Compassion and Humility

 

Luke 14:1-24

The Parable of the Great Feast

Chinese used to have many siblings and all were required to return home from respective places afar, gathered at the table in the Chinese New Year eve, to have meal together. This is the ‘reunion dinner’, is an important event for Chinese. To partake at the table signifies solidarity and mutual acceptance among members of the same family. At this reunion moment, the parents are the happiest person. 

The world of Luke Gospel is very Asian. One of the motifs in Luke is ‘feasting or banquet’. Jesus is depicted having pleasure in eating with people from all walks of life, especially the poor, the unclean, the sinners, altogether are the marginalized group of the society. Jesus himself came from the vast majority of poor peasant and artisan society.

Luke actually uses feasting as a framework to illustrate the gospel of the kingdom of God. Today’s text is centered on such feasting context.

From v1, v3, we are told that, on one Sabbath, Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. The Pharisees and Scribes were watching Jesus carefully. Judging from the conflicts between them happened in the preceding text, we know that this is a hostile situation with hypocritical hosts, set out to trap Jesus for breaking of the law.

Today, you as a witness of Christ, will you accept this kind of invitation? But Jesus anyhow attended the banquet because he took the act of eating with people as an opportunity to teach and testify the gospel of the kingdom of God.

Let’s see what did Jesus do and say:

God’s heart for the needy and the unclean

There in front of Jesus was a man suffering from dropsy (swollen limbs; dropsy is an abnormal accumulation of fluid in bodily tissues and cavities. And it is deemed unclean).

Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So, taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away.

Then he asked, them, “If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?” and they had nothing to say.

Through this healing act and questioning, Jesus exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the Scribes who took pride in strict observance of Sabbath and cleanliness law.

So, we see the tension rises between the pride and unbelief of the religious elites and God’s acceptance of the needy and the unclean. Against the backdrop of healing act, Jesus continued teaching people with feasting parable in the feast itself!

God will exalt everyone who humbles himself

Jesus then noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them: "Do not take the place of honor for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host may come and say to you, give this man your seat, then you would be humiliated and have to take the least important place. But you are to take the lowest place, so that the host will come to you and say, friend, move up higher. Then you are honored (vv.7—10).

Jesus’ word alluded to Proverb 25:6—7, “Do not exalt yourself in the king’s presence, and don not claim a place among great men; It is better for him to say to you, “Come up here,” than for him to humiliate you before a noble man.”

Jesus words reflect the wisdom of everyday life but it also points further to the revelation of the kingdom of God that is: “God will humble everyone who exalts himself, and exalt everyone who humbles himself (v.11)."

Jesus said this to criticize the mentality of the Pharisees and Scribes who are proud of high position, who consider own self holy, who are self-righteous and lovers of self-importance, but the fact is they will be judged by God.

Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God

V13, Jesus then turned to the host, issued a command: “But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled people, the lame, the blind.”

Jesus said this is to critic prevalent cultural in which the host only invites people of similar or higher status, so as to build a mutual benefit network. On the other hand, the four kinds of people ought to be invited are of the lowest position in the society, being looked down and marginalized; especially the last three are considered sinners who are excluded from salvation.

Inviting these people or accepting them into a person’s own circle, will do no good because they cannot repay anything in kind. Besides, having this kind of people as guests would jeopardy the honor of the host. However, God will reward the host for doing so (v.14), and conversely, the Pharisees who do not accept these people will not be received by God at the resurrection of the righteous.

The above command of Jesus to the host is also applicable to all Christ’s followers. They are to share their wealth with the poor, taking care of the needy. Not just being the ethical instruction, the inclusion of the marginalized group also demonstrates the heart of the messianic feast in the kingdom of God as the Great Banquet in following text, vv.15—24 reveals.

The Pharisees and Scribes who initially were invited to the banquet, due to their pride and self-righteous, they rejected the gospel, thus would not receive the salvation. This scenario was even more apparent in the background 60-70’s AD when the gospel books were written. By then the mainstream Jewish society had utterly rejected the Jesus’ movement.

Then the servants of God like we all being the disciples of Christ, are to go out to invite the lowly, the marginalized, the humbled sinners into the feast. These people will be exalted by God, being able to eat in the feast which means receiving the salvation.

The feasting parable reveals to us God is so generous and compassionate. Human society perpetuates structures of injustice and exclusion, but God intervenes on the side of the oppressed. The disruptive effect of this intervention is presented as a reversal of the structures of society: those with power, status, riches and self-righteous are put down and those without them are exalted into his kingdom unconditionally.

This implies that we are saved and exalted solely by the grace of God, not by own merits. So, for this reason, we ought to be humble and love our neighbors, accepting everyone even they are of lower status, people that we don’t like and find discomfort to associate with. In so doing, we testify that a new community is born! This community is fed by the grace of God alone. This is the gospel of God’s kingdom, of God’s rule.

Early church context:

In the early church context, reaching out to people with gospel and baptizing them is not an issue, but as to unconditionally accept everyone into the community of faith, especially the unclean and the gentiles seemed not an easy thing.

We recall the event in Act 10 of which Peter struggled so much whether to visit the gentile, Cornelius’ home. Peter showed up at the Cornelius' house to preach the gospel of Christ, only 'because God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean," then Peter agreed to baptize them since they have already received the Holy Spirit as sign of God's accepting them into the family of God. Peter himself testified that, “While speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message."

On the other hand, Paul in Ephesians 2:13—18 says, we were formerly alienated from God and from fellow men due to our sin, but by the blood of Christ, the dividing wall of hostility has been broken down!

Now we are in Christ as one new person. We have been reconciled to God and we ought in turn to share peace with everyone through mutual acceptance. Ethnicity and all other differences must not be the barriers anymore to divide us.

Today church context:

Today many of our urbanized churches have grouped ourselves on certain common ground, for example: a unique community, race, spoken language and income bracket. Church going has become a life style of the middle class, so much so when a person from the grass root, not the middle affluent class, walks into the church, we do not know how to have fellowship with him. We feel uncomfortable to have him around so we tend to ignore him. The irony is that Jesus Christ spent most of his time, walking through the vicinity of Galilee Sea, ministering to the grass roots people.

This is the challenge to us, as the redeemed people of God, in living out the gospel of the kingdom of God, which requires the acceptance of people who are of the same circle, and also people who are beyond our own circle to partake in the Lord’s feast together. We need to constantly examine ourselves, are we here building a wall of segregation or constantly gathering as one at the Lord’s Table.

Conclusion

What is the identity marker as God’s people?

Not the profession, education level, income bracket, language spoken, skin color or academic credentials, nor religious taboos. The Gospel Books emphasis our identity marker is “people from diverse background, gather together as one people, feasting in the kingdom of God”!

We are all called from diverse background but one thing in common is that, we are here because of the grace of God. No one has anything to boast of and justify oneself.

Let us do as Jesus did and commanded, that is, walk into the community around us, crossing every boundary, to share our lives with people, extend our care, concern and acceptance to those whom the Lord also accepts.

Our Lord is indeed full of grace for everyone who humbles himself, who is willing to accept and love his neighbor. He will exalt us and provide for all our needs as we gather as one in his table. By this we can truly declare: “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God” (v15).