The Gospel of Luke: When Jesus Comes to Dinner - Confronting Passivity, Pride and Presumption - Video

"On a Sabbath day, Jesus went to the home of a leading Pharisee to eat with him. The people there were all watching him very closely. A man with a bad disease was there in front of him. Jesus said to the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it right or wrong to heal on the Sabbath day?” But they would not answer his question. So he took the man and healed him. Then he sent the man away. Jesus said to the Pharisees and teachers of the law, “If your son or work animal falls into a well on the Sabbath day, you know you would pull him out immediately.” The Pharisees and teachers of the law could say nothing against what he said. Then Jesus noticed that some of the guests were choosing the best places to sit. So he told this story: “When someone invites you to a wedding, don’t sit in the most important seat. They may have invited someone more important than you. And if you are sitting in the most important seat, they will come to you and say, ‘Give this man your seat!’ Then you will have to move down to the last place and be embarrassed. “So when someone invites you, go sit in the seat that is not important. Then they will come to you and say, ‘Friend, move up here to this better place!’ What an honor this will be for you in front of all the other guests. Everyone who makes themselves important will be made humble. But everyone who makes themselves humble will be made important.” Then Jesus said to the Pharisee who had invited him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite only your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. At another time they will pay you back by inviting you to eat with them. Instead, when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, and the blind. Then you will have great blessings, because these people cannot pay you back. They have nothing. But God will reward you at the time when all godly people rise from death.” One of the men sitting at the table with Jesus heard these things. The man said to him, “It will be a great blessing for anyone to eat a meal in God’s kingdom!” Jesus said to him, “A man gave a big dinner. He invited many people. When it was time to eat, he sent his servant to tell the guests, ‘Come. The food is ready.’ But all the guests said they could not come. Each one made an excuse. The first one said, ‘I have just bought a field, so I must go look at it. Please excuse me.’ Another man said, ‘I have just bought five pairs of work animals; I must go and try them out. Please excuse me.’ A third man said, ‘I just got married; I can’t come.’ “So the servant returned and told his master what happened. The master was angry. He said, ‘Hurry! Go into the streets and alleys of the town. Bring me the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ “Later, the servant said to him, ‘Master, I did what you told me to do, but we still have places for more people.’ The master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and country roads. Tell the people there to come. I want my house to be full! I tell you, not one of those people I invited first will eat any of this food I prepared." Luke 14: 1-24 In these verses, we see Jesus at a party, but the point of the event is not just to have dinner. Rabbis and preachers were invited to this meal. What’s important to know is that invitations to a party like this would be selected very specifically. Usually, care would be taken to make sure none of those invited would be unclean or risk making other guests unclean. Given that the man with dropsy was present, it’s likely the religious elite has cooked up this scene to see if Jesus would heal the man in defiance of the religious elite’s ideas of law and order. And Jesus is about to turn the tables upside down. Jesus disregards their “passivity toward the broken.” Contrary to what they perceive, Jesus knows why he was invited. So when he heals that man, he asks them a question: “What is the point of God’s law.” The lack of response to Jesus's question shows their lack of understanding, and it uncovers that they are violating the spirit of God’s law by weaponizing the letter of God’s law. We should beware of any desire to use God’s law to justify harming the broken. Jesus disregards the Pharisees' emphasis on pride. Most dinner events like this would have utilized a U-shaped table. The host would be at the center, and the least important people would have been at the tips of the U. In healing this man Jesus shows the Pharisees that they are wrong for believing they are the most important people at this dinner. It's so telling that the Pharisees were fighting for position still EVEN AFTER seeing a miracle! This miracle did not change their hearts. Jesus's parable tells us that we should remain humble in all scenarios, because we will overestimate our importance, and God will show us how lowly we are. Pride doesn’t always look like arrogance; sometimes it’s insecurity. But the most important person in the world already sees us in full. Jesus disregards misdefined priority as he turns his attention from the guests to the host. The host set up this party so that those around Him would be able to show favor toward the host. But Jesus tells the host that when we give honor by inviting guests to a party we should invite the poor, because the poor cannot repay and instead we will be repaid by heaven. The real return of any investment will be the returns we receive in heaven. Finally, Jesus disregards their “presumption.” It seems like this last person is completely oblivious that the sermon is about him directly. So Jesus tells another story - another parable - telling him, “I’m talking to you!” At this dinner party in the parable, the religious elite believe that they can reject the invitation because they’ll always be invited. And to that, the master rejects them, and invites the others, the poor the lame and sick. And tells the religious elite, that their presumption that they deserve to be at the party, is completely wrong. No one deserves to be before the Lord. It is at His mercy that we are invited, and should all consider ourselves to be the poor and sick and lame. May we all approach the Lord’s throne with humility and delight and ask Him where we should be seated!