This weekend I’m in Joshua Tree for a wedding.
There will be delicious food, refreshing drink, music and dancing. All the necessary components of a good wedding. (If your wedding lacks one of those four components, there’s no judgment. Just recognize that whatever people may have said to you, your wedding was lame.)
At any rate, I will enjoy myself. I will eat that delicious food. I will drink those refreshing drinks. After enough of the first two things, I imagine the music will compel my body to dance.
It won’t be good. People will watch in horror as I gyrate all over the dance floor.
Perhaps my wife will distance herself from me. Maybe my in-laws will apologize on my behalf. Fortunately, my child is still too young to understand shame.
Bystanders will say to themselves, “What a loser that guy is!” And they’ll be right. I am a loser. They’ll rightfully ask themselves, “Why was this guy invited in the first place?”
They’ll get no good answer.
I think this is what grace is about. People watching in horror as all the wrong sorts of losers, bloated from their chicken piccata and free booze, are allowed to embarrass themselves on the dance floor.
But whether you’re the type at a wedding that dances or the type that judges, the invitation to the wedding is no different. So once you’re in, just enjoy yourself.
Shalom.