Luke 14:1-24
It happened.
I love the way Luke opens this story. Other versions say, “One Sabbath…” and those are lovely, but my trusty old 1995 NASB says, “It happened that what He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath…” and it makes me want to keep reading.
The Pharisees were having a hard time with Jesus. He was clearly not your average Rabbi. And He kept breaking rules. Their rules. And they had so very many rules. But for the Pharisees, the Sabbath was the nexus of the Ruli-verse. Where rules intersect with themselves. In the labyrinth of legalism, it’s easy to get lost.
Jesus does not get lost.
It happened that one of these Pharisees, who remains unnamed in Luke’s story, thought it would be a good idea to invite Jesus over to his house for the Sabbath meal. It was Friday night. It was a big deal. A huge deal. And the last phrase of verse 1 says rather ominously, “…they were watching Him closely.” Jesus had healed on the Sabbath before, and they had laid a careful trap.
But then verse 2 comes in and tells us there was a man right in front of Jesus suffering from dropsy. It seems he was either in the room or maybe even right across the table from Jesus. Dropsy is apparently some form of edema or severe swelling caused by kidney failure or liver disease, or congestive heart failure. The man could have had a severely swollen abdomen, or a taut, red, puffy face and swollen hands and feet. As he reclined at the table he may have suffered shortness of breath, his swollen legs sticking out behind him, red and shiny and practically bursting with fluid.
Jesus then reached out and poked the elephant in room. Poked him right in the eyeball with a question: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” Well, gentleman. Which is it? No escape. Direct conflict. Silence. Absolute silence. Were they staring at Jesus? Were they looking down at their half-eaten loaves, or side-eyeing the other Pharisees and scribes, gritting their teeth and thinking, “Who’s idea was this again?”
Jesus most likely gets up from the table, walks over to this suffering human and touches him. Maybe He touched his swollen feet. Maybe He put his hands on his puffy face. But Jesus touched him and healed him and sent him away. Luke records no words. No discourse. No lesson. Silence. Then Jesus asks another question: “If your son or ox fell into a well on the Sabbath, which one of you would be horrible enough to leave them there to die?” No, really, which one? You? What about him? Silence. Staring at the ground. They could make no reply.
Can you imagine how awkward things were? All these educated, powerful, fancy people are in one room eating dinner. These people mattered. Jesus is an impoverished Rabbi with a peculiar parentage leading a ragtag bunch of fishermen and tax collector on a cross-country teaching tour. The room is filled with the religious, social, and political elite. And they have no answer to Jesus. He has taken the very trap they laid for Him and graciously put them all in it and they are lost.
Verse 7 says “He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table.” Into the stunned silence of complete social awkwardness, Jesus tosses a truth grenade in the form of a parable. Don’t honor yourself. Humble yourself. Then in verse 12 Jesus says directly to the man who invited Him, “When you throw a big party, like a really big one, don’t invite all your fancy friends. Invite all the people you disdain. The poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. Then you will be blessed at the resurrection. Some poor fool tries to say something into the chasm of awkwardness Jesus has created and the only thing it produces is another parable pointing out how God has invited all the people here to a banquet but they didn’t come because they all had lame excuses and now God will instead fill His house with all the people that the very people in that room look down on. It’s brutal. Jesus shatters almost every conceivable social norm and He leaves the entire dinner party aghast in stupefied silence.
Jesus wasn’t there to ruin a dinner party. He was there to bring the kingdom of God into the house of a Pharisee. He was there to demonstrate His power and authority. He was there to show us what God looks like. God looks like Jesus. He doesn’t care about our social structures or our little rules. He doesn’t care about our politics or our guest list. He cares about people. He cares about hurting people, lost people, swollen people, fancy people, broken people, smart people. He never gets lost in busyness or distracted by the glitter of fame. He came to bring division, to cast fire upon the earth, to be baptized in suffering so that we could walk in newness of life. He came to teach us how to love, even if it means ruining a dinner party. And it makes me want to love Him by loving people well. But I don’t love people well. I ignore the suffering person in the room with me and I need Jesus to shatter my normal and help me get up from the table and enter the space of the hurting and lay hands on them and watch Jesus heal them.
Even if it ruins my plans.
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