Luke 14:1-14  

A woman was sitting in a waiting room for her first appointment with a new dentist. She noticed his diploma on the wall, which bore his full name. Suddenly, she remembered that a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in her high school class so many years ago. Could this be the same guy I had a crush on way back then?

She quickly discarded any such thought when she met the balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face. He’s way too old to have been my classmate, she thought to herself.

Still, after he examined her teeth, she asked, “Did you happen to attend Morgan Park High School?”

“Yes! I’m a Mustang,” he gleamed with pride.

“When did you graduate?” she asked.

“1959,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“You were in my class!” she exclaimed.

“Really?” he said, looking at her closely. “What did you teach?”

***

Having finished our Summer series on the “Fruit of the Spirit” last weekend, we are returning today to the Revised Common Lectionary for our Scripture readings, and it sure seems like once again, God has arranged these readings just for us!  The Gospel for this weekend is the passage we just read from Luke 14, and the theme of this dinner teaching by Jesus is pretty obvious: he is talking about humility. I thought to myself, ‘this sounds like an appendix to the Fruit of the Spirit series… and I wonder why Paul didn’t include humility in his list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5?” 

Then I thought of Colossians 3: 12, words from the Apostle Paul:  “Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”  Well, he may not have listed humility in Galatians with the other ‘fruit of the Spirit’, but here he lists it with three of those fruits from Galatians.  Whether it falls in the lists or not, humility is certainly a characteristic of believers who are in the process of being transformed into the image of Christ.  [So we’ll consider this an addendum to the ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ messages! And I promise that this will be the last one!  I think…]

While Jesus gives us some practical teaching on how humility might be displayed in Luke 14 (and we’re going to look at that in a minute) Paul defines ‘New Testament’ humility for us in Romans 12:3 when he writes: “Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.” 

New Testament humility is not groveling at another’s feet, it is certainly not falsely claiming that ‘we’re nothing’ and worthless. Humility is not about deflecting any praise or accolades for our achievements (“oh that was really nothing”); it is all about simply having an honest assessment of who we really are and being comfortable with that. We all have strengths, we have weaknesses, we have spiritual gifts and skills, but we don’t have to be ‘good’ at everything, we don’t have to have all the answers, or all the skills… or all the anything!  Knowing that is the heart of New Testament humility. Having an honest self-assessment. 

Humility in the New Testament also means that we don’t have a compulsion or a need to constantly ‘self-promote’. We can be ‘out front’ or noticed, if that’s where life takes us, fine, but we don’t ‘need’ to always be in control, or rewarded for what we do. In recognizing that ultimately everything we do is for God (God who is constantly gracious to us, and merciful, and who gives us far more than we actually deserve) we are then willing to serve others without public recognition. We are able to do the ‘menial’ tasks with grace because they need to be done, without feeling that certain things are ‘below’ us.  Because we are ultimately serving God in everything we do. 

Humility means that we can be happy when others are successful. When others are recognized for their achievements we can rejoice with them without feeling slighted, or envious. 

In other words, humility is following the example of Jesus who invited us in the Gospel of Matthew (11:29) to “Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls”.   (Humility and gentleness go hand in hand.) 

It was his own model of humility that Jesus was attempting to teach a room full of people there in Luke 14, people who were anything but humble. As Pharisees, this dinner party was proud of their rigid religious discipline. They were convinced that they were favored by God, and they were quick to judge others as less worthy.  So, picture Jesus at a table of very proud, somewhat self-righteous diners… 

Jesus was never a dull dinner guest! Here he is, once again, at a dinner at the home of a ‘leading’ Pharisee – who for sure, invited a lot of his friends, who were likely for the most part, other Pharisees. Luke tells us, ‘the people [there] were watching him closely’.  They were there to see this Jesus that they had heard so much about. 

Back in Biblical days, there was a quite carefully laid out hierarchy of status.  The ‘upper’ class of people did their best not to associate with the lower classes, and in the case of the Pharisees, this was a religious thing as much as social.  As I said, they were convinced that were simply ‘better’ than the ‘masses’ who didn’t follow the Law as strictly or carefully as they did, and contact with these less than holy people actually was defiling to them.  So they tried hard to avoid them whenever possible. 

Jesus, as a peasant rabbi with a lot of controversy surrounding him, would not have been a typically welcome dinner guest at the home of a Pharisee, but the fact was that his notoriety brought a bit of status with it… in other words, his dinner host knew that he was going to be noticed because he was the one who had Jesus over for dinner. The tongues would be wagging!

(And of course, Jesus knew that too, which is the basis for some of his comments to come.) 

