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Invitation To The Feast
27 November 2009
Episode #154
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) For the conference, “The Body Of Christ”, transcendent believers in the end times, I really asked the Lord to give me some visual way to describe two things. So that it would be, you know, a picture’s worth a thousand words. And I really sought Him about it, because it was, it was something that we haven’t done before; we did two skits. And the skit we’re going to talk about now, ah, I kind of turned it over to John, and we used the passage about the marriage feast where people come in clothed, and then one comes in not clothed in the right garments. And we had been talking about the ‘old man’, and so the clothing that will be unacceptable to Christ in that triumphant feast, the garment will be the ‘old man’, that He will not receive anything of the ‘old man’ into that feast. That was what I wanted to picture, that, that parable He told. And so I turned it over to John and said you just, you just get with people and work it out. And so we want you to be able to try to visualize what we, what we visualized. It was so powerful, and it’s sort of indelible in your memory to see it. So you met with a number of people John, and you all spontaneously put it together didn’t you.
(J) Well it was really wonderful, because we were in the, the hotel room, and ah, you had asked me to go set it up. You just said, this is what it’s about, go do it. And so I went into the room, and ah, it just really kind of percolated you know. One person would get this part, one person would get this part, and we just put it all together, and really brought an awesome visual. I mean it was just the way it was played out, uhmm, was just very simple, but very awesome. And ah, you know, visually to kind of work out how a scripture is, a parable so to speak, ah, you know, it can be done right, and it can be done wrong. And I think this one was done correctly to convey the message. And so we had Joe Gallagher, and he was the representation of the angel that was sent out to go to the highways and the byways to gather up and compel. And Martha, why don’t you read the scripture?
(M) Ok. This one is Matthew twenty-two; it’s called the parable of the wedding feast. “The kingdom… Jesus spoke to them again in parables saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” That’s very clear, what it is about. “And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who’ve been invited, behold I’ve prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready, come to the wedding feast.’ But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, and another to his business. And the rest seized his slaves, and mistreated them, and killed them. But the king was enraged and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire.” The king. “Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both good and evil, and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. And when the king came in to look at the dinner guests, he saw a man there that was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. And then the king said to his servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” That was the story I wanted pictured, and that’s what you and the others did.
(J) So we had Joe Gallagher as the messenger, and he went to the highways and byways, and basically brought everyone, the good and the bad. And we didn’t have him doing that, but he, he was standing there as the sentinel. And then in came one at a time, it was ah, Sue, and then it was Julie, and then it was Ed, Ed Flouren. And Sue came in as a, as a, ah, a servant, as a waiter. And it was really wonderful. Sue I’d like to ah, get down, ah, how did that feel, what did you, what did you feel when you were conveying it, what, what was ah, going on in your heart and mind?
(Sue) Just the fact that you asked me to be in the skit. I was just taken by that. And that God had prepared me in the clothes I brought. As I was leaving to go to the conference He said go and get that long sleeved white shirt, because I didn’t plan to bring it. And before the skit started I went to the maitre d’ in the restaurant and said do you take your outfit’s home, or do you have them here? And she said oh, we have them at home. And then in a few minutes she came to me and said here’s a brand new apron. And I was overwhelmed that it was new, never been worn. I thought that was significant. And I went down stairs and I was putting the things on, and there was a waiter that was working with another group. And I believe he was Mexican, and he was so taken with me putting on the vest I was excited about. I was dressed like him, but he said you don’t have a bowtie, and you need a bowtie. He went and found another man with a bowtie, and he came and he wanted to put the bowtie on. And I was witnessing to him that his bowtie was going to the marriage of the Lamb. And the little Mexican man was excited about me being excited about being a waiter, and he stood and watched the play, skit. And when I went in, John, you had told us to stand up when you as representing the Bridegroom, when he came in. And I couldn’t get my legs to move. And I just got, in my spirit I was so excited about being there, but then also, overwhelmed at the Bridegroom coming in. And I just couldn’t move. I just felt like I couldn’t even sit up, I was so overwhelmed at being there.”
(M) People were seated at the table.
