A Place at the Table

Pastor Rus Says Welcome to the sermon podcast for First Lutheran in Shelby Ohio for August 28th, 2016 with Pastor Rus Yoak. Attending a wedding can be a strange experience of odd social graces. Some are more odd than others. What do you do when you get stuck at the kiddie table? Or stuck sitting next to your least favorite cousin? How do you get to the good table and what makes it good? Jesus takes all of this and neatly explains life with it today. Luke 14:1, 7-14 14:1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. 14:7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 14:8 "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 14:9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 14:10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 14:11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." 14:12 He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 14:13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14:14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."