Jesus, the awkward dinner guest - Luke 14 - The cost of discipleship and the Great Reversal

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(Click here to read Luke 13)

(Click here to read Luke 14)

Luke 14:7-11 (ESV)

⁷ Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ⁸ “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and sit in 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 table with you. ¹¹ For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus continues to challenge his disciples with the cost of following him. His is the way of the cross (Luke 9:23-27), execution as an insurrectionist at the hands of the empire. A life of true Justice and humble Love is also a life of resistance. The law of the new Kingdom is to love one's neighbour as one's self, to give one's life in service to the poor, outcast, and marginalized.

At the end of the chapter, Jesus reminds his disciples of the cross again (vv25-35). But if they do count the cost and follow, they will be a salt in the world, a preservative sustaining life, and a flavour of the Kingdom to Come.

Luke 14:12-24 (ESV)

¹² He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

¹⁵ When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” ¹⁶ But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. ¹⁷ And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ ¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ ¹⁹ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ ²⁰ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ ²¹ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²² And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. ²⁴ For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Jesus is a tough dinner guest. Luke records frequent awkward conversations with religious people around their dinner tables. This chapter repeats the theme. Once again, Jesus is confronts the religious elite with the radical difference between the Kingdom of God as they conceive it, and the Truth and Justice and Freedom that he demonstrates.

The proper religious folk still prefer to demonstrate their faithfulness by following their interpretations of godly customs blindly, whatever the consequence. When given the opportunity once again to heal on the Sabbath, Jesus challenges the faithful to consider the value of rules that contradict living according to love and freedom (vv1-6).

In verse 5, he reminds his hosts that they would certainly help one of their own animals in need on the Sabbath. It must be right to be compassionate to a person in need, even if it seems to contradict the strict literal rules of religion. His brief analogy here is expanded to three stories in chapter 15, the lost coin, sheep, and son, and ties the two chapters together (click here to read Luke 15, and here to read notes on the "lost" parables).

(the second link will work when the notes are posted on May 31, 2012)

It seems it may have been trendy to have Popular Rabbi Jesus visiting your home. Perhaps he was seen as hip and bohemian. Certainly he was popular. Thousands listened to him. But when alone among other contemporary teachers, Jesus did not pander. Instead, he challenges them to open their homes to the crowds whom he loves, to expand their hospitality far beyond their own benefit, even sacrificially for the benefit of others.

Such is the order of the Kingdom of God. It is costly, but it is worth infinitely more.

Unfortunately, the beginning of the next chapter reveals their continued misunderstanding. The religious elite have no complaint with Jesus eating with them or they him, no matter how awkward a guest he may be. But when Jesus demonstrates exactly what he had been teaching them simply by sharing life with the scallywags and scoundrels, they simply cannot abide it.

Luke 15:1-2 (ESV)

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. ² And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

Such judgment and loss of reputation is only one part of the cost of following in the footsteps of Jesus. Would we rather be counted among the poor, or the wealthy? Would we rather have a spotless reputation, or be known as a friend of the outcasts?

Jesus demonstrates the love of the Kingdom as his love for sinners. A love at his own expense. A love even for us. Even for you. Will we do the same?

 

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The first part reminds my wife of Godspell.

vv12-14 – Again Jesus is teaching about taking care of the poor.

When you are generous with the poor, God will repay you.

vv25-35 – It seems that Jesus is saying to take great consideration and care before being his disciple.

Jesus’ teachings are a bit more cryptic in this gospel. Perhaps this had something to do with Luke being a doctor. Maybe he was speaking to an upper crust crowd. Maybe he’s challenging them to be generous because he’s writing to people who have a lot.

Woe to the Hypocrites! Jesus lays it down on the religious and political elite - Luke 11 part 2

(Click here to read Luke 11)
(see the previous entry for part one of Luke 11)

More dramatic and intense than the woes to the rich of Luke chapter 6 are the severe and dramatic warnings Jesus levels toward the Pharisees and lawyers, the cultural religious and political elite, at the end of chapter 11.

Luke 11:37-38 (ESV)

³⁷ While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. ³⁸ The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.

