadcast as BBC Radio 2's night time "Pause for Thought"
at 01:30 during the Janice Long show and at 03:30 during the Alex Lester show.
It is reproduced here by permission of the BBC.