This week we are looking at an event from history that is recorded in a
section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible called
the gospel of Luke. Yesterday we looked on as Luke
explained that Jesus was invited over to the home of one of the Pharisees one
Sabbath.
In addition to Jesus and the Pharisees, Luke explained
that a man was present at the meal who had dropsy. The Pharisees were watching Him closely, hoping to catch
Jesus behaving in a way that would violate the religious rules of the day so
that they would be able to discredit Jesus’ status and credibility among the
people.
Luke then explained that Jesus, aware that He was
being watched closely by this group of self-righteous religious leaders,
responded by asking them a question: "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath,
or not?" The Pharisees, however, refused to answer the question but
instead remained silent. Upon receiving no answer to His question, Jesus miraculously
healed the man and sent him on his way.
And as the man who had been miraculously healed by
Jesus went on his way, Jesus asked the self righteous religious leaders a
second and much more personal question: "Which one of you will have a son
or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath
day?" Jesus here was making reference to a command from God that is
recorded for us in a section of a letter in the Old Testament of the Bible,
called the book of Deuteronomy.
Luke then explained that the religious leaders could
make no reply to this. The religious leaders could make no reply to this
because Jesus had exposed the reality that for these religious leaders, keeping
God’s rules regarding the Sabbath took precedent over keeping God’s command to demonstrate
God’s mercy. Jesus exposed the reality that these religious leaders had set
aside God’s command to be merciful to instead focus exclusively on a
painstakingly perfect Sabbath observance.
Jesus also revealed the reality that one of the basic
aspects of the Sabbath is to demonstrate mercy. You see the Sabbath was a time
to reflect of God’s position as our Creator and God’s provision and mercy to
His people as their provider. And the Sabbath was to be an opportunity to
demonstrate the mercy of God in a way that reflected God to those around them
who did not know God.
After healing a man and breaking one of their rules,
Jesus then began to tell a parable. Now a parable is an earthly story designed
to reveal a deeper spiritual truth. So let’s look at this parable together,
beginning in Luke 14:7-11:
And He began speaking a parable to the
invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of
honor at the table, saying to
them, "When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the
place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited
by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this man,' and then in
disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. "But when you are invited,
go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you
comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will have honor in
the sight of all who are at the table with you. "For everyone who exalts
himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Now to fully understand the significance of this parable,
let’s take a minute and place ourselves at this meal
that Jesus had been invited to. You see, as Jesus looked around at what was
happening at this meal, He made an observation about the hearts of the self
righteous religious people that were at the meal. As the meal was going on,
Jesus observed how everyone was picking out the places of honor at the dinner
table.
In the culture of the day, these would be the seats that
were located next to the master of the house or the host of the meal. These
were the VIP seats. Jesus, after making this observation, explained that
instead of focusing on trying to get the VIP seats, their focus should be on
occupying the last place.
In the culture of the day, the last place at a meal or
wedding reception was the seat that was located in the corner, furthest away
from the master of the house or the host. These were the seats that were the
last to be filled; you did not want to sit in the last place. These were the
obstructed view tickets in the upper deck.
Jesus then explained that the reason why one should focus
on those seats was due to the fact that there is nowhere to go but up. I mean
the person who invited you can only move you to a better seat. However, if you
try to vie for the VIP seats, the person who invited you could decide that you
are not worthy of those seats and publicly remove you from those seats. And as
you might imagine, that would be quite embarrassing. You would be disgraced
publicly, wouldn’t you?
However, if you are sitting far away from the VIP seats
in the obstructed view seats and the person who invited you searches you out
and places you in the VIP seats, you would be honored in front of everyone
else, wouldn’t you? Of course you would. Jesus then hammered this point home with
a powerful statement: "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Jesus point is that the person who considers themselves
better than others and looks down on others by attempting to seize position, power,
and glory for themselves will have the position, power, and glory taken away
from them by God. By contrast, the person who has a humble attitude, the person
who places others before themselves will have their reputation enhanced by God
as a result of their attitude towards others. Now if that was not enough, Jesus
continued by telling a second parable, which Luke records for us in Luke 14:12-14:
And He also went on to say 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, otherwise they
may also invite you in return and that
will be your repayment. "But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame,
the blind, and you will be
blessed, since they do not have the
means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the
righteous."
In this parable, Jesus attacked the insider vs. outsider
mentality of the self righteous religious leaders of His day. You see, these
self righteous leaders were a part of the in crowd. And as a part of the in
crowd, these self righteous religious people would have dinner parties for
their other self righteous religious friends.
The expectation, however, was that if you were invited to
one of these insider dinner parties, that you would invite the person who
invited you to their party to your party. So, if these self righteous religious
people would invite ten other self righteous religious people over to their
house for a dinner party, the expectation would be that they would receive
invitations to ten other dinner parties. However, if you were an outsider that
did not measure up to the prestige and power of an insider so that you could
return the invitation; you would not get an invitation.
Now here is a question: has anything changed? Is this not
a natural temptation that we still face today? Are we not tempted to extend
invitations to others so that we can be invited by others to be a part of the
insiders?
What is true for us as individuals is also true for us as
a church. As Andy Stanley points out, the natural trajectory of a church is to
focus inward. The natural trajectory of church is to focus on the insiders who
are already here at the expense of the outsiders who are not here.
Jesus responded to this temptation by challenging the
self righteous religious people of his day to change their focus. Instead of
focusing on what they would receive from those who are already on the inside,
Jesus called those listening to focus on the needs of those outside without any
expectation of receiving anything in return.
Jesus then explained that by focusing on those who are
outsiders without any expectation of receiving anything in return, one would
experience the blessing of being the recipient of God’s Divine favor at the end
of God’s story, when followers of Jesus will be a part of God’s royal reign
throughout all eternity as part of the kingdom of God.
Jesus point was that the focus of His followers is to be
on the outsiders who are far from God. The focus is to be on receiving
recognition from God, not from others who are already insiders. Luke then
recorded for us how the self righteous religious people responded to Jesus
challenge in verse 15:
When one of
those who were reclining at the table with
Him heard this, he said to Him, "Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in
the kingdom of God!"
Luke tells us that one of the
self righteous religious people at the meal responded by making a statement
that was designed to make himself look spiritually mature. This statement, if
communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded
something like this: “How especially favored by God are those who will get to
go to the dinner party that God will have for us in Heaven”.
You see, this self righteous
religious person believed that, just as it was for those at this meal, the
invitation to God’s dinner party for all eternity in Heaven would be for only a
select few. From this self righteous religious person’s perspective, only a
select few would be invited to be a part of God’s kingdom in Heaven.
However this self righteous
religious person’s statement led Jesus to launch into a third parable, which we
will look at Friday…
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