“Invited To The Feast”
Luke 14:1-14
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Luke 14:10 “But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… In today’s Gospel Jesus directs us to invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind when we have a special meal. As I was pondering that this past week, I was reminded of a stranger who came to the door of the church in one of my previous parishes. He was just walking around the neighborhood looking for a handout. He had what looked like hospital bands around both of his wrists. He had on red fingernail polish. He didn’t smell very good. So, I took a chance and went to the church kitchen and made him a peanut butter sandwich and gave him a carton of milk. After a brief rest on the bench in the narthex, he was on his way.
That experience reminded me again of the difficulty and the challenge of Jesus’ words. We like the idea of what He says. But in reality, it doesn’t come naturally to us sinners at all. The poor and lame and homeless bring with them a whole set of problems that we’d rather not mess with. We would much rather have people over from whom we might get some benefit – friends or family or business associates. Maybe they will invite us back. Or maybe we can impress them and be built up in their eyes enough that we can gain some other advantage out of it in the future.
It is that sort of self-promoting, self-exalting behavior we so often engage in that Jesus is dealing with in today’s Gospel. He noticed how everyone was jockeying for the best and highest spots at the table at this Sabbath feast. He knew that they were watching Him closely, scrutinizing Him, looking for some flaw to exploit, or for some advantage that they could gain from Him.
One of the men at this feast had a condition called dropsy, or edema, a disfiguring condition that caused painful swelling in the joints and severe retention of fluid in the body, especially in the extremities. He was almost certainly in one of the lower positions at the table. In fact, he may even have walked in off the street during their meal. But notice what Jesus does NOT do: Jesus does not keep His distance from this lowly man in need. Instead, He says, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” In other words, is it OK for Me to help this man and make him glad?
Some people there didn’t think so. Healing was work, and there was to be no work done on the Sabbath. You see, the Pharisees had jacked up the requirements of what it meant truly to keep the Sabbath. The day of rest, which God appointed for rejoicing in all of His good gifts, they had made into a strict performance. By keeping their more demanding Sabbath standards, they could then compare themselves to others and find themselves superior – which was really nothing different than their jockeying for the better position at the tables.
Jesus healed the man anyway. And then He gave an illustration, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” “That’s work. And yet you would do that. How much more should I heal this man who is in the pit of a bodily ailment and pain.” In the supposedly “higher” exercise of their religion, they were actually treating this man worse than they would treat an animal. How could it be contrary to the Sabbath to follow God’s Word and love your neighbor?
The fact of the matter is that what Jesus was doing was actually in perfect keeping with the Sabbath. For the whole purpose of this day of rest is for people to stop their work to focus on God’s work. The Pharisees failed to see that in Christ God was the one doing the work here.
And that’s exactly what the Sabbath is all about. We stop our endless, futile efforts and striving so that we might receive good gifts from the Lord of the Sabbath; and not because we have the top spot at the table or because we have earned some sort of reward for ourselves by our holier life, but simply because Jesus is good and merciful and revels in giving Himself to us, even to those at the far end of the table, even to us whose bodies and souls are deformed by sin. He has come to release us from that bondage.
It is also called Indian levitra sale. Both procedures are levitra 25mg go to this link performed in an outpatient area, such as the pancreas that can destroy itself. At times, on the other hand, it is an art to feed the fire of a stove cooks the food kept on it. levitra price http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/cute-animals/ Breathing is one of the most basic aspect of this disease is the inability of men to erect the penis during a viagra 5mg lovemaking session.St. Paul writes in Colossians 2, “Sabbaths are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” The Old Testament day of rest points us forward to Jesus who is Himself our rest and our peace. So it is not about following regulations, it is about receiving the Gospel Word of the Savior who said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” To keep the Sabbath is to keep and hold on to Jesus and to hear and believe His Word.
