Dining with the Pharisees on the Sabbath Luke 14 (pt 5)

One Sabbath, when he went in to eat at the house of one of the leading Pharisees, they were watching him closely. There in front of him was a man whose body was swollen with fluid. In response, Jesus asked the law experts and the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they kept silent. He took the man, healed him, and sent him away. And to them, he said, “Which of you whose son or ox falls into a well, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” They could find no answer to these things.

He told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they would choose the best places for themselves: “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, don’t recline at the best place, because a more distinguished person than you may have been invited by your host. The one who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in humiliation, you will proceed to take the lowest place.

“But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ You will then be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

When one of those who reclined at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is the one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Then he told him: “A man was giving a large banquet and invited many. At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’

“But without exception they all began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. I ask you to excuse me.’

“Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m going to try them out. I ask you to excuse me.’

“And another said, ‘I just got married, and therefore I’m unable to come.’

“So the servant came back and reported these things to his master. Then in anger, the master of the house told his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in here the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.’

“‘Master,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, and there’s still room.’

“Then the master told the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and make them come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will enjoy my banquet.’”  Luke 14:1-24

In this passage we see again that Jesus’ view of our responsibility to God is different than the view that we typically have. I’ve shared with many of you before, but I want to share again, one of the best things that happened when I was just starting my ministry as a teenager traveling around preaching. After I’d spoken at a tiny congregation down in eastern Carolina, one of the people in the church said, “There’s a woman in our church who is dying. She was too ill to come to church, but it would mean a great deal if you would come by her home and have a word of prayer with her.”

I said, “Well, certainly, I’m glad to do that.”

The fellow drove me to this woman’s home and I went in and prayed with her. She was definitely near death and did die shortly thereafter, but she expressed great joy and peace because of her faith in Jesus. We talked together about the Lord, I shared a little from the scriptures, and then I just prayed with her, and she thanked me for coming.

As we drove away from this very humble home (it was a very poor family) and had driven a mile or so down the road, the man who drove me to her home pulled out a $20 bill and gave it to me. He said, “This is from the woman back there at that house. I didn’t give it to you there, because she was afraid you might refuse it given the circumstances, but it was very important to her that I give this to you.”

I accepted the money and said, “Please thank her for me. This means a great deal.”

He said, “It was very important to her that you receive it and not refuse it.”

And I said, “Well thank you. I’m honored to receive it, and I appreciate it.” So, I took the $20.

I got back to Montreat, where a dear Christian woman who had great wealth, more than one Rolls Royce, a Bentley and several other cars too, saw me at a small social gathering and said, “Jim, did Calvin give you the money that I gave him to give to you?” Calvin was our pastor.

When I replied, “No,” she said, “Well, he’s just forgotten.”

Well, of course, she had my full attention at that point. She said, “I have been very impressed with the fact that, here you are a teenager traveling around and preaching at your own expense, and I want to help you.” She said, “I gave Calvin some money for you and I’m sorry he didn’t get it to you.”

I said, “Well, I’m sure he will.”

And she said, “No, I’ll just go ahead and give it to you right now.” She reached into her purse, pulled out $20 and gave it to me.

I said, “Thank you so much,” and put it in my pocket.

Then I had to go have a conversation with God. It’s not that I don’t appreciate $20. I’ll take $20 just about anytime I can get $20, but somehow her $20 just didn’t feel the same as that other woman’s $20. Clearly, God was talking to me. It was actually the Holy Spirit that prompted the rich woman to give me $20. I don’t want you to think that this was not a generous woman. She and her husband gave 50% of their enormous income to ministries each year. That woman was doing exactly what God prompted her to do, because God wanted me to get those two $20 bills back to back from two different sources so that I would learn something that day. Again, I’m not criticizing the second woman, but getting $20 from a person who has multiple luxury cars just doesn’t convey the same thing as getting $20 from a poor person in a small house who is dying and has major medical expenses. It’s just not the same.

This is one of the reasons we have to repeatedly go back to the scriptures and view our own lives in the light of God’s Word. We must not compare ourselves to other people. The question is not how much do I give compared to how much somebody else gives? The question we need to ask is, “Am I doing what God has called me to do? Am I being faithful as a steward of what God has entrusted to me?” Jesus said you need to be investing what God has entrusted to you in a way that demonstrates that you are looking for God’s reward, not men’s applause.