So many are the places where the Bible says God opposes the proud and befriends the humble, you would think it instinctive among those who claimed to teach His Word. Yet we find the Jewish leadership so childishly zealous for public approval, wearing a chip on their shoulders, as it were, they become the personification of the word arrogance. The Pharisees and scribes had developed a complex system for delineating who had which rank in various social contexts. It is said they even competed in declaring false humility when faced with a ritual requiring formulaic self-denial. To actually deny themselves in faith was simply a foreign concept. Jesus confronts various manifestations of arrogance in this chapter.
In Jesus' day, Jews would typically go out on Friday and buy the finest food available for the Sabbath. It was common for synagogue leaders to prepare a large communal meal, especially for some of the many itinerant preachers and rabbis. It was ostensibly a time of close spiritual communion. Since the most ancient times, sharing food is a declaration of peace, and implies a covenant of mutual protection. In this case, the full hypocrisy of the Pharisees was at work, for Jesus had been invited as an opportunity to observe Him closely and privately, seeking an excuse to publicly condemn Him.
One of the other guests suffered what today we would call "edema" -- a very uncomfortable swelling, often in the lower limbs. Seeing the man in such misery, Jesus asked if there was any law against healing him on the Sabbath. The only objection they could possibly have is calling healing a form of labor which was not permitted on the Sabbath. Jesus had already pointed out the arrogance of forcing people to forsake an opportune healing for the sake of such silly interpretations. Nothing in Moses said it was wrong, and the implication of the Sabbath laws was to avoid doing things to profit yourself, and sacrifice the day to God. How could an act of faith, in producing the miracle of healing for a genuine human need, be against the Law? Could they sacrifice their arrogance for the need of a brother?
The men at the dinner had no answer, so Jesus healed the man. Jesus compared it to the lower case of pulling a valued domestic animal from a pit to save its life. He saved a portion of the man's life, a fellow Jew surely more important than thousands of herd animals. It takes a special arrogance to place a fellow human's life and health below your personal profit, when the Sabbath was all about sacrificing your personal profit.
Jesus pushed a little deeper. Noting their typical jockeying for honors in claiming various seats at the several tables one might find in the home of a wealthy Jew, He shows how completely out of step the whole thing was from the ways of God. Even a man of mere worldly wisdom would not pretend he was too good to sit with the nobodies, because the host would then feel compelled to publicly place the man in a more honorable seat. Arrogantly demanding a place among the guests of honor risked humiliation if they hadn't seen the guest list. It was a parable, of course, for how one dealt with God. If you deny yourself as having any importance among men, you find honor with God, who looks for a sacrifice of the heart.
One can be sacrificial in hosting meals, too. If your whole purpose is to exchange social honors, you have no real honor, since there is no sacrifice at all. Instead, host a lavish meal for those who cannot possibly repay you -- the nobodies, the disabled and neglected in ancient societies. Eating with the poor is eating with God. If you aren't too good to be seen with them, you make a sacrifice only God can repay. Rest assured, He does. Jesus uses the standard formulaic phrase for finding oneself standing before God in the company of the righteous, His friends and allies.
Immediately, someone tries to ingratiate himself to Jesus with a pious recitation of the standard rabbinical blessing based on False Messianic Expectations. Jesus does not rebuke the man, nor reject this association of His teaching with what they all claimed to hope for, but refines that association. He tells a parable of God as a ruler, the ultimate Host who puts on the final wedding feast at the End of Time. As with all Eastern potentates, He sends out messengers as honor guards to escort His vassals to the celebration. They bail out for the most frivolous reasons, a scandalous insult to their ruler. A great man will not call off such a sacrificial offering, but will find other guests. Since His chief allies and supporters will not come, He will find others to take their seats, and by implication, their positions of trust in the administration of the domain.
To those listening to this parable, it would have been obvious Jesus portrays Himself as the messenger of God, and the Jewish leaders as those who reject His invitation. Instead, those with whom they self-righteously refuse to associate will become the new councilors in God's Eternal Court of Heaven: the poor, the crippled and unproductive members of society, the Gentiles, and just about anybody who can be persuaded to accept the terms offered by God to enter the Eternal Covenant of Peace with Him. The Jews would lose their vaunted place, and would have to come begging as everyone else. Such horrific arrogance made one unfit for the honor God had bestowed on His people. He would remove the Nation of Israel, and create a new, Spiritual Israel.
Luke connects this to other incidents where Jesus taught on the necessity of complete self-sacrifice. At one point, a huge crowd was following Him. He turns to discuss this symbolic act of following. Using an ancient Hebrew figure of speech, He refers to hating all the things we think we have in this world, including our very lives. Very pointedly, He mentions nailing it to the cross, a very nasty form of Roman execution. In their own Hebrew culture, attaching or impaling someone on a piece of wood was the ultimate humiliation, an utterly ignoble death.
To follow Jesus spiritually calls for volunteering to crucify everything you consider important in this world, in exchange for a place in the next world. It takes arrogance to start something for which you are unprepared to pay the full price. If takes godly humility to realize you are no better than anyone else, and need to negotiate your way through life. In the end, those who do not surrender wholly to God cannot be at peace with Him, cannot claim any part in His Son.
Using an oft-repeated epigram, Jesus notes the salt in those days was not exactly pure, and quickly became useless when exposed to the elements, in some cases slightly toxic. When properly used, it preserved food, made it palatable. Simply sharing your salt with another was the same as sharing food. Degraded salt was worth less than dirt. Jesus warned our presence in this world was either a savory taste on God's palate, or utterly objectionable. Only those who give themselves away completely, without reservation, to God's grace calling to faith, could hope to be noticed by God as a friend and ally.
Return to Luke Index
[<-- Previous]
[Next -->]
By Ed Hurst
06 September 2008
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: People of honor need no copyright laws; they are only too happy to give credit where credit is due. Others will ignore copyright laws whenever they please. If you are of the latter, please note what Moses said about dishonorable behavior -- "be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23)