February 25, 2014: Luke Chapter 14

The Gospel According to Luke Chapter 14

Originally posted Wednesday, March 19, 2008 

Luke Chapter 14:1-6 The Man With Dropsy

A major portion of this chapter takes place at the home of a leader of the Pharisees. It is the Sabbath and Jesus has been invited to dinner. The meal setting is important to the story because of the social relationships that are assumed by who is invited. To be invited is a statement of equality between host and guest. Honor is given to both. We are aware of the first century Pharisaic practices of having meals together to assure that no one suspected of ritual uncleanness would be present. The root of the Aramaic word for Pharisee is "to separate" and they lived up to the definition. It was said of the Pharisees that they were careful not to allow the shadow of an unclean person to cross their own for fear of the contagion.

As we know from our reading, table fellowship played a significant role in Jesus' ministry. The meals were events where participants shared life. On a spiritual level the sharing and recognition of equality were examples of the Messianic banquet to come where all will be equally honored and food and wine will be abundant. It is this Kingdom concept that Jesus will express at this meal with his Pharisee host and the others who were invited.

The plot is set with four elements: Sabbath, a man with edema, Scribes and Pharisees and Jesus. For Jesus this will be an opportunity to challenge the conventional Sabbath tradition on behalf of human need. He will use the meal setting to offer a radically different view of table fellowship than held by Pharisees and others of high social position.

A man swollen by the edema he suffers appears in front of Jesus. The host and other guests watch Jesus to see how he will react. He has a reputation for breaking the Sabbath rules regarding work, even touching and healing the unclean. Jesus doesn't have to be omniscient to know what is in their minds. He poses the question they have heard before: "Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath or not?" As always they remain silent. Jesus' reputation for choosing human need over inconsequential rules is well known. The healing that follows is God's sense of justice at work in Jesus on the very day God has bestowed for the benefit of humanity. Jesus says nothing. He heals the man and sends him home to share the Sabbath with his family. He looks at the guests and asks another question. It is similar to the one he asked in the Synagogue when he healed the woman who had suffered with a spirit of weakness for eighteen years. He makes the question personal: If your child or your ox fell into a well on the Sabbath would you not pull it out? Their dilemma is evident. Will they opt for tradition or compassion? Again they are silent, betraying that hardness of heart that chooses rules over God's demand for mercy, compassion and justice. Jesus has made his point but there is more.

Luke Chapter 14:7-14 Humility and Hospitality

When Jesus noticed the man in need of healing he did not hesitate to heal. When Jesus noticed the way people at the meal chose the places of honor he addressed the practice of ranking guests by their social standing. Such seating arrangements were important in an honor/shame based society where being distinguished by position could bring honor or shame to the guest. Jesus addresses what he has seen at the meal including the advice of a well known adage from Prov. 35:6-7: "Do not put yourself forward in the King's presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, 'Come up here,' than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.'" using the setting of a wedding banquet (a metaphor for the Messianic Banquet in God's Kingdom) suggests they not be too quick to take the best seats, lest the host tell them to give their "higher" place to someone more important and they be told to take a "lower" place and be humiliated. It would be better, he says, to take the lower place first and when the host asks you to move higher you will be honored by everyone present. This is, of course, an extension of Jesus' teaching on the reversal of status in God's Kingdom: "...all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." The first shall be last.

Jesus follows this sage advice with another radical concept of table hospitality. Do not invite the kind of people to your table fellowship who will feel obliged to invite you to their table fellowship - the rich, relatives, socially acceptable friends. Instead, invite the poor, crippled, lame and blind - the marginalized of your society who cannot repay your hospitality and who could only dream of such a meal. This is what will bring you a blessing, for your reward will be found in the Kingdom of God.

Luke Chapter 14:15-24 The Parable of the Great Dinner

In this third part of the dinner story Jesus again takes advantage of something seen or said. In this case an exuberant guest offers a toast of sorts to those who will eat bread (dine) in the Kingdom of God. This opens the door for Jesus to announce just who these people are that the guest has called blessed. It will not be what the guest expected - fellow distinguished dignitaries, the rich and powerful of his acquaintance. Jesus' guest list is quite different.

