I wonder if you have ever played the game in which you pick your five fantasy dinner party guests. If you could invite anyone from history or around the world, who would you pick? There are at least two radio shows based around this idea, one of which, “My dream dinner party” actually creates the conversation around the dinner table using archive recordings of the people chosen. Or maybe you’re a fan of, “Come Dine With Me”. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a whole episode but my understanding is that couples take it in turns to host dinner parties, and then vote on each others’ cooking and ambience.
In this morning’s reading from Luke’s historical account of the life and ministry of Jesus we get to see a dinner party. I’m not sure if the “ruler of the Pharisees” had invited Jesus because he thought he’d be a great dinner guest, or if he wanted to take him down a peg or two, but I am sure the conversation didn’t go in the direction he expected.
The first thing that happened was that Jesus noticed a man with dropsy, an abnormal swelling, who was there. It’s not made absolutely clear, but it seems to me that this is unlikely to have been an invited guest.
In those days dinners like this were often held in open courtyards, and there would have been other people, perhaps hoping for the leftovers from the table, gathered around the edges. Given the way the rest of the conversation develops, it seems most likely to me that this man was one of them.
Jesus sees the man, and then asks the experts in the religious law a question. “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath, or not?” The fact that it was a question that they chose not to answer tells us that for them there was no obvious answer. They knew that keeping the Sabbath was important, they had lots of laws to help them make sure they never broke it. But they also knew that healing was important. They were stuck.
Jesus wasn’t stuck. He was sure in his own mind what the right thing was to do, so he did it. He healed the man. He did more than that, he explained his thinking, by getting them to think about what they would do to help someone or an animal important to them on the Sabbath, and drawing a direct parallel to healing. But they are still silent.
Why is healing so important? Because Jesus healed then and still heals today. In the end all that needs healing will be healed for those who come to Jesus for healing. It may not happen this side of heaven, but it will happen there. We have a choice, just as those around that dinner table did. Are we going to be those who join with Jesus in the work of bringing that healing to people or are we going to stay silent, or even worse, get in the way of people being restored and healed?
Having healed the man and killed the conversation, Jesus starts talking about honour, humility, and humiliation. He asks the guests to imagine themselves going to a marriage feast. Now, those of you who have been involved in the planning of a wedding reception may very well have experienced the challenges of the seating plan. Aunty Flossie can’t sit with Cousin Bert. Do the friends of the groom get to sit nearer the high table than the second cousins of the bride? And so on.
In Jesus’ time it seems like there weren’t seating plans, but there was definitely a hierarchy. You needed to consider carefully your own social position before choosing your seat.
Imagine sitting yourself too high, and being asked to move down. What humiliation, what damage to your honour. You’d be better off just going home.
Of course, it’s a parable, Jesus isn’t just talking about seating plans. He’s talking about an attitude of heart that affects how we behave in all kinds of different situations. Jesus councils us to have a humble heart, that is more likely to be honoured, than a heart that insists on honour, a sure route to humiliation.
The writer to the Hebrews gives us some practical examples of what this might look like. We are counselled to be content with what we have. A primary drive for wanting more, for not being content with what we have, is often pride. When we find ourselves comparing what we have with what others have, or being glad about what we have because we think it will make others think better of us, that is pride. Lack of contentment with what we have is a really helpful indicator of our humility. When we feel it, we can ask the Holy Spirit to make it clear to us why we’re discontented and to heal us of our pride, and to help us grow in humility.
Because, as the writer to the Hebrews says, we look to God for help. “The Lord is my helper” We don’t have to do it all ourselves, we can’t do it all ourselves, we need help, and we need the humility that is willing to ask for help, from God and from others.
Why is humility so important? Because we are followers of Jesus, who humbled himself to death, even death on the cross. A cross that was so shameful that it wasn’t allowed to erected within the city walls, it was outside the camp, and was a place of abuse and humiliation for Jesus. Except, of course, it wasn’t humiliation, because Jesus had chosen that place in all humility and he turned it into the throne of highest honour. “He who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Having healed the man and taught about humility Jesus now goes on to challenge his host’s concept of hospitality.
As we read these words it’s helpful to remember that this meal was probably taking place in a courtyard, with spectators. As Jesus was speaking it seems to me likely that he was pointing at people who were there. As he described the kind of guests that his host isn’t to invite to dinner he was probably pointing at them, reclining around the table with him. As he suggests who should be invited instead he would have been turning and holding his hand out to them, sat around the edges of the courtyard. Just take a moment and imagine it. A guest, invited to dinner, telling the host not to invite this lot – but instead to invite that lot.
I wonder if you’ve heard the phrase “the hospitality industry”. It’s used as a catch-all term for hotels, pubs, restaurants. It always seems a bit wrong to me to describe hospitality as an industry. It seems to reduce it to transactions. And this is what Jesus was challenging. Don’t just invite people who will invite you back, who can pay you back. Make your hospitality truly generous, truly welcoming, with no thought to being repaid.
Again, in Hebrews we find this teaching repeated. Interestingly, this writer doesn’t suggest replacing one form of hospitality with another. Brotherly (and sisterly) love is to continue, but not at the expense of showing hospitality to the stranger.
Jesus was, I think, exaggerating for effect. In other places he taught his followers to love each other, and surely this would include welcoming them and being hospitable. It’s not so much that we should never have our friends round to dinner, but that we should make sure that we open our homes, our hearts, our lives, to those who need it, who are strangers to us.
Why is hospitality so important? Because it is what God has done for us. We were strangers to God, and we were welcomed in, made at home, shown love that we can never repay. This is what Jesus did for us, and if we claim to be followers of Jesus then we are to follow him in this as well.
So, I don’t know how Jesus would have scored the dinner he attended that night, or if he would have found himself on the guest list for that ruler of the Pharisees ever again, but I do know three things. Jesus heals us, and calls us to share that healing with others and not get in the way. Jesus humbled himself and calls us to the same humility. Jesus shows us great hospitality and calls us to show the same hospitality to others. Lets hear and obey that call as we follow Jesus this week.
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