Dining and Humility – Luke 14:7-24

“The idea of eating as a social activity is nothing new. Who you eat with has always been important in the social lives of humans, whether it be who eats first at a ritualistic feast or who gets invited to the dinner parties thrown by presidents or diplomats. Heck, even what you eat has social implications – if you can afford to indulge on the finest filet mignon or beluga caviar. Food and social interaction are deeply entwined in the human psyche, a fact which we tend to ignore in our daily lives.”  Jesus didn’t ignore it.

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But 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.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”  (Luke 14:7-24 ESV)

Jesus has just healed a man on Sabbath at this dinner.  Who was working on Sabbath to pull off this affair?  Jesus now  addresses their fine dining and the game playing going on at it.  Eating is a highly social human experience.  To eat with someone normally means you trust and value them.  That God would want to eat with us is proof of our reconciliation.  Jesus gives us three lessons on fine dining:

1) Do not honor yourself but let others honor you.  In God’s economy, whoever honors himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be honored by God.

2) One way to humble yourself is to take care of those who don’t seem to matter.  When you take care of the needy they can’t further you socially, but God will reward you.

3) Those who humble themselves will eat with God in the kingdom.  Those who arrogantly refuse to banquet with God, to humble themselves and acknowledge their need of Him, will find themselves excluded from the kingdom.

How are you gracing your table?