The Disarming Stories Jesus Told

Transcription

1 Parallels Banquet Luke The Disarming Stories Jesus Told 7 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, 8 "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, 9 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. 10 "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. 11 "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." 12 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. 13 "But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 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." 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!" 16 But He said to him, "A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; 17 and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, 'Come; for everything is ready now.' 18 "But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, 'I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.' 19 "Another one said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.' 20 "Another one said, 'I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.' 21 "And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, 'Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.' 22 "And the slave said, 'Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.' 23 "And the master said to the slave, 'Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. 24 'For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.'" 1

2 We ve been looking at the parables of Jesus Christ and seeing that in these little comparisons between things spiritual and things physical (the invisible set beside the visible), AND Jesus Christ is also sort of captivating us and helping us to see things in new ways in ways that can change us. Today, three short parables all having to do with social events and EATING and with the whole world of manners and customs of celebration and how we respond to others in those social contexts and what our responses tell us about how we view the world and how we view ourselves and how we view God. 1) The normal way of using social situations 2) The Inviting God and His Great Inversion 3) How the right r.s.v.p. changes the way you relate to others, to yourself and to God These three dinner parables were suggested by an actual dinner. Verse one of this chapter says that Jesus Christ was in the home of a clergyman (Pharisee) for a meal and they were watching Him closely. And it was at this social gathering/meal that Jesus Christ also (v.7) noticed them and their social customs. It s almost as if Heaven sent an anthropologist to observe how we do things here on the fallen planet and the anthropologist finds a very fruitful perch for His observations at a meal You learn a lot about people by the way they eat and you know from being with family and friends that a lot of stuff happens when people get together for meals and for celebrations and weddings holidays eating together we become more human (for better and for worse!) And Jesus Christ sees demonstrated all the rituals and the whole human dance that s sometimes called, the ethics of patronage that people in normal eating settings and social gatherings have their habits and manners and ways of establishing their status; there s a pecking order/etiquette. And IN that Mediterranean culture there were very definite rules. Social events were huge opportunities to sort of make your move. Who attends and where they are seated and what favors are done for whom and BY whom everything communicates! And Jesus Christ noticed how they literally positioned themselves in the seating, picking out places of honor. And he responds by depicting a scene where someone arrives at a wedding reception early and seats himself at the head table but that table is for the bridal party and the family and after everyone gets there, this seemingly important man is publically demoted and thereby shamed. 2

3 It would ve been so much better had he taken one of the cheap seats and the host may say, Move on up a little higher! and he d be publically honored. Then the moral of the story: Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. You can t get honor by promoting yourself someone else has to do it for you. SELF-PROMOTION is doomed to fail. Then He speaks to His own host for that Sabbath day meal: make sure when you are hosting people that it s for them and not for you. You may tell yourself that you re inviting people so you can love them or appreciate them and show them kindness or befriend them BUT it MAY very well BE that your main motive is to feather your own nest, to impress people or position yourself so that YOU will benefit from this invite You re using this invitation as a kind of insurance policy I ll do him a favor now and later when I need a favor he ll do one for me! looks like love but it s really self-love self-protection! Instead, says Jesus Christ, trust God to protect you and don t use people that way. If you want to bless and love people why not love those who have no social standing and can t repay you people despised by this patronage system the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. Then GOD will repay you at the resurrection of the righteous Trust God and stop the selfprotection dressed up as being nice. And when Jesus mentions the resurrection of the righteous someone at that Sabbath- daydinner blurts out Blessed is everyone who will eat bread on that resurrection day feast in the Kingdom of God with the Messiah And He answers the man as if to say, Are you sure you want to be there at that feast because you may not like the company! I am not sure they re your type! Then Jesus tells a third banquet story. I ve noticed that some young couples, as soon as they get engaged and set a date, they send out a card, not a formal wedding invite but a date holder save this date And that was apparently the ancient custom. You get a preliminary count and then you send messengers to say when the event is actually ready. And this host invites many people and many people apparently r.s.v.p. Yes! We ll be there! BUT when the actual day comes they all make excuses too busy to party! One has a new land acquisition. The other has a major livestock purchase (five yoke of oxen) and a third just got married. 3