(J) So we had uhmm, we had the table set basically that they would come in and each of them… And I didn’t get to see this because I was outside, ah, dressed up as Jesus, and ah, so. Don was upfront reading the scripture, Joe was standing as the sentinel, and they started proceeding in. And Jacquelyn, you, you, you were there, and you were watching it. How were they responding, how, what was their attitude as they were coming in?
(Jacquelyn) It was so real. The Holy Spirit so came on that skit that the entire thing was real. They came in, and they were clean, they were pure. I remember Ed coming in with his broom, and he was, he was pure.
(J) Did they come in with their street garb, so to speak, and then Joe put the robe on them? Is that how it worked?
(Jacquelyn) Yes, they came in, and they came up to Joe. And it seems like to me that Sue was just joyous and smiling. And Joe put the robe on each of them as they came in. Julie was very poignant, because she, she came in, as far as looking like the prostitute. You couldn’t see her face. She had on a black long sweater; her hair was all in her face. And then there was joy, when Joe put the robe on her.
(J) Ok, Julie, how did you portray that?
(Julie) Well, when we were still in the hotel room, and just beginning to ah, enter into that scripture, I was really affected, first of all, by how the Spirit was coming on Carole, and ah just how it was like the story was taking over her. And ah, the thing that began to come to me, as we were reading about the going out to the highways and byways, and bringing in the good and the bad, it just became… I just began to see a prostitute and ah, being brought straight from the street, and straight from that kind of life of such filth ah, and degradation and brokenness, straight into the wedding feast. How hard that would be in a sense. And it just… When we… When I entered the room actually in the skit, I just felt like I was absolutely covered up in shame, and just the uncomfortibleness. I couldn’t speak, but what was in my heart at that moment was just the, the kind of fear going before this beautiful angel and saying you know, somebody told me to come in here, but there’s no reason why I should get to stay. And the mixture of feelings, the childlike wonder and desire to be there, but just… Just it was just an overwhelming sense of the filthiness of life and I could so identify with that kind of shame. And when I got before Joe, I was shaking, and I was shaking so bad I couldn’t… He told me to take off the black ah, sweater that I had on, and I couldn’t even move enough to do it. And he had to ultimately come and kind of help peel it off of me. And then he offered me the robe, and, and it was just the most… It was like all of a sudden being handed salvation all at once. And for somebody who hadn’t been ‘churched’, and hadn’t had any exposure to it, and it was just the most overwhelming offer. And ah, and I, I couldn’t even move to put the robe on exactly; I mean he had to do it. And ah, it was quite an experience.
(J) Ok Jennifer, uhmm, you were watching as well. Ah, what did you see?
(Jennifer) I mean I, I watched ah, the skit, but I would say half a mind was on the, ah, audience, if you will, but it was really more the gathering, and how it was reacting. And, and ah, the fact that people started off and it kind of went in waves of uncomfortable, and then comfortable. People were looking to be led. Ah, my background in theater is that ah, every audience, once they get in there, wants their cues in a way. Which is why some things are, are dreadfully obvious, because people want to feel safe and know when to laugh, and when to cry, and when to do the rest of that. And I guess what I was struck by mostly in this sketch is that uhmm, there really wasn’t that, that… People really didn’t know (Jennifer laughs) what to do with themselves; there wasn’t a predictability to it. Uhmm, I think they went into it thinking that it was going to be a little sketch that it was going to have uhmm, the humor that Martha’s sketch had, as far as the ‘old man’ and the ‘new creation’. And when Carole came in there was a lot of laughter because her portrayal was very similar to Martha’s portrayal of the ‘old man’; and kind of a haughty ‘whatever’, and ah… And the best I can say is that people were made enormously uncomfortable, and I think devastated on some level, ah, when John came into the sketch, because they had just come off Carole’s old man, and were kind of still laughing at that. And then John came in and they wanted to still kind of laugh, because they’re like yeah, this is, you know, this is a sketch and it is a play, and… I don’t know, I guess for me that’s when the Holy Spirit kind of crashed down really hard, and John was crying, and everybody at the tables were crying. And then it just got very, very quiet in there. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was just quiet.
(Jacquelyn) And all you could hear was the weeping.
(Jennifer) Yes.
