Friday, March 17 – Luke 14:1-24
Jesus has been invited to a banquet on the Sabbath. The Pharisees at the banquet are watching him, looking for a way to discredit him. Quite by chance (uh-huh!) a man shows up in front of Jesus whose arms and legs are swollen. Perhaps he was suffering from congestive heart failure or kidney damage; the Bible doesn’t say. It does say that Jesus healed him.
This is the third time in Luke that Jesus has healed someone on the Sabbath. And like before, he asks the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” (It is.) The Pharisees are speechless. But Jesus isn’t finished. He then tells the Pharisees they should invite everyone they regard as unclean and defiled (like the man with swollen limbs) to their banquets: in other words, make friends with them.
No surprise, Jesus also has a parable for them.
It’s about a king (Matthew tells us that) who throws a huge banquet for all his friends. But, strangely, none of them accept his invitation. Jesus’ hearers would find it absurd that anyone would refuse dinner with the king. Not only would the food be fantastic (this is the king, of course), you just don’t refuse an invitation from your king.
Understandably, the king is furious! He withdraws his original invitations (“un-friending”?) and sends his messengers to invite the last people you’d think that belong at his table: “The poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame,” the unclean, the defiled. These are his new friends.
I just read that the amount of shame Americans feel is on the rise, particularly among teens and young adults. Shame is that feeling that you’re defiled, unclean, that you don’t belong; that you’re worthless. But Jesus has incredible good news for those of us who feel this way.
We have a seat at the King’s table!
Questions for reflection:
- Think of a time when you felt shame in your life. What were the circumstances surrounding that? How did people respond who knew how you were feeling?
- What does it mean that, no matter how you feel about yourself, Jesus calls you his friend? How does that feel?
Bible passages for further exploration: Exodus 23:4–5; Deuteronomy 22:4; Matthew 12:11