That Jesus went into this home at all shouldn’t be surprising to us! He went (and still goes) anywhere that he is invited!  But it is very interesting to notice that while the people were watching him, they were also watching each other (i.e., where people were sitting). And yet with all this careful watching going on, they sure missed a lot! For one thing, they didn’t even see the man with the swelling, or, edema, in his legs who was there, too. 

There was someone among them who was suffering. But he was a nobody. He didn’t matter to them. So they didn’t see him. 

But he did matter to Jesus! Jesus not only saw him, but he healed him. And not only did he heal the man, but he healed him on a Sabbath Day, in front of all these ‘super-Law-abiding’ religious people who took the teaching of no work on the Sabbath extremely literally. (Jesus often told them that they were missing the whole point of the Law, and here was a classic example!) 

The truth is, they were much more concerned about the day on which this healing occurred than they were concerned about the man himself.  Jesus ‘broke’ the Sabbath, in their eyes. That’s all they saw. But for Jesus it was an issue of compassion for this troubled soul that the rest of them didn’t even notice. 

Before they could even react to that, in a very direct teaching that had to have been socially very awkward for the host and all the rest of those who where there at the table, Jesus exposes their ugly pre-occupation with themselves; something not only demonstrated by their callousness toward this sick man, but also in the way that they struggled to take the best seats at the dinner table (that’s a pretty powerful word… struggled. Can you picture it?): 

 ⁸“When you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is more distinguished than you has also been invited? ⁹The host will come and say, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table! 

This might sound a little weird to us, but remember, status was important in this culture and there were no place cards at that table! You might remember that more than once the disciples themselves were reprimanded by Jesus for their preoccupation on trying to figure out ‘who among them was the greatest’! In our ‘polite’ society  (unless we’re famous athletes or rap stars) we don’t have those discussions… I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘those thoughts’. (You decide that one!) But they did. 

On one occasion in the Gospel of Matthew[1] we read that the mother of two of Jesus’ disciples, (James and John), came to him requesting that he would designate her two sons to sit at his right and left hand on the day that he ‘came into his kingdom’.  Positions of high status. Remember that?

Apparently, all the disciples were, at this point, still looking at their lives from the perspective of this world only.  It’s all they could see. So they were simply doing what they felt they had to do – watching out for number one! (Little did any of them know that the honor of being at Jesus’ side when he came into his kingdom was already reserved… for two thieves!) 

Jesus says:

¹⁰“… take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place for you!’ Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. ¹¹For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 

Jesus is speaking here of more than social order… he is alluding to some deeper things. He is telling us about the ‘economy of the Kingdom’; our relationship not only with each other, but with God… those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. 

But Jesus isn’t finished yet.

Having pointed out the selfish motives of the guests, now he turns to the host and his motives.

A number of commentators have pointed out that the bottom line here was that this dinner was very likely not about meeting Jesus, or learning from him, or any type of spiritual experience.  It was much more about helping the host, who was advancing himself socially.

And so Jesus' next teaching must have been jarring to them all: 

“Then Jesus said to his host, 'When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.' “ (14:12-14) 

What’s going on here? 

In a wonderful way, in this entire encounter, Jesus is inviting the host and the guests to be more like himself and his Father.  Think again about those definitions of humility that we looked at a moment ago: Jesus was comfortable with who he was. He went where he was invited, he mingled with all sorts of people, but at the same time he did not allow (to use Paul’s words) the world to ‘force him into its mold.[2]’ 

He was gracious and humble, and didn’t have a need to be recognized, but when there was a choice to be made, he followed God, and not the way of the world. So, even knowing that he would receive tremendous negative feedback because of it, he went ahead and did what he knew he had to do – and healed this sick man, he pointed out the hypocrisy of the host and guests. 

Jesus also represented the character of God his Father, who gives freely without expecting to be repaid. God invites to his table not those who can do something for him, or those who can bring him expensive gifts and eloquent praises… but rather he invites the hurting, the oppressed, those who have nothing to bring… he invites the crushed and the brokenhearted to dine with him. And that’s why we’re here today, isn’t it? We haven’t been invited to give a blessing, we have been invited to receive a blessing. 

Jesus says to us, ‘This is a better way’… true humility.  “Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” 

Graeme Keith, treasurer of the Billy Graham Association and Billy's lifelong friend, says:

I was on an elevator with Billy when another man in the elevator recognized him. He said, “You're Billy Graham, aren't you?”

“Yes,” Billy said.

“Well,” the man said, “you are truly a great man.”

Billy immediately responded, “No, I'm not a great man. I just have a great message.”[3]

“Let me teach you” Jesus said. And I’ll show you a better way…   Amen.

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