Luke 14
Jesus bestows life even on the Sabbath
One Sabbath Jesus went to a prominent religious leader’s house for a meal, where they watched him closely. There was a man suffering from edema, so Jesus asked the church leaders and law studiers,
“Does the law allowed for the service of therapeutic healing to be administered on the Sabbath, or not?”
But they were silent. He grasped the man, healed him, and sent him on his way. Then he asked them,
“If your son or ox fell into ditch on the Sabbath day, wouldn’t all of you immediately pull him out?”
They didn’t know how to respond to that.
Self promotion leads to humiliation, and humiliation leads to promotion
When he noticed how all the guests were choosing the most prominent seats at the table, he made an illustration:
“When someone invites you to a wedding reception, don’t take the place of honor, because someone more distinguished than you might have also been invited. Then the host will come up to you and say,
‘Please give your seat to this person.’
And then you’ll shamefully have to go take the worst seat.
Instead, when you are invited, you should go sit at the least distinguished seat so that when the host comes, he can tell you,
‘Friend, please move to a better seat.’
Then everyone sitting at your table will look at you with honor.
Everyone who lifts himself up will be brought lower, but everyone who lowers himself will be lifted up.”
God repays those who give to the poor
He continued by telling the host,
“When you host a banquet, don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, or wealthy peers who will pay you back by inviting you to one in return.
Instead, when you host a banquet, invite the beggars, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then you will find happiness since they don’t have the means to repay you. You will be repaid when the good people are awakened.”
God wants his house to be full
After hearing this, someone at the table told him,
“Everyone who eats food in God’s empire will find happiness!”
But Jesus told him,
“A man who was hosting a huge banquet invited many people, and when it was time to start, he sent his servant to tell the guests to come in now because everything was ready.
But then the guests all started making excuses:
‘I just bought some property and need to go see it, so I won’t be able to make it.’
‘I just bought 5 pairs of oxen and need to try them out. I won’t be able to make it.’
‘I just got married and won’t be able to make it.’
The servant came back and reported these things to his boss. That angered the head of the household, so he told his servant,
‘Go into the city streets at once and bring the poor, crippled, blind and lame here!’
After the servant followed his orders, he told his boss that there was still room, so the boss said,
‘Take the highways to the edges of the region and compel them come in so that my house will be filled. I guarantee you that none of those people who were originally invited will even get to taste my dinner!’
In order to follow Jesus, I have to forsake everything else
By this point, large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned to them and said,
“If anyone accompanies me but doesn’t hate his own parents, wife, children, siblings, and even his own self, he cannot be my follower. Whoever doesn’t carry his own death warrant and walk behind me cannot be my follower.
When you want to build a tower, don’t you sit down first and calculate the expenses to see if you have enough to finish it? If you don’t, then everyone will make fun of you after you lay the foundation but can’t finish the construction. They’ll say,
‘This guy started construction when he couldn’t even finish!’
When one king goes to war with another king, doesn’t he sit down first and figure out if he’ll need 10,000 troops or 20,000 to defeat the other king? He’ll either do that or try to negotiate peace while the other king is still far away.
That’s why you can’t be my follower unless you forsake all of your own possessions.
Salt is good, but if it becomes tasteless, then there isn’t anything else that you can season it with—then it will only be fit for throwing out onto the dirt or the feces pile. Whoever hears this should comprehend it and listen to it.”