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I am using readings from the 49 Week Bible Challenge as the basis for these devotions. I encourage you to join me in this discipline. Today’s readings are Luke 14; 2 Chronicles 12; Isaiah 25; Ezekiel 17.
Luke 14:1-14
One Sabbath, when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” 6 And they could not reply to these things.
7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Years ago I was part of a group of pastors within our denomination given to the self-assigned mission to “save the synod from the liberals.” A weak self-assigned mission to say the best. I recall at one pastors conference that one of the pastors in our group preached a sermon that was clearly unaligned with the Lutheran Confessions. I hesitate to call it heresy, but it was dangerously close.
I had two regrets about that – beyond the sermon itself. First I was disappointed that no one of our group took him to task about it, at least as far as I know. The second that I didn’t speak to him about it. I was young and didn’t have many chips in those days. But he was our guy. And we all looked the other way because we didn’t want to discredit our guy.
Even more sad, the people of Jesus’ day didn’t speak up when the Pharisees were more concerned about catching Jesus breaking the sabbath than they were about a man who needed healing. To be more accurate they were more concerned about their place, prestige, and power than they were about grace and kindness.
Jesus shows that when he tells the parable of the banquet, and says that they should take the lowest places at the feast. He tells them to invite people cannot repay them to attend their dinner parties.
And what will Jesus do? He will take the lowest of the low places at his Last Supper, washing the feet of the disciples. He will invite people who cannot possibly pay the admission price to the kingdom of God to receive the richness of his grace, and feast with him in the marriage feast of the Lamb.
Sometimes we get upset only when our own ox is being gored. We choose carefully – and sometimes selfishly – when to take umbrage. But Jesus isn’t selective like that. He grieves over hardened hearts, calls out hypocrisy, and stoops low to serve even those who would betray him. He doesn’t look the other way. He speaks the truth, shows compassion, and lays down his life for those who can never repay him. And then he invites even us to the feast.
David Bahn - Reflections 
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