Pay Me Later

Luke 14:12-14 - He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

The old expression, “Pay me now; pay me later,” did not make much sense to me when I first heard it. Of course, I would rather keep my money now and pay whatever I owed at a later date. Similarly, the promise of a long term reward had a hard time competing with immediate gratification. Many of us give in regularly without thought. Yet, choosing the short term gain over the long term reward is rarely the best option. That attitude is one of the core causes of the Great Recession we are still overcoming: I want it NOW. I will buy it NOW. I will figure out how to pay for it LATER.

We Americans are not alone in pursuing immediate gratification. Jesus attacked the shortsightedness of those in his generation with the story above. People threw parties and invited their friends, relatives, and rich neighbors in the hope of repayment through a return invitation. There was no doubt the immediate benefit of prestige in their eyes, as well. Yet, Jesus told them to go against the normal, seemingly sensible, trend and invite those who could not repay. Why? Because their payback would come in the resurrection after this life is through. That is a long time to wait.

Waiting like this goes against our very human nature. How can Jesus ask this of us? Because the later payback is far greater than the immediate. Even the old adage, “Pay me now; pay me later,” only makes sense because the later payment is so much more. Today, make sure you do not sell out an enormous long term reward for a short lived immediate indulgence.