[Machine transcription]
Jesus says, But when you are invited, go and take the lowest place, so that when your host
comes, he may see you and say to you, Friend, come up higher.
Amen.
You may be seated.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints of God, we rejoice that Luke has recorded this particular feast for us as Jesus
is headed down from the north and making his way to Jerusalem on this long road.
At some point, he’s invited into the Pharisees’ house, in fact, it’s a ruler of the Pharisees,
and Luke gives us four unique incidences that happen at this feast.
We heard three of them in the Gospel reading.
He heals the man with dropsy.
He tells the parable of the highest seat.
feast.
He gives instructions for inviting people when you have your own feast.
And then the fourth part, which we didn’t hear, he gives the parable of the guests invited
to the great feast.
Now in all four of these things, Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees that are sitting at
the table with him, and this is good for us because we want to remember that each one
of us has a little Pharisee living inside of us, the sinful flesh, which is proud, lazy,
trusts its own works and it needs to be put to death. So as Jesus gets after the Pharisees,
He is also getting after us. We’ll look at each one in turn. So first we have the healing
of the Sabbath and Jesus rebuking the Pharisees’ abuse of the law.
There was a man with dropsy, a swelling disease.
Maybe his hands or his feet or something in his face was swelling.
And in my reading of the text at least, I think this man is brought to this feast on
purpose as a setup.
It’s the Sabbath, remember, and it says they are watching him intensely.
In fact, if you look at the text, when Jesus, He sees the man and He knows He’s going
to heal him, and He knows that this is a setup, it says, He answered the Pharisees who hadn’t
said anything yet, he answered the Pharisees and said, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath
or not?
They want this man there and they know that Jesus can’t see someone who needs help without
helping them.
He just is overflowing with compassion and love so that if Jesus sees a man who needs
healing, He’s going to heal him.
He’s not going to be able to help himself.
And they want Him to heal the man so then they can accuse Jesus of breaking the law,
law, of not resting on the Sabbath day.
Remember the third commandment?
Remember the Sabbath day?
By keeping it holy?
They think if Jesus has compassion and heals the man, they’ll be able to pin him down as
a lawbreaker.
Now this is an incredible misuse of the law, but it’s just what the Pharisees loved to
do.
Remember we talked about the three right uses of the law, or the three right functions of
the law?
The law as a curb keeps society in order,
and the law as a mirror
shows us our own sinfulness,
and the law as a guide or the law as a map
gives direction to our Christian life
of love for God and for the neighbor.
But the Pharisees had a fourth use of the law,
the pedestal use of the law,
and they would climb up on the pedestal
so that they could exalt themselves
and look down on everybody else.
They had the accusing finger of the law, so that they could point out how bad everybody
else was and how good they were.
In other words, the Pharisees would abuse the law and misuse the law to establish their
own righteousness, and Jesus will rebuke them.
Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath
or not?
And they remained silent, so he took the man and he healed them and he sent them away.
And then he said to them, which of you having a son or even an ox that fell down in the pit
on the Sabbath day would not immediately rescue them and pull them out?
And they couldn’t reply to these things.
Now we want to, I think, make two applications of this first attack of Jesus on the Pharisees.
And the first application is this, the law and love go together.
The law and love go together.
The devil is always tempting us to separate law and love and use them against each other.
The Pharisees were using the law against love.
The Sabbath day requires rest, therefore you cannot use your neighbor.
They were excusing themselves from helping and so forth.
And there’s the danger on the other side as well of using love against the law.
But when we do this, when we set love and the law against one another, then we are trying
in this to justify ourselves, to make ourselves seem righteous and holy in God’s sight.
So we want to remember that these two go together.
Love and the law goes together.
The law gives shape to our Christian love, and love is the end or the goal of God’s law.
Both love and the law together send us to love our neighbor, and it shows us that we
fall short of this love, which is why we need Jesus.
And this is the second point of this first little conversation between Jesus and the
Pharisees, and it is that Jesus is our Sabbath rest.
The law, even the law given to Moses in the Ten Commandments, is pointing to Jesus.
Now there’s, in some ways, this question that Jesus asked the Pharisees is a trick question.
He says, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day or not?
Now think about that.
Think about asking these Pharisees,
is it lawful to do miracles on the Sabbath day or not?
Is it lawful to raise the dead on the Sabbath day or not?
The Pharisees would say, well, we never really considered it a possibility.
We didn’t know you could raise the dead.
You see, when Jesus says, is it possible to heal someone on the Sabbath day or not, He’s
asking a question that only applies to Himself.
And the answer is that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.
He can do what He wants on the Sabbath because He’s the one who invented the Sabbath day
and He’s the one who gives us rest.
He’s the purpose, the fulfillment of the commandment.
He is the end of the law for all who believe, as St. Paul said.
So, when the third commandment comes along and says,
remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy,
that, especially that commandment is preaching us Jesus,
the one who said on the cross, it is finished,
and who sat down at the right hand of God the Father,
and who rests and wins in his death and resurrection,
our own rest.
In Christ, we find rest from all of the requirements
of the law. In Christ we find rest from all of the Pharisaical attempts to attain a righteousness
on our own. In Christ you have rest.” Well, the conversation moves on, and this gets to
the second point. This is the conversation about deceits. And while the first one was
rebuking the Pharisees’ misuse of the law, this second one is rebuking the Pharisees’
Remember, it says, the text says that they were carefully watching Jesus, but it turns
out that Jesus was also watching them back, and what He saw, it maybe amused Him, at least
it made Him sad.
Jesus is watching how these Pharisees are all coming to the dinner and they’re all
fighting for each other to get the best seat.
You see, the Pharisees thought higher of themselves than they ought, and they thought
that they deserved the best seats and that they were going to go and sit in those seats.
I just imagine Jesus sitting there and watching these guys come in and they’re looking to
see if anyone’s in their spot and they’re trying to figure out how high they can go
without being too high but higher than they think and everyone’s looking, how come he’s
sitting there and why are they sitting there and there’s these guys kind of jockeying for
their different positions, trying to size each other up and figure out where they fit
on this kind of social hierarchy trying to get the best seat and sit close to the host
and Jesus is just smiling watching it happen.
Now I think the closest that we have to this is a wedding when, you know how it goes at
weddings, you have the bride and the groom, they kind of sit in the middle or at the front
or wherever it is and then you have their attendants sitting next to them and then you
have close family and then friends and family kind of echoing out in different degrees of
closeness.
But the problem with that picture in our mind is that’s, I mean the way the seats are arranged
at a wedding has to do with how well you know the bride and the groom. It’s not really
sort of social standing. And I don’t know of a way to think of the feast with the social
standing that we have. The closest that I’ve ever experienced was I lived in, I lived in
this village in the highlands of Fiji for a summer and every night we’d sit around
and drink kava. They’d mix the root in this big bowl and you’d drink it out of an empty
coconut shell, and the first, and it’s very formal and ceremonial, at least at the beginning,
and the first round of the drink is according to your position in the village.
So if the chief is there, he gets the first cup.
And then if the chief’s son is there, he gets the next cup.
And then the next highest person, the next highest person, and you know, it’s really,
it’s kind of nice because you know where everybody stands just by watching who drinks
in what order.
I think it’s something like that that’s happening here with the Pharisees.
They’re trying to figure out, and they’re trying to earn their own position by getting
into these different seats because they all wanted to be the most important, and they
all thought they were the most important.
So after all this jockeying for their seats happens and they settle down, then Jesus
says this, when you go to a wedding feast, don’t take the highest place because then
Then the master of the feast will come and say, hey, I need that place for someone else,
someone more important than you.
And you, with shame, have to go stand in the corner.
No, Jesus says, you take the lowest place.
And then if that’s where you belong, no one will notice.
But then Jesus says, no, the master of the feast will come and find you sitting in the
corner and he’ll say, hey, you come sit in this place of honor, you come up higher.
here. And then Jesus gives us the application of the teaching. He makes it plain for us.
He says this, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself
will be exalted. Now this teaching is repeated so often in the scriptures and by Jesus himself
that it should be understood as a banner of God’s kingdom. Here are a few examples.
2 Samuel 22 28 You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them
down.
Job 22 29 For when they are humbled, you say, It is because of pride, but he saves the lowly.
Psalm 18 27 For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.
Proverbs 29.23, One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain
honor.
Ezekiel 21.26, Exalt that which is low and bring low that which is exalted.
Matthew 18.4, Jesus says, Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven.
And again in Matthew 23.12, Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles
himself will be exalted.
Luke 1, the Magnificat, Mary sings, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate.
Luke 3, every valley shall be raised up and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
Luke 18, I tell you, says Jesus, this man went down to his house justified rather than
the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles
himself will be exalted.”
James 4, God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, humble yourself before the
Lord and He will exalt you.
And finally, 1 Peter 5, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, humble yourselves
therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you.”
Now that’s quite a list.
I mean if you want a summary of the Bible, how about that?
The one who exalts themselves will be humbled and the one who humbles themselves will be
exalted.
It’s really quite simple.
There are only two options.
In fact, Jesus says everyone, everyone is included in this.
You have two options for life, and every person has two options for life.
You have, first, the default Pharisee option, where you exalt yourself,
where you justify yourself, where you manage your own goodness
in an attempt to be right before God or whoever,
and that ends in humiliation and judgment.
Or, you can, with humility, repent, recognizing your sin and your great need for Jesus, and
the end of that is to be exalted and sit with Him.
You see, dear saints, it is the lowly that Jesus is after.
It’s the sinner.
It’s the one who knows their sin, and their sickness, and their death, and their weakness.
It’s the one who knows what they deserve, God’s wrath.
It’s the one who wouldn’t dare to come to the Lord’s table, to approach it, except
with fear and trembling.
It’s to these that Jesus says, friend, come up higher, because He is in the business
of casting down the haughty but lifting up the lowly.
And in this way, Jesus assaults the Pharisees and our pride and grants us the entrance into
the kingdom, which is the way of humility.
And then third, Jesus gives instruction for inviting people to your own feast.
And in this way he rebukes the Pharisees’ selfishness.
The Pharisees, Jesus notices as He’s watching them, the Pharisees love to do their good
works for their own benefit.
They invite their friends to the feast, but they invite the friends that are rich and
wealthy and that will return the favor.
Do you see what the Pharisees⦠it’s a really, it’s an interesting attribute of
the Pharisees and also of our own sinful flesh, is that it fixates on justice and on fairness
in a way to such a degree that there’s no room for mercy.
And the Pharisees deal with both God and the neighbor in the same way.
If I’m good enough, if I do enough good works, if I serve God enough, then God will
welcome me and give it to me back as a payment back.
If I’m nice to my neighbor, I bless my neighbor, I care for my neighbor, then my neighbor will
be nice back to me.
And so the Pharisee, the result, is always keeping score.
Here’s what I did.
Here’s how I served.
Here’s who I invited.
Here’s what I gave.
And they’re always expecting something back for that.
And they’re always thinking of themselves.
They’re going to give in order to get.
Now, remember, when I’m talking about the Pharisee, I’m talking about you and I’m talking
about me.
So, Jesus says to us, when you give a feast, invite the poor and the crippled and the lame
and the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.
And here’s the application, it’s pretty simple.
If our eyes are fixed on the hope of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, then
And we are free to live and to love generously.
We’re free to help the people that can’t give it to us back.
We’re free to serve without attaching strings.
We’re able to give gifts without looking for anything in return because that’s how God
has given Christ to us.
The kingdom of God is not about our earning or deserving or getting back what you put
into it. No, the kingdom of God is the utterly astonishing gift of God in Christ. His death
and His resurrection, which is our life and our salvation, with nothing expected in return.
His death for your life, His poverty for your riches, His suffering for your righteousness,
His blood for your holiness, and there are no strings attached. You know what you call
a gift that has strings attached to it, a bribe.
I’ll give you this and I expect something in return.
Dear saints, the gospel is not a bribe.
It’s not.
I think the worst confusion of law and gospel,
there’s a lot of ways to confuse law and gospel,
but perhaps the worst one that I’ve heard was this.
Jesus has died for you.
Now, what are you going to do for him?
as if that’s what the Lord is after
as if he’s giving Jesus to you so that he can get something back
out of you. No, he gives and he keeps giving and it’s gift upon gift upon gift
it’s grace upon grace upon grace
it’s his kindness that knows that knows no
end and no limit. He sends Jesus to you
to rescue you and redeem you and to call you his own and he doesn’t expect
anything in return
He does not expect you to pay him back.
In fact, if you were to try to pay him back,
it would diminish the value of his gift.
The Gospel is no bribe.
It is pure mercy, pure kindness.
It comes purely from the love of God for you,
and it knows no bounds or limits,
and it saves us to the uttermost,
and frees us to begin to love our neighbor.
It’s great.
So we rejoice in this gift of Jesus
Jesus that sets us free to love.
So Jesus is after us.
This is the idea.
In fact, it’s quite ironic now to kind of end our reflection on this feast in this way
that the Pharisees invited Jesus, they invited Jesus to the feast in order to trap Him.
It didn’t end up so well for them.
He instead rebukes them but He also brings them the gift of life and wisdom and consolation.
He humbles them and He humbles us in order to exalt us, to call us to His table and to
invite us to His feast of salvation.
We look at this and we see it in ourselves, don’t we?
We see our pride, we see our fear, we see our selfishness, we see how we misuse the
law, we see our own sinful flesh and we say, Jesus, look, I’m a sinner.
I barely even deserve to walk into your church, and Jesus says to us, I know you’re a sinner.
You’re forgiven.
Friend, he says, come up higher.
But I’m afraid, we say.
I’m weak.
I might try my best, but time and time again I fail, and Jesus says, I know, but you’re
redeemed.
Friend, come up higher.
And we say, but Jesus, I’m dying.
Listen, my whole life has fallen apart, I’m surrounded by people who are suffering, and
Jesus says, I know, but look, you have passed from death to life, friend, come up higher.
And we say, but Jesus, I’m ashamed.
And he says, you’re baptized, you’re clothed in my righteousness, I’ve covered your sin.
Listen, Jesus says to you,
friend, come up higher.
Sit at the table with me.
Rejoice in my mercy.
I know you don’t deserve it.
That’s the point.
Sit with me and delight with me
in the life of God.
Friend, come up higher.
Amen.
Please stand.
and the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and
your minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