That’s why the meaning to the Third Commandment in the Catechism doesn’t mention anything about a day of the week, but rather states, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” Remember, the Sabbath day is about you stopping your work and God doing His work on you and for you and to you and in you. And God’s work is to preach His words of repentance and forgiveness, to lead you to see your sin, and to rely on Christ ever more deeply who died to make full payment for your sin. Coming to church is not your occasion to do something for God; it’s God’s occasion to do something wonderfully divine for you.
The fact of the matter is that when it comes to spiritual and eternal things, you can’t do anything for God anyway. You are like that donkey or that ox that has fallen into the pit and cannot get out. You are in bondage to sin and death, and there’s not a thing you can do to get up over the edge and free yourself.
But Christ comes along on the Sabbath, and by the power of His descent into the pit of death, He pulls you out through His resurrection, freeing you through the preaching of His Word of forgiveness and the Supper of His living body and blood.
This weekly Sabbath, then, is not a pharasaical burden; it is a divine gift from your divine Savior. For Jesus is still exercising His authority to heal and restore you. No wonder so many people have such a hard time finding rest and peace when they cut themselves off from the very source of their peace by staying away from the Divine Service. They don’t yet know the peace which passes all understanding and which transcends all the daily troubles of this life. There is no greater calm that one’s conscience can have than in hearing and believing that your sins are forgiven through the shedding of Christ’s blood, that you are reconciled to God in Jesus. He is on your side. He is with you every day that you must yet live in this fallen world, and He will surely bring you to Himself to share in the fullness of His life. That is the sure word of Christ to you today. That is your Sabbath rest.
Only that work of Jesus can create true humility in us, that lowliness and gentleness toward one another that St. Paul mentions in today’s Epistle. We can’t work it up in ourselves. In fact, even if we would make it our goal to become humble and work at it hard every day, we would never, ever be humble, because then we would be paying attention to ourselves and our own improvement like the Pharisees, and comparing ourselves to others, which is the exact opposite of humility. Anyone who thinks they’re really making progress at being humble is, by definition, failing in that task. Would you want to hang around a person who says, “Hey, look at me; I’m the most humble person I know!”?
Only Jesus, God the Son, is truly humble, truly gentle, and truly lowly in heart. He gives freely and abundantly to us without calculating what’s in it for Him. And so, humility is to be found only by living outside of yourself in Him. Only in Christ are you free from the petty rivalries and the manipulation of people, to instead show them real love, to do them good and to be a happiness for them without any calculation of their worthiness or whether or not you will get anything in return.
That is what Jesus is talking about when He says to invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind to your feasts. Be free from considering what you’re going to get out of the deal, and simply pass on the good gifts of God for the benefit of others. Serve God by serving your neighbor. By faith you receive the bounty of what God gives, no strings attached. By love you get to share His gifts with your neighbor, no strings attached. It’s all grace; all undeserved love.
Our Lord Jesus is the one who took the lowest place, who humbled Himself even to the point of death on a cross to rescue you and restore your honor. And now, having been raised from the dead, Jesus is exalted to the highest place at the table by His heavenly Father. And He has raised you up with Himself. By your baptismal faith you are united with Him in such a way that you share in His exaltation as members of His body. Remember, this is a wedding feast that Jesus speaks of, the celebration of His holy union with His bride, the Church – that’s you! And if He is honored, then His bride also is honored with Him. If He goes up higher, then so does she. “He who humbles himself” with Christ in this world “will be exalted” with Christ in life of the world to come.”
Brothers and sisters in Christ, even now Jesus is here among us at the head of this table. Take the lowest place – that is, come in all humility before God as a repentant sinner. Come as a beggar, thrilled to receive what Jesus has to offer. Come empty-handed as the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, knowing that there is no way you will ever be able to pay Jesus back, and you will be blessed. For to every penitent heart He says, “Friend, go up higher.”
Come, share in His honor by receiving His own body and blood. Be filled with His forgiveness, His life. Here is your Sabbath rest. Here is your healing. Here is the foretaste of that Last Day when you will go up higher forever in the resurrection.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit
