Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Luke
14:1-11)
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
So let’s first of all look at the first
part of our reading where Jesus is invited to dinner. We read: One Sabbath, when [Jesus] went to dine at the
house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. Notice that the reading says: they were
watching him carefully. Here we can see that
the Pharisees were watching Jesus’ every move, trying to catch him out and trap
him. And yet, Jesus still comes to be their guest. He comes and eats with these
hypocritical Pharisees, because he wants to pour out his blessings on everyone
who was there through his words and through his miracles.
Many people often say, “I’m not going to
church: it’s full of hypocrites!” In our Gospel reading today, Jesus visits
some Pharisees. They are hypocrites, they don’t deserve to be visited by Jesus,
but he wants to visit them anyway. Jesus is always visiting hypocrites because
there’s no one else in the world to visit! He always visits hypocrites like us,
because he wants to show us our hypocrisy and forgive it and heal it.
And so we read that there was a man before [Jesus] who had
dropsy. Dropsy is a disease where a person ends
up with a lot of fluid and swelling. When this sick, puffy man comes and stands
in front of Jesus in the middle of the dinner, Jesus puts the Pharisees to
shame by asking them a question.
We read: Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it
lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” It’s
strange that it says here Jesus
responded, because no one asked him any
questions! What was Jesus responding to? He was responding to the fact that
these Pharisees were watching him
carefully. Jesus knew the thoughts of
these men. In 1 Samuel 16 it says: Man looks at
the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. So Jesus shows himself to us as our true God, by not simply answering the
Pharisees questions, but answering their thoughts.
He says: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” Jesus shows everyone there just how silly the Pharisees really are. God
had blessed the Sabbath, but they said that nobody was allowed do any good
on the Sabbath. But a day of the week where people can’t do any good is not a
day which is blessed, but a day which is cursed!
The Pharisees knew from their own
consciences that their traditions were silly—they had nothing to say. As people
say: “They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t!” Jesus often works with
his word on our consciences like this. He puts to us a question—sometimes through
the most unlikely person—and we realise that the only thing we can do is remain
silent. We are convicted of our sin and our hypocrisy. If it is
permitted to heal on the Sabbath day, why did the Pharisees watch Jesus to
see if he would heal? If it were not permitted, why do they look after
their sheep and cows and goats on the Sabbath and give them water to drink? So
we read: But they remained silent.
So Jesus takes no notice of the trap
that has been set for him, and He cures the man with dropsy. This man didn’t
ask him to be healed because it was the Sabbath, but only stood up in front of
Jesus. He placed himself in front of Jesus, so that He would have compassion on
him and heal him. How many times does Jesus help us and strengthen us and heal
us in all sorts of ways even when we didn’t even ask him! He simply looked at
us because we were standing there in front of him, and that was all it needed
for a silent prayer to enter his heart! Jesus didn’t even ask whether this man
with dropsy wanted to be healed. He could read this man’s
thoughts too, he knew the great desire and longing and suffering and turmoil
that was going on in this man behind closed doors. Such is the great love that
Jesus has for everyone! Jesus doesn’t just have compassion on us because of
what we say with our mouths, but because of what we think and desire with our
minds. In fact, he even has compassion on us simply because we need it,
even when we don’t ask!
So we read: Jesus took him and healed him and sent him away. Jesus didn’t care about offending the Pharisees, but simply did what
needed to be done to help the sick man. Love doesn’t care about what fools
think about it! We should also keep it in mind that when something good needs
to be done, we shouldn’t worry about offending people. May Jesus send us his
own courage to do what is right and true and good and loving in his sight, no
matter what other people think!
Jesus can’t be put to shame. We can’t
pull the wool over Jesus’ eyes. If we want to shame Jesus, the shame will be on
us, like a mirror. So he says: “Which of
you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will
not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things. In other words, Jesus is saying that if you can’t do good on the Sabbath,
then don’t look after your animals. Don’t even feed or care for your family
and children if love and goodness and mercy is forbidden! – So with these
words, Jesus turns away the eyes of those who were watching him carefully, so
that they would have to turn away in shame. This man with dropsy is worth so
much more than the animals! And if this man is worth more than an animal, don’t
you think Christ would want to heal him and rescue him?
It’s strange though: this man is healed
of his puffiness from all the fluid that has built up from the dropsy. And
Jesus also un-puffs the Pharisees so that they have nothing to say: they have a
kind of brain disease, where they add a whole lot of fluid around God’s law, so
that they can’t think straight, and end up as total hypocrites. We also have
such a tendency to overcomplicate God’s word, and we want to add to it or take
away from it. We don’t want to be accused by God’s law, but we add our own laws
which we think are much more manageable and easier. We add a puffy padding to
God’s word to make it softer to land on. No—Jesus comes and deflates the
Pharisees bubble-wrap. He wants us to come face to face with the real law of
God, he wants to put our hypocrisy to silence, because only a real
sinner can receive the real forgiveness of God. May the Holy Spirit also
reveal to us our real sin—not our pretend sins—so that we can also
receive real healing for it from our real Saviour.
Jesus goes on now to tell a parable. Now
he wants to teach about true humility. He wants to teach us that Christians
shouldn’t be puffed up and conceited and arrogant, but should be drained of all
of our extra fluid! He says: When you are
invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour. If you sit down in a place of honour, it means you think you’re the most
distinguished person there! As Jesus says: there may be someone more distinguished than you who has been invited.
Who is the most distinguished person in
your minds who has come to church today, to celebrate the wedding feast with
our Lord Jesus? Is it you? Do you sit yourself in the place of honour? Be
careful, or Jesus might ask you to sit somewhere else, and let someone more
distinguished that you sit there.
Do you think that you’re a good faithful Christian? Do you believe that you deserve to be singled out above others? Don’t fatten up your ego too much, or that extra fluid will have to be drained! I challenge you to think about each person who comes to church and to thank God for them and particularly for something that you can see in them that God has given to them that he hasn’t given to you! Then you will really learn how we are all members of one body, and that the church is not the place for God to play favourites.
Jesus teaches us the opposite. He says: when you are invited, go and sit in the
lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up
higher.’ In these words Jesus doesn’t deal with
us harshly, but speaks to us gently and kindly. Those who are humble will take
the advice.
The church is not the place for keeping
up appearances. Whole churches fall into this trap, and whole churches can be
humbled together in one fell swoop and told to go and sit in the back corner.
But this true humility begins in the heart, and it is one of the hardest
lessons for a Christian to learn. Jesus is a master surgeon: he heals the
dropsy, but now he takes his scalpel and does open heart surgery and cleans out
all the pride that clogs up our arteries, all the arrogance which spreads like
cancer. Take a low place in the kingdom of God, consider yourself
insignificant, and let God use you as his precious child and chosen vessel in
his own time, not in your time. Let him say to you, “Friend, move up higher”, when
he chooses.
St Peter says: Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you. Listen to those words: at the proper time. In our reading it says: Then – and only then – you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at table with you.
The kingdom of God is not the place for
putting yourself forward. It is the place to dedicate yourself every day as
Christ’s insignificant piece of broken pottery, as Christ’s slave, as the dog
begging under his table. But at the same time, Jesus is the one who exalts you
as his brother and sister, God the Father is the one who exalts you to be his
precious child, the Holy Spirit is the one who exalts you in such a way as to
be comforted by him. Christ gives us such a wonderful dignity and worth and
value—but it is his gift, not our work. He exalts us—he promises
to exalt us, and he actually does exalt us. In the proper time—it
says—God will exalt you, not in your time. And we know that in the next
life—which will come about not when we want—we will be raised up to be
with Christ forever.
For everyone
who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Jesus comes to his wedding feast
despising the proud, and exalting the humble. That’s what Christ does and he
doesn’t do it in any other way. May Jesus teach us his humility each and every
day, and put to death the pride and arrogance and self-esteem that is at work
in us, so that he will exalt us, as he has promised.
May our Saviour and friend reach out and
take us by the hand and say to each one of us: Friend, move up higher! Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, we place ourselves in
presence, not knowing how we should pray. You know all our thoughts and our
longings and our desires. Heal us by your mercy of all our problems, which you
know so much better than we do. Teach us true humility—that same humility which
submitted to your father’s will and even took you to the cross. We pray also
that as you have promised you would also, by your infinite kindness and love,
exalt us and raise us up in your time, at the proper time. Amen.
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