4 The messenger returns and says, No one s coming and the wealthy host becomes angry. He s been shamed and dishonored. So, he gives his servant a new guest-list. Go bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. ( bring in like don t take no for an answer!) And then, because there s still room in this big house and because the host wants a full house and a big party he sends the servant out with a third guest list: whoever will come the despised and those not allowed to be in the city (unclean and homeless) and compel them to come in (because they ll think it s too good to be true so convince them!) And then Jesus comes out of the story and faces the people at the Sabbath-day dinner and says I tell you all none of those excuse makers will taste My dinner Now every culture has its ways of assigning status. Many of our manners and customs are designed to reinforce the status-system of the culture in which we were raised. Our own society is much more individualistic than the first-century Mediterranean society and we may not have such a well defined pecking order but we still have our ways and (as one friend reminded me this week) go to any local Middle School or High School and see how the cafeteria breaks down into a status system the place the students sit determines whether they re in or out popular or not. And whether its clothing or music or the car you drive or your age (young is in!) or weight or fitness or the college you attended or didn t attend what type of job you have whether you ve traveled AND in the church we can have our own categories of what constitutes status or what establishes a person as worthy/good or deserving of our attention (the kind of people we would like to be associated with or have at our party etc.) And we are impressed by people for different reasons and we DO hope to impress people and somehow ensure that I could count on you if I ever needed a favor and let s face it there are some people who don t bring a lot to the table in that way (I m not sure he could ever be much use to me ) But Jesus Christ is showing us that here at the end of time God is ringing the triangle and saying Come and get it!... He is the signal that the Messianic Banquet is ready! And the good religious people who said they d be there (the OT said save the date ) now that Messiah has come, they ve little interest little hunger other things to do. I mean they re into God and may even say that God is #1 in their lives but let s not get freaky about it gotta be balanced. And Jesus is saying to these religious guys (good people) Look: I know you don t like Me hanging around all these fringe elements and sick people and unclean and sinners and you can t imagine that God would have much use for people like THAT! 4

5 But that s the point God has no use for any of you none of you have anything that God needs! But that s not the basis on which God decides His guest list. If God invited the way you invite if God invited people who were good investments and who could make a good return and repay Him He would have no one! He only invites people who can not repay Him because that s the only kind of people there are! The problem is : you think you are worthy. You think you have something God wants or needs or deems important. You will not see that you ARE the weak and the wicked and the poor, blind and lame. You will not see that you can not see. You are blind to your blindness. That s why you make a big distinction between us and them but I have come to invite only the thems only the poor unfortunate souls who know that they re poor unfortunate souls. Jesus Christ is ringing the triangle and the good people say they re too busy and too important but boy, we can t wait to eat bread in the Kingdom of God! And Jesus is saying, This IS the Kingdom of God and I am the King and I am the Bread come to be broken for the broken But if you are not broken I am not for you. And if you are broken and sinful and without status come to Me. I will live obediently for you. I will suffer the penalty of Hell for you and those who see it will drop everything to come I will be to them, more important than family or status or opinion or even more important than life itself (vv.25ff). Now what s the upshot of all this? And how will it enable us to live differently? (3 differences this makes) 1. It changes how you think and practically respond to God. See, the most important thing is to r.s.v.p. to His invitation. The religious person says, the #1 thing is to be good and obedient but the Christian says, the #1 thing is to see my need and receive the great invitation of God only then can I begin to obey at all! So, come out with your hands up! See your blindness and be compelled by the sight of the God-Man living and dying for you let that compel you to come into the house of joy! 2. How you think about yourself: stop looking to stuff for your status. Don t look to jewelry, to family, to connections, to wealth, to honors people can bestow on you and stop looking to how good you ve been or how bad you ve been get your status from God s invitation. He invites you not because you re good but because Jesus was good in your place. So rest in that and not in how cute you look or how buff you are or how rich you were or how long you ve been a church member 5

6 See yourself as enormously needy and as unimaginably loved because of Jesus and that truth will consume everything else about you. 3. How you respond to others: become an associate of the lowly. See others in this new way there is no one who impresses God. We are all blind, lame, poor and crippled so don t look down on anyone and don t be too impressed by anyone. And join God in wanting to see His house full of party-goers. Invite them to come in. Don t be afraid to tell them the good news because it really is good news. The inviting God has spared no expense and wants His house to be full of joy! 6