Storyteller - Day 24

We're at the halfway mark in the final week of this Bible study series today. This is Day 24 in our journey through "Storyteller", the latest free online Bible study from Sarah Koontz at livingbydesign.org.

Today’s passage of Scripture is Luke 14: 7 - 14, the parable of the great banquet ... 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, 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.”

During a meal at one of the Pharisees’ homes, Jesus observed where the guests choose to sit, and what He saw revealed a wrong attitude.

In New Testament times, the closer you sat to the host, the higher you stood on the social ladder, and the more honour you would receive from the other guests.

As He so often did through His parables, Jesus used this situation to teach about the "upside-down" nature of God’s Kingdom.

Pride and status are social issues in any culture, and ancient Jewish society was no different. Status brings power, and power often gives rise to pride.

By contrast, Jesus wants His disciples to be marked by humility, which means ignoring people's social standing or "class". While these things seem to matter so much in our society - which high school you went to, what car you drive, which suburb you live in, which brand of jeans you wear - God isn't impressed by our status in society or in the church. He's not influenced by what other people say or think about us, because He sees (and cares about) the thoughts and motives of our hearts! (I Samuel 16: 7) Jesus taught two lessons in this passage - one to the guests, and one to the hosts.

But both lessons come to the same point: It's so easy to place more emphasis on reputation, or looks, or image, or wealth, than on character.

Just as it was in this passage, it can seem more important to us to be seen by the "right people", to be in the "right places", and to have the "right stuff", than to live the right kind of life!!

When you attend, identify with the lowest. When you host, invite the lowest.

And Jesus invites us to live this way because this is precisely how God is: in Jesus we see a picture of God attending to our world, our situations, as the lowly guest. The incarnate God, the eternal and glorious One took on the humble and unassuming form of a Galilean peasant, and now He requests and challenges us to reject the constant drive in modern culture to elevate ourselves within the circles of friends and peers we have. And He’s asking us to go deeper still, and to re-evaluate who we consider to be our peers, or those "worthy" of our time and attention.

Instead of those with the same level of education, similar socio-economic status, similar interests, and similar political views, He invites us to begin to reach out to and interact with “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” (Luke 14: 21).

Today’s parable is all about how we are to view ourselves and operate within the context of God’s upside-down kingdom. (Sarah Koontz)