When Jesus is judged by a pharisee for not following the custom of ritual washing before a meal, it seems that he's finally had enough. Whether because they've followed him looking for criticisms (Luke 5:30-6:11 and notes), or seem to honestly come upon them at dinner parties (Luke 7:36-50 and notes), Jesus can't make one decision trivial or righteous without some comment by these cultural watchdogs. And he's had it.

Here come the woes.

Luke 11:39-41

And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ⁴⁰ You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? ⁴¹ But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

WOE #1 – You have greed instead of integrity (vv39-41)

Jesus uses the metaphor of cleaning a dish only on the outside to look good for others. But he goes further than just suggesting the inside of their dishes must be cleaned. He says that the contents should be given to the poor. So this double edged sword suggests that not only are their outer lives a false front, but that their inner lives are full of greed and self indulgence. Only generosity can cure this ill.

(Jesus doesn't actually say “woe” here. He just calls them fools. He's still warming up. Some put this first woe with the next one, making only six woes total.)

Luke 11:42

⁴² “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

WOE #2 – You have wrong priorities (v42)

The pharisees interpreted every action of the law. Defining every command to the finest detail. Yet in the details, they'd forgotten the entire point of the law to begin with. In Chapter 10, a lawyer tries this same trick, asking Jesus the specifics of who he is commanded to love or not love when told he must love his neighbour. Jesus did not allow him the control and comfort of a perfect legal boundary. The purpose and point of the law is love and justice. Beyond that is missing the point.

Luke 11:43

⁴³ Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.

WOE #3 – You are people pleasers (v43)

It is the nature of the empires of the world to seek the affirmation of others. It is the nature of the Kingdom of God to be a servant of all. In taking praise and honour from people, they are stealing credit that belongs to God alone, and tempting others with idolatry. There is only one Rabbi, and we are all disciples. The humility of discipleship in Jesus is greater than the greatest honour of being a teacher or spiritual leader in the world.

Luke 11:44

⁴⁴ Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”

WOE #4 – Your influence makes people unclean without their knowledge (v44)

Jesus tells the pharisees they are like unmarked graves. This is a terrible accusation. The Jewish law said that to come into contact with a grave made a person ceremonially unclean. Jesus is suggesting that the pharisee's influence actually makes people unclean before God, but the appearance of holiness and religion makes it appear as though this is not so. Their laws and regulations do nothing to purify a person, but they do ease the conscience. This would make a person even worse off then they were to begin with. It's a double hypocrisy.

Here is where a lawyer speaks up, saying that Jesus is insulting them as well.

Luke 11:45

⁴⁵ One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”

Rather than letting up, he turns his fury from the pharisees onto the lawyers that accompany them.

Luke 11:46

⁴⁶ And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

WOE #5 – Your religious rules are unbearable (v46)

By quantifying every detail of the people's lives, the lawyers had taken a faith intended to let people know the God that had set them free from slavery, and turned its practices into a slavery itself. What a perversion. Ironically, as “experts” in the law, they likely knew ways to follow its letter without the same depth of consequence, just as a person with greater resources may do today. This is probably why Jesus implies that the burdens aren't as great for themselves.

Luke 11:47-51

⁴⁷ Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. ⁴⁸ So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. ⁴⁹ Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ ⁵⁰ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, ⁵¹ from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

WOE #6 – You are as guilty as your forefathers (vv47-51)

Jesus accuses the lawyers of being the same as all the generations before them who had ignored the pleas of prophets who had called on the people to return to justice. He is crying out in the same way for people to leave behind their control and striving and burdensome selfish powergames for the truth of the gospel of the Kingdom found in himself. They reject him as others rejected the prophets of old. Their guilt is the same.

Luke 11:52

⁵² Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

WOE #7 – Your perversion of scripture has hidden the truth of salvation from yourself and all you teach (v52)

Because the lawyers had turned the faith intended to teach of justice and love into a meaningless set of minute personal rituals, the path of faith in Jesus had been obscured. The scriptures revealed Jesus, but they had turned them into an impossible set of rituals. They were self deceived, and they in turn deceived others. Woe indeed.

The pharisees and lawyers are not convicted by Jesus' angry sermon. Their efforts to trap him are redoubled.