He tells a Kingdom parable about a great dinner to which the host has invited all his important friends. In such a Semitic culture an invitation would have been issued well in advance of the event. When all was in readiness, he would send out his servants to let all the invited guests know it was time to come. In this case the servant went out but every invited guest gave an inane excuse for not being able to attend. One had just bought a piece of land he had to inspect; another had bought five yoke of oxen he needed to try out and a third had just been married. The point is that one does not buy a piece of land without seeing it nor does one buy even one yoke of oxen without trying them out, let alone five; and a marriage would have been planned as much as a year before the dinner party date.

The host is angered that the invited guests would not come. There is a dinner ready to be served and no guests. He sends his servant out into the city streets and lanes to gather the poor, the crippled, lame and blind (the same marginalized people Jesus had just advised his fellow dinner guests to invite to their table). But there is still room. The servant is told to go back out, this time beyond the towns and cities, on the country roadways and fences. There he will find those who would not be allowed in the city after sundown and could urge them to come in so that all the places at table will be filled and there will be no places left over for those who had been invited but refused. Again the lesson is clear: Those who assume their place in the Kingdom is guaranteed will be shut out. Those who could never make such an assumption are welcome. Only God can issue an invitation to the Kingdom and God has invited us all. It is only our choice that keeps us out.

Luke Chapter 14:25-33 The Cost of Discipleship

The setting changes and Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. He has exchanged the narrowly focused environment of the Pharisees' table fellowship for the open country and the usual crowds that would be unencumbered by questions of status as they rustled along the road with Jesus. At a stopping place Jesus began to teach them about the cost of discipleship. This was not an academic discourse meant for information. This was a real challenge to those who contemplated becoming disciples or who already thought they were disciples but had not considered the level of commitment involved. There is no lure to an easy road in his words, no exclusionary clauses or undisclosed responsibilities. This is an invitation to the narrow gate and as many as were with him today, there will be less tomorrow.

Jesus gives three requirements for faithful discipleship, all in a typically Semitic hyperbolic form for the sake of contrast: to renounce one's family; to carry one's cross; and to give up all one's possessions. While these three challenges may make sense for the Twelve, for those who are on the road following Jesus and who will go back to their villages, their families and lives, the challenge is different. There still will be a price to pay for one's discipleship and everyone needs to be aware of what that cost will be in their lives. Jesus gives two examples to consider. Would you start building a tower without a plan for a firm foundation and a way to pay for the construction? If you were a King would you go out to battle with another without assessing the enemy's as well as your own military strength? Costs are an important consideration for discipleship. It is not a volunteer commitment. It is a life investment and it isn't something we can do on the cheap.

We do not want to dilute the strong emphasis in Jesus' conditions for discipleship. We do, however, need to understand their meaning. The hyperbolic form of teaching is not meant to be taken literally. Such speech involves making exaggerated, sometimes illogical contrasts to strongly emphasize an important point, to create a strong impression that needs to be contemplated. An example would be, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." To cite a Biblical reference, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away" (MT 5:29) which is meant to force a person to think about the seriousness of the sin of lust. Jesus is not telling us to hate, to go die as a martyr or to give away all our material possessions and live in the woods. He is telling us that our choice, if it is to be faithful in its commitment can be costly. He is saying that if we are not prepared or willing to pay the cost that may accrue to us by claiming to be a disciple, then we would be better served by rethinking our commitment. This, too, is strong language. It is difficult to image what total commitment as a disciple would mean, what it would look like, especially in view of how we try to balance the many other commitments we have. The question Jesus asks us is to what degree and under what circumstances would we radically commit ourselves to discipleship? What are we ready to do, now? Perhaps the best answer we can give is, and to paraphrase an Emmaus Walk slogan, we will commit as much of ourselves as we can to as much of God as we understand. If we are serious in our search our understanding of God will increase and so will our level of commitment to God's cause as revealed to us in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth.

Luke Chapter 14:34-35 About Salt [see MT 5:13]

Jesus speaks here as if he were on stage giving an aside to the audience. In this case the audience is made up of those who have counted the cost, made their commitment and have become disciples of Christ. Using Matthew's concept of disciples being the salt of the earth, we can understand Luke's use of salt as the continuing effectiveness of our relationship with Christ. Being a disciple is inextricably tied to the ongoing vitality of that relationship. Insofar as we are lured away to other enticements we will become less effective in our discipleship by the weakening of our sense of devotion. We will not to perfect or even consistent any more than life itself is consistent. What we can do is to involve ourselves as much as possible in those activities and spiritual practices that keep us close to God, in body, mind and spirit and leave the rest to God.