Tag Archives: dinner

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – INVITE THE MISFITS

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INVITE THE MISFITS

‘Then He turned to the host. ‘The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family and rich neighbours, the kind of people who will return the favour. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ll be – and experience – a blessing. They won’t be able to return the favour, but the favour will be returned – oh, how it will be returned! – at the resurrection of God’s people.'” Luke 14:12-14.

Today my contribution is in the form of a testimony. Several years ago, the leadership of my church caught this vision and decided to do exactly what Jesus said, invite those who were ‘from the other side of the tracks’. The combined churches of our town run a soup kitchen, so we gave formal invitations to those who came regularly for their soup and bread.

The church members ‘came to the party’ with great enthusiasm. Donations of food poured in – a beast from a farmer and sacks of vegetables were turned into a sumptuous banquet for the down-and-outs. There were ice creams for everyone, a warm ‘beanie’ hat and fruit to take ‘home’ after the party (and who knows where ‘home’ was?). The young people made the church hall into a festive dining room with balloons and streamers, and then, on the appointed day, the people came streaming in, ragged, dirty and smelly but very excited and orderly.

And in with them came the awesome sense of God’s presence in such power that some of us were weeping and others trembling as the people filed in. It was almost as though Jesus Himself had come to grace the party. And He had, for did He not say, ‘If you have done it to the least of these, my brothers, you’ve done it to me’?

The people were seated in a circle and served as though they were royalty. Never had they received such a welcome and been treated with such honour. It was all about them and we, the ones who were so used to having the good things and being served, tasted the joy of turning the tables for an afternoon, serving without any anticipation of a return invitation.

The food disappeared at lightning speed – some enjoyed up to three and four helpings of delicious stew cooked over an open fire. Adults and children ate until they were ready to burst. Together with their meal came a simple gospel message told by a man whom God had rescued from the gutter and given another chance at life.

What a memorable day! At the end of it we were bone-weary, deliciously happy and filled with a deep sense of God’s pleasure. He was there and we felt it. We were smitten with a vision and experience which has never left us. Since that first banquet, which we dubbed our ‘kingdom extravaganza’, our church has held several more banquets and a party for the children of AIDS-infected and affected families.

‘Misfits from the other side of the tracks’ may be our opinion of the unfortunate ones who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouths, but to Jesus they are His brothers. To Mother Teresa who served the homeless and dying from the streets of Calcutta, they were ‘the face of Jesus in a disturbing disguise.’

Isn’t it time the church of the Lord Jesus climbed down off her high horse and put on the apron of servanthood and, like her Master, knelt down and washed feet instead of engaging in useless rituals which have nothing to do with the reason why Jesus came?

He said, ‘Follow me’, that’s all. We made up the rest.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – SIMPLY BE YOURSELF

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SIMPLY BE YOURSELF

“When you’re invited to dinner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, ‘Friend, come up to the front.’ That will give the dinner guests something to talk about! What I’m saying is, if you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face. But if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself,” Luke 14:10-11.

Strange how pride and self-promotion actually do the opposite of what we want to achieve! Jesus gives us a bit of homely wisdom which may not appear to be important in the bigger scheme of things but it will make a big difference to our lives in the long run. ‘Don’t promote yourself,’ He said, ‘Let someone else recognise who you really are and give you the place of honour.’ When we are so self-absorbed that we see no-one and nothing else, we are likely to trip over our own big feet!

King David, in his teenage years as a shepherd caring for sheep and living close to nature, made a discovery which influenced his whole life and contributed to his greatness as Israel’s model king. He captured his discovery in his most-loved psalm – Psalm 23. We miss the impact of what he was saying in the translation. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want,” is so familiar to us that we are comforted by the promise of God’s faithful provision for all our needs. But why should we be amazed that God does what He said He would do because He is who He is – a loving and caring Father?

The underlying thought in this observation is far more significant than God’s faithful provision for His children, as great a promise as that is for us. God is far more interested in who we are than in our circumstances. Let’s explore the deeper meaning of David’s words. “The Lord is my authority (implying that He has the last word – no-one can contradict or oppose Him); therefore I shall never be diminished.”

God is all for giving us understanding of who we really are. Our sin nature has an inbuilt capacity to diminish us in our own estimation and Satan has a field day with our ‘self-worth’. We have to bolster it up by self-importance and self-promotion, like the person who elbows his way to the top of the table. Jesus assures us, ‘You don’t need to do that because your real worth lies in who you are, not where you sit or who notices you.’

