August 28th, 2016: Of Healing and Humility

In this past week's scripture verses, we are dealing with another controversial healing (while on his way to a meal), the seating arrangement at a meal, as well as who not to invite and who to invite when throwing a banquet.  One of the things that many have noticed about the Gospel of Luke is that Jesus seems so often to be going to a meal, eating with a group of people, leaving a meal, or telling a parable or story about a meal.  It's no wonder that communal meals are such an important part of the Christian experience.

Let's look at the verses for this past week's sermon:
Luke 14:1-14New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Jesus Heals the Man with Dropsy
14 On one occasion when Jesus[a] was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. 2 Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?” 4 But they were silent. So Jesus[b] took him and healed him, and sent him away. 5 Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child[c] or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?” 6 And they could not reply to this.

Humility and Hospitality
7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Footnotes:

a) Luke 14:1 Gk he
b) Luke 14:4 Gk he
c) Luke 14:5 Other ancient authorities read a donkey

Here we have a story where Jesus is on his way to the home of a Pharisee who has invited him to a meal.  This incident in scripture follows very nearly the story of the 'unbinding' of the bent woman that was the subject of the sermon on August 21st.  We are tempted to believe that it's the same Sabbath day but the scripture prevents us from making that determination by saying "On one occasion...", this could be the same date or it might be earlier or later, it appears to be a remembrance of a story relayed to the author and we can't make a judgment on its place in real time.  Whereas we can't make a distinction on when it occurred in actual time we can contemplate as to why the author chose to share it with us in this place in his Gospel.

In the previous week's sermon, I discussed how the bent-over woman's healing was described in the greek with a word that means not to heal, but rather to unbind or untie.  I went on to discuss the alternate tradition about the Sabbath day which has to do with the Exodus and the Hebrew people's release from slavery and bondage to Egypt.  To me, this line of thinking marries up to the story of the bent over woman much more seamlessly than the tradition of taking a day of rest on the sabbath.  Remember the woman had suffered from her condition for eighteen years and it did not seem to be considered imminently fatal.  Her healing seems to me anyway, to be more of a remembrance or a symbolic reenactment of this release of the Hebrew people from bondage.  As I stated in the sermon, healing her could almost be looked upon as a form of worship to God.

Now, let's look at this part of the scripture for the current sermon .  This time, we have a man that is healed, interestingly enough Luke seems to try and equally balance out his stories between the sexes.  Often if you read a story about a man it will be followed by a story about a woman.  Luke it seems was a bit ahead of his time as far as gender equality is concerned.  Here in this story, the man cured by Christ is inflicted with 'dropsy' which is what we would call 'edema' today (notice that again the man doesn't request a healing just like the man with the withered hand and the bent woman, Jesus instigates the healing).  Edema can be a serious health risk and isn't something you want to let progress unrestrained, it can be fatal.  So here Jesus is working on a different meaning to the Sabbath, here it has to do with the traditional 'day of rest' scenario.  Here Jesus is criticizing the placing of the sabbath day over and above the good of the people, as he says in Mark Chapter 2:27 Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.

Next, the scripture takes a bit of a turn and discusses seating arrangements at a banquet and then who one should invite to a banquet.  The underlying message in the first segment has to do with genuine humility.  Genuine humility is often an elusive thing for once we've attained a certain level of self-perceived humility we can all too easily take pride in that accomplishment.  A truly humble individual does not talk about their humility they just simply live it.  It's another example of the role reversal that pops up so often in scripture... 'the first shall be last, and the last shall be first'.

In the later segment, Christ is trying to tell us that we need not focus on those in this world than can do things to benefit us but rather we need to focus on doing things for those that are in need. It's a very condemning bit of scripture for we all are guilty at times in our lives of seeking out relationships both in personal and business environments that somehow benefit us either financially or otherwise.  We are at our most basic level selfish beings and here Christ is encouraging that we model our lives after his, to live a life of service and giving.  It's a very difficult pill to swallow entirely, and I doubt few ever consume it in full.  There are exceptions of course and these exceptions are people that we should seek to model our lives upon, for these people have modeled their lives upon Christ.

One of the dangers of focusing entirely (as we so very often do) on the Deity of Christ is that we shift to the back of our minds his humanity.  We are left believing (and saying it over and over) that Christ was perfect in every way; but we forget that he lost his temper, that he made comments at times that were rude and insensitive, that he was even afraid and anxiety ridden at times.  He was fully human, and that means he had to be flawed, or else... he wouldn't be fully human.

Jesus was incarnated fully human so we would have a model to try and live our lives around.  I often have been guilty of saying that I can't be as good as Jesus was, and likely I can't (I've failed pretty horribly so far) but that does not mean I should give up trying.  It's a model we are all to try and achieve, it's not intended to be easy... not by a long stretch.  I've fallen far short of the mark in my 56 years to live up to his model, but I'm hoping to have a decade or 2 (maybe 3 or 4) to try and live up to that model.  We're all works in progress but the ideal life... the longed for Christian goal, is to live a Christ-like life.  Let us try and live that life of humility and grace from this day forward.

Be a blessing to someone today!

In His Joy & Grace,
Roy