so tonight i’m wriing about Luke 14:1-14. we come upon the story in the midst of Jesus’ teaching ministry, again on His way to Jerusalem. He is making the pharisees extremely angry. in chapter 11 of Luke Jesus has dinner with the pharisees and calls them fake, telling them that they won’t enter the Kingdom”…and the pharisees became hostile…”(vs. 53) then in chapter 12 Jesus turns right around and preaches about the pharisees and their hypocracy while thousands have gathered. He continues in chapter 13 by healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath…in the synagogue. so we all get that point that Jesus is walking on some thin ice with the pharisees.
in chapter 14 Jesus is now having dinner on the Sabbath “in the home of a leader of the Pharisees,” (vs. 1) and people are watching His every move. so He decides to heal a man right then and there, and question the pharisees about this. they are rendered speechless. then Jesus takes the opportunity to teach all who are there a lesson, that is not so simple.
He starts out by addressing the guests who are there for the dinner. everyone seemed to be heading for the seat with the greatest honor. but Jesus said nope, “take the lowest place at the foot of the table.” (vs. 10) He instructs them to basically be humble so that others may exalt us. Jesus goes on to address the host of the dinner and says, “don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors…they will invite you back…instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” (vs. 12-13)
my take…it’s not about you and i and the barriers we put around life and what makes sense to us. we need to stay humble and not seek to make much of ourselves, but leave that up to God. and we don’t need to invite people who don’t need an invitation…if we were having a dinner, our family and friends wouldn’t need an invitation, it would just be understood. but there are those people who we don’t know all that well or maybe “don’t deserve” an invitation. for them to be at the dinner, they would need an invitation.
life is not about making us comfortable with how things are or making others comfortable for that matter. as believers we need to be inviting those people to a relationship with God, that don’t already have one or in the eyes of most may not even deserve one. i don’t deserve that relationship nor all of the blessings that come from it, but someone invited me…that’s what it’s all about, you and i sharing an invitation with those who need it. it’s about making that dinner as big as possible.
who is it today that needs an invitation from me or from you?