We evaluate ourselves, very often, by the way we feel, and our feelings follow our interpretation of events. For example, a woman who was molested as a child feels dirty, guilty and responsible for what happened to her. She interprets her worth according to her feelings and, consequently, diminishes herself and believes that everyone else diminishes her as well.

When Israel was in slavery in Egypt, they were diminished to the status of ‘property’ and were treated like possessions to be handled by their slave-owners as they chose. God had to re-educate His people to the realisation that they were people, not possessions and precious and beloved to Him. His first promise, hidden in the words of His preamble to the Ten Commandments (“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of slavery, out of the land of slavery…”), has this assurance in the Hebrew words, ‘Your authority grows inside the boundary of your submission and worship’. In other words, ‘As long as you submit to and worship me as your God, you will never be diminished.’

That’s the key to understanding who we really are, not in the attention and accolades we seek from so-called ‘important’ people (who are they really but ordinary people like ourselves), but in the value God puts on us as His sons and daughters, created in His image to reflect Him. And so Jesus concludes, ‘If you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself’.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – STUPID PHARISEES

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STUPID PHARISEES

“When He had finished this talk, a Pharisee asked Him to dinner. He entered the house and sat down at the table. The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended when he saw that Jesus didn’t wash up before dinner. But the Master said to him, ‘I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so that they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn’t the One who made the outside also make the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor, then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands,'” Luke 11:37-41.

Every religion has a standard of right and wrong. The religion of the Pharisees was no different. Although they believed that they were worshipping and serving the God of Israel, there had been a slow and subtle change in their understanding of who He was and what He wanted.

From the earliest time of their history, God had revealed to them the nature of His righteousness – doing what is right because of who He is. He is ‘gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and full of love and faithfulness’ – Exodus 34:6. His laws reflected His nature. He expected them to treat each other the way He treated them.

Because of their refusal to obey His laws, over time they were punished again and again for their idolatry and injustice by war and exile. They came to believe that God was only pleased when they obeyed the many petty and trivial laws that were formulated to ‘protect’ His Law. The heart of their religion became legalistic and God was reduced to the level of ‘rule-keeping’ as the standard of righteousness.

Jesus came to reveal the heart of the Father and hence He clashed with religious leaders because, like all religions, its devotees were ruled by fear. ‘Break the rules and you fall foul of the god whom you are supposed to be appeasing by keeping them.’   

Does it really matter to God whether we wash our hands before meals? For hygienic reasons, yes, but it makes no difference to the state of our hearts. What is it that really exposes what is in our hearts? Strangely enough, according to Jesus, it’s what we do with our money. Since money is the power that drives the world, who owns our money and our attitude to it reveals what is really in our hearts.

Jesus insisted that we cannot serve two masters. It is either God or money that is in the control centre of our lives. The love of money drives our selfishness, greed and attitude to other people. If money is our master, we will go to whatever lengths necessary to get it even at the cost of lives. If Jesus is our Master, money will be one of the currencies we use to make other people’s lives better.

Isn’t rule-keeping often a cover-up for wickedness in our hearts? Just like the Pharisees, we meticulously observe rules and rituals to appear ‘righteous’ but inside the ‘cup’ is the filth of greed we cannot hide from God. How do we break its power? Jesus said, ‘Be a giver, and you’ll become generous, like your heavenly Father.’ Generosity will not save us, but it will go a long way to setting us free from the ‘evil eye’ that rules the world.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE SICK?

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DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE SICK?

“After this He went out and saw a man at his work collecting taxes. Jesus said, ‘Come along with me.’ And he did – walked away from everything and went with Him.

“Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus. Everybody was there, tax men and other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner. The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to His disciples greatly offended. ‘What is He doing eating and drinking with crooks and “sinners”?’ Jesus heard about it and spoke up, ‘Who needs a doctor; the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders — an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.'” Luke 5:27-31.

Levi? A tax man? Jesus called him? And then Levi throws a party and invites all the scum from the underworld? And Jesus goes there?

What was He thinking? And then He actually eats with them? Isn’t that taking things a bit too far? Jesus was the God-man remember, and God was eating with them!

We are so used to reading the story that it doesn’t impact us like it impacted those religious men. How could this Jesus, who said He was God, whom Habakkuk said was of purer eyes than to look at evil, actually sit down and eat a meal with known “sinners” – people who habitually and deliberately broke the law and did nothing about it? They probably never went near the Temple, let alone offered a sacrifice to atone for their wickedness.

To share a meal with someone in that culture had great significance. You never ate with someone with whom you had issues. Eating a meal was a signal to everyone around that you were reconciled. God reconciled? To these people?

By celebrating with the “outsiders”, Jesus was making a profound statement. God and sinners were reconciled! But how could that be? Where was the sacrifice? He was there, with them, right before their eyes – the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world, taking away the sin of the world. The world? Yes.

These despised outcasts were just as much sons of God as the scribes and Pharisees who thought they had exclusive rights to God because of their “performance”. In Jesus’ story of the “prodigal son”, both sons were in the far country, the younger one in body and the older one in attitude. For the father, it was more difficult to win his older son back than the younger because he was so convinced that he was right.

Jesus not only taught but He showed that God is far less concerned about what people do as He is about who they are. On the basis of the atoning sacrifice of His Son, the Father receives whoever is willing to come home because they are sons and daughters – wayward yes, but nevertheless His children.

“‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.'” Acts 17:28 (NIV).

That was something the Pharisees could not understand because they based everything on their performance, especially what they did for public scrutiny. What was in their hearts was unseen and therefore irrelevant, so they thought.

Jesus’ little barb must have hit home because they had nothing more to say. ‘It’s the sick who need healing, not those who think they are well.’ The greatest of all tragedies was that they were blissfully unaware of how sick they really were. It’s those who think they are okay who need the healing the most.

It’s better to be honest than to be fooled. The riff-raff of society in Jesus’ day welcomed Him because they knew how sick they were. There was a connection because He responded to their honesty. He could not connect with the religious people because they had built a wall of pretence they were not willing to demolish and only they could break it down.

What about you? Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Transformed – By Death

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TRANSFORMED – BY DEATH 

“Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honour. Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with Him.” John 12:1, 2a NIV.

I find it strange that, for the first time the name of Lazarus, Martha and Mary’s brother was mentioned apart from his sickness and death in John 11. Although Jesus visited their home in Bethany many times, Lazarus did not feature until after he was raised from the dead. There is no indication that the two sisters even had a brother until now.

Is it possible that Lazarus was unsympathetic, even hostile to Jesus before he died? The sisters called him, “The one whom you love,” but that does not mean than he had any sort of relationship with Jesus. Jesus loved the rich young ruler and yet he chose not to follow Him and walked away.

Did Jesus allow Lazarus to die so that he could go to the grave an unbeliever; to awaken him to the truth that there is an afterlife and that there is only one way to the Father, after all, and that is through Jesus?

For the first time, at the dinner given in Jesus’ honour in his home, Lazarus was among those reclining at the table. John makes sure that his readers understand that it was in Jesus’ honour, not Lazarus’, that Martha arranged this function. The fact that Lazarus was one of the dinner guests meant that Jesus and he were reconciled. Did he refuse to eat with Jesus until now because he did not believe in Him?

Although this is conjecture, if it is the truth, Jesus might deliberately have allowed Lazarus to experience death and then bring him back to life again so that he would know what it was like to be separated from God and then be given another opportunity to believe in Jesus.

“…with Him.” Is that a loaded statement? It almost sounds as though John wanted to emphasize Lazarus’ new intimacy with Jesus. Jesus would have occupied the place of honour at the table, but where was Lazarus seated? “With Him,” right beside Him; perhaps reclining on Him as John had done at the Passover meal.

I think it was more than gratitude that brought Lazarus to faith in Jesus. He was probably one of those men who was too proud or too stubborn to acknowledge that he was wrong. He needed a wake-up call (pardon the pun) far stronger than the teaching, or even the healing miracles of Jesus. Was he one like Thomas who demanded to poke his finger into Jesus’ wounds before he would believe?

Whatever Lazarus needed to shake him out of his unbelief, Jesus met him and he became a convinced and devoted follower. He had tasted death and returned. The Pharisees could argue that the man born blind was not blind or not healed or whatever else they wanted to believe but they could never argue away the truth that Lazarus was decaying in the tomb and Jesus called him back to life.

“Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” John 12:3 NIV.

This verse completes the picture and gives one a feeling of satisfaction. Each member of the Bethany family is in his or her place; Martha in the kitchen, serving; Lazarus at Jesus’ side, reclining; and Mary at Jesus’ feet, adoring; each one worshipping Jesus in the appropriate way! Finally, Lazarus has come home. He has become a member of God’s family and has taken his rightful place in his human family.

It was a long and difficult road for him. He had to endure the suffering of his mortality to gain an understanding of his immortality. In His love for Lazarus, Jesus allowed him to walk right into physical and spiritual death to feel the magnitude of God’s grace and to receive the gift of everlasting life that was wrapped up in His own death and resurrection. In the course of a few days Jesus would be where Lazarus had been so that Lazarus could be where He was.

He did that for him and for us too…!