Children’s Sermon

Matthew 22:1-14

A Personal Invitation

Object suggested: Musical instrument, music book or sheet music.

Do any of you play a musical instrument? If you do, can you tell us how you learned to make music? You probably didn’t play melodies right from the start.

Most of us need instruction to learn to play a musical instrument. Depending on which type of instrument you play, you learn how to hold the instrument, where to place your fingers, how to use your mouth, and you even need to learn how to breathe to be relaxed and play beautiful sounding notes.

There are many things to think about when you learn to play a musical instrument. You recognize the various musical notes and learn about timing – how fast or slow and in what kind of rhythm to play the notes. All of this takes time. You must practice, practice, practice.

Some of you may have played in a recital or concert. If so, you know how much preparation is required to get the songs ready to perform. When all is prepared, the result is wonderful music that will delight those who come to listen.

Wouldn’t it be disappointing if, after all those hours of practice and preparation, no one came to listen to your music because they were busy doing other things?

Jesus tells a story in which something like this happened. A king “made a marriage feast for his son” (22:2) and invited many people saying, “I have prepared my dinner” (22:4). Everything is ready – come, but the people did not come to the wedding banquet. They went about their work being too busy to accept the invitation.

Jesus teaches that the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a wonderful event where everything is ready and all are invited to come and enjoy what is offered.

Each one of us has a personal invitation from God to accept his love; all is ready. Let’s not be too busy to accept this invitation.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible