You Are Welcome at the Table of Hope

Pastor Dennis Miller

Having just experienced Thanksgiving, I’m reminded how powerful an invitation can be. This is a season filled with gatherings, meals, and celebrations. Many of us are opening our homes to family and friends. And as we prepare for those moments, we know what it feels like to anticipate the arrival of people we love. We prepare the food, straighten up the house, turn on the music, and wait with joy for the knock on the door.

But we also know how painful it would be if, after all that preparation, no one showed up.

Years ago, I heard retired Presbyterian pastor Vic Pence tell a story that struck me deeply. He and his wife received a beautiful holiday party invitation in the mail. The card was elegant, full of promise and warmth—except for one problem. The host forgot to sign it. No name. No address. Nothing. And so Pastor Pence imagined what it would be like if this oversight happened on every invitation the host had sent. He pictured a beautifully prepared home, a meal ready to be enjoyed, the table set, candles lit, music playing—yet no one came because no one knew where to go.

He imagined the host waiting… 6:00 p.m.… 6:05… 6:10… still no one. Can you feel that sense of disappointment?

That picture is very close to the one Jesus paints in Luke 14:16–23, where a man prepares a great banquet and invites many guests. When everything is ready, he sends out a servant to say, “Come, for everything is now ready.” But guest after guest begins to make excuses. One has purchased a field. Another has bought oxen. Another just got married. All valid life events—but all positioned above the invitation of the host.

The host becomes angry—yes—but beneath that anger is deep disappointment. When we open our homes, we open a piece of ourselves. A refusal isn’t just a scheduling conflict; it often feels like a rejection of the relationship itself.

What makes Jesus’ parable even more striking is what we learn in the Gospel of Matthew, where the same story is told with an added detail: the host is a king, and the banquet is his son’s wedding feast. The people are rejecting not just any invitation—they are declining the honor of attending the wedding banquet of the king’s son.

Jesus was speaking to His own people—the ones who, historically, had been prepared for the coming Messiah. As John writes, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” Yet—and this is the heart of the gospel—“to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, He gave the right to become children of God.”

If those originally invited would not come, the king would open his banquet to everyone else.

And that, friends, is where we enter the story.

The King’s Open Invitation

After the invited guests reject the invitation, the master tells 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.” When there’s still room, he widens the search: “Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in so that my house will be full.”

I once preached this passage in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, surrounded by the sound of motorbikes and the bustle of life. It struck me then—and still does now—that this is exactly where God’s invitation is meant to be heard: out in the streets, among people who may never expect to be invited to anything, much less the feast of the King.

And here is the good news: we are the beggars in this story. We are the ones who were far off. We are the ones who had nothing to offer. We are the ones who were not originally on the guest list but were nevertheless sought out, found, and brought in.

The late Brennan Manning once said that the church is “not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.” I’ve often described it another way: The church is the only organization in the world where the prerequisite for joining is admitting you don’t deserve to belong.

Let that sink in. The very thing that would disqualify you in any other setting—your brokenness, your sin, your past—is what qualifies you for the kingdom. You and I don’t come to the banquet because we are worthy. We come because the King has declared we are welcome.

Finding Ourselves at the Table

A few years ago, I stood before a painting in the capital city of Honduras that has stayed with me ever since. It’s called The Table of Hope, created by a Filipino artist. It portrays Jesus at a table reminiscent of the Last Supper—but instead of His disciples, He’s surrounded by street children. One child clutches a small, tattered bag as if he has stolen something. Others look malnourished or weary. Some stare with longing at the food before them.

Every time I look at that painting, I try to find myself in it. And I always end up in the same spot: underneath the table next to a little boy, looking for crumbs. Not because I need physical food—but because I am hungry for spiritual nourishment. Even the crumbs from Jesus’ table are enough to sustain the soul.

Maybe you see yourself somewhere in that image too—weak, weary, broken, ashamed, unsure. But listen to the King’s words in the parable: “Bring them in.”
Bring in the poor.
Bring in the lame.
Bring in the rejected.
Bring in the overlooked.
Bring in the sinners.
Bring in the unworthy.

That’s us. And that is why we gather as the church—not because of our resume, pedigree, or accomplishments, but because of grace. Pure, unearned, undeserved grace.

Why Baptism Matters

This is also why baptism means so much to me. There is nothing magical about the water itself. Baptism is a sacrament—an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace. It’s God’s declaration over us:
You are wanted. You are welcomed. You belong at the table.

When we baptize someone, we celebrate not their achievement but God’s mercy. We remember our own baptism and the grace that brought us to this moment. And we commit ourselves to carrying that message outward just as the servant did in Jesus’ parable.

Go Out Quickly

The master’s command in Luke 14 is urgent: “Go out quickly.” The invitation of the Kingdom isn’t something to sit on or postpone. There’s a world full of hurting, broken, unseen people who need to know there’s room at the table for them.

As we approach Christmas and prepare our own table to receive Christ, let’s remember the greater table to which we’ve been invited. And let’s extend that invitation widely—across aisles, across differences, across neighborhoods, across judgment and fear.

Because the King is still saying, “Come. Everything is now ready.”

And by His grace, we—the beggars, the bums at the banquet—have a seat.