(Jesus is not given the right to remain silent.)

Luke 11:53-54

⁵³ As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, ⁵⁴ lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

Luke 5 and 6 – Jesus' controversies with the Pharisees

Our tendency to imagine Jesus as a young man being criticized and judged by an elderly religious elite should be considered. The Pharisees that hounded Jesus during his ministry were probably young, perhaps even younger than Jesus and his disciples. Jesus contemporary peers would have been the respected Pharisee Rabbis Hillel (who's teaching sounded a lot like Jesus) and Gamaliel (who appears in the gospels and in Acts, and to whom Paul the apostle was a disciple). These men were probably Jesus' age. But these and other "important" Pharisees are mentioned by name, and Gamaliel in particular was a lot more thoughtful, and not as critical as these Pharisees that caused Jesus so much trouble. So we can assume that the ones following Jesus around and being critical were lesser, younger Pharisees, possibly disciples to these greater ones. If so, they may have been as young as teenagers, and probably no older than their early twenties. The disciples, however, were mostly called from full-time work, or apprenticeships at the least. They were probably at the youngest only around the same age as these Pharisees, but most were probably older. Jesus himself was thirty, probably a good ten years or more ahead of these Pharisees. This significant age difference would have been even more significant in the first century, and thirty years would definitely not have made Jesus a young man in his day.

Here are the five times Jesus clashes with the Pharisees in Luke 5 and 6.

1 – Jesus heals a paralytic – Luke 5:17-26 – Jesus has authority to forgive sins.

2 – Jesus calls Levi the Tax Collector, and then parties with his friends – Luke 5:27-32 – Jesus came to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous.

3 – Jesus' disciples don't fast – Luke 5:33-39 – Jesus' physical presence makes fasting unnecessary

4 – Jesus' Disciples “harvest” grain on the Sabbath – Luke 6:1-5 – Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath

5 – Jesus heals on the Sabbath – Luke 6:6-11 – Jesus says it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath

Luke 1-5 - Some last thoughts

The disciples carried the names of recent Jewish revolutionaries. They were probably common names at the time, which shows how important revolution and revolutionaries were in the public consciousness.

Luke 1:2-3 - Luke calls The recipient of the gospel "most excellent Theophilus", a title reserved for people in high rank or office, and only ever used by Luke to speak of a government official (Acts 23:26, 24:2, 26:25). It is notable, then, that Luke is willing to take such a critical view of wealth and the authority of the empire.

Luke 1:41 - Elizabeth was "filled with the Spirit" and prophesied, just as her husband does in v67.

Luke 2:52 - No matter how extraordinary he may have been, Jesus' humanity is revealed in his growth and learning. He needed to learn, to increase, just as any human does.

Luke 3:5 - Mountains lowered and valleys filled - The context of Luke makes it clear that an explicit social-ethical consequence should be interpreted in this passage. The poetry is echoed in both Luke 14:11 and 18:14, where it says clearly that those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and rose who humble themselves will be exalted. Luke 1:52-53 said that ruler will be removed, and the humble lifted up. Luke's gospel has consequences that effect the entire order of the world, not just the heart of the individual.

Chapter 5 - New Wineskin

It is well accepted that the "New Wineskin" Jesus refers to is the New Covenant that was promised in the Hebrew scriptures. This covenant is described in the New Testament as being the gospel of the Kingdom inaugurated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, received by faith for salvation and forgiveness of sins.

 The "Old Wineskin" is the old covenant, the law of Moses. But left there, it is too easy to imagine that what is meant is simply one set of theologies replaced by another. In relaity, the law of Moses represented an entire culture and way of life, affecting the individual, the family, and the structure of government and law. This change of wine and wineskin is more than just acceptance of a new creed, it is an entirely new way of being, which will require a new system to contain it. The hearts of individuals will be changed, yes. But this will result in a change in their actions. And these changes in the way people live necessitate a revolution in the order of the ways of the world. The "new wineskin", therefore, can just as legitimately be described as an entirely new order by consequence of this new covenant written on the hearts of Jesus' followers. This new order is the Kingdom of Heaven. Followers of Jesus are right in seeking it's manifestation on earth.