Thursday, December 03, 2009

WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?
LOOKING AT THE SALAHI WHITE HOUSE PARTY CRASH
IT’S YOUR PARTY AND I’LL CRASH IF I WANT TO

By now I am sure you have heard of the bold couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who crashed a state dinner at the White House. This was not any old party, but a state dinner.

The Salahis evidently tried to wrangle an invitation, but could not. This is a double snub in social or political circles, by the way. They were not sufficiently important to be on the guest list. They tired to pull some strings and get invited, but failed.

This has created a maelstrom of accusation and recrimination. Clearly there was a security breach and other problems that have been and will be dealt with in the MSM.

It reminded me of a Bible story.

Luke records the story of Jesus going to dinner at the house of a Pharisee on the Sabbath. I guess this was the equivalent of the pastor being invited over for Sunday lunch. Jesus noticed that the guests picked the places of honor at the table. They wanted to look important.

If you have gone to any banquets, you have seen this happen. Everyone wants to sit at the executive table or as close to it as possible. People like to be important. If they cannot have that, they want to look important. In America, they two often are confused in people’s minds.

Jesus gave his take on all this. He said “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you “Friend, move up to a better place.”\’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” You can read this in Luke 14.

Now, at the end of the evening, the Salahis probably felt very successful. They posed for pictures with the President, the Vice-President and the White House Chief of Staff. I’ll bet they ordered copies.

But then, someone blew the whistle. They have been humiliated by having their presumption and falsehood exposed in the national media and in Congress. Talk about being told to take the least important seat. Now everyone knows they were not invited and could not get invited but were so desperate to attend that they lied their way in.

Maybe I should mail a pocket New Testament to them. It could have saved them a lot of embarrassment.

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