I think it was Patty and Violet in a 1950s Peanuts cartoon. They were planning a party and making a list of people not to invite which they found much more fun than actually inviting people. Kids–what can you do with them? What’s sad is they probably learned the behavior from the adults around them.

I should have kept a list of people some members wanted uninvited from their church. Somebody wanted an Ethiopian family uninvited; some wanted the single mother with a child uninvited, some wanted the lady with the service dog uninvited, some wanted the person who spoke English with difficulty uninvited, some wanted the woman with MS uninvited. I’ve actually had some people head off others before they even got into the building to make sure they knew they were not invited to the church. And I have a collection of horror stories about how teens were treated to make the point they weren’t invited.

I suppose you can tell these sorts of things really bother me.

I learned in Sunday school the story about the disciples trying to stop people from bringing children to Jesus. And the Lord told them: “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” And then there is the powerful sentence from Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

If we don’t get that message, we haven’t understood Christ at all.

Read Matthew 25:31-40 and remember: God loves YOU (AND EVERYBODY ELSE) unconditionally.

Wayne