Luke 13:18-14:14

Read along as Matthew guides us through the Gospel of Luke. In these verses, Jesus tells the Parable of the Mustard Seed, teaches about the Narrow Door, and expresses his sorrow for the city of Jerusalem. Then Jesus goes to eat at a prominent Pharisee's house where he explains a little about God's version of true hospitality.

Matthew is the Pastor of St. Paul's United Church of Christ located in the beautiful small town of Grand Haven, MI. Learn more about St. Paul's today. www.stpaulsgrandhaven.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, friends, welcome to Bible study this morning. Um, we are reading in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 13, starting in verse 18. We get the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast to begin things. Let's pray before we start reading. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We come to you this morning, dear God, and we just ask for grace in large doses for your own revealing of your own self as we read the Gospel of Luke. And we pray that your Spirit would be with us, illuminating our hearts and our minds to all the glory of your infinite love. And God, we uh we just thank you for the time that we can spend together reading and listening and thinking about such things. Amen. Then Jesus asked, this is Luke 13, verse 18. Then Jesus asked, What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? And if we pause there, most people would say that the kingdom of God is an established kingdom in heaven, right? And when you imagine the kingdom of God or you imagine heaven, you imagine a very rigid, stolid, secured, safe. This is a place that is how it is, right? I mean, what do you imagine when you think of heaven? Streets paved in gold, or uh what do you imagine when you imagine the kingdom of God? With all the trees going up, right? So that revelation has this image of a river and it's lined with trees, and there's this there's this throne, and the the the lamb is seated on the throne, and and the throne is brilliant, and God is with us, and yeah, okay, so trees and rivers and creation is a part of your imaginings for heaven. Anything else?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

But once for the person before you, person before you, she made in heaven where she was sitting in a lounge chair by a river reading.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, okay, sitting in a lounge chair by a river reading. For some people, heaven is immensely personal, right? It's it's like a personal respite, it's like a vacation destination, but forever, you know. For for me, often heaven is a meal, right? There's this just so much in scripture is about food and how and this and the sacramental dimensions of food. Jesus breaks bread and he reminds us that in the broken bread, he is present with us. And so, you know, I imagine everything from a small meal to the great messianic banquet, you know, a mountainside meal. Uh I so I I imagine mountains in heaven. I think about C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, and I think about uh rivers and streams and mountains and and heaven being a place where there's always a higher up and a further in, right? Almost like the Highlands in Scotland. You can always go further. Uh heaven is never ending. Okay. Any other like images that come to mind when you think of the kingdom of God?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Well, I think of a reconnection, of a connection with my parents.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, you think about relationships, seeing your parents again, seeing your friend again, seeing Mikey again. Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

And talk about how smart I got. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Did you see me later in life, mom? Yeah. Oh, that's good. Yeah, so about relationships too, the people. There's books about that, the people you meet in heaven, right? Isn't that like a famous book from the 90s? So Jesus says this great or asks this great question: what is the kingdom of God like? And all of us are imagining that thing out there, over there. Up there or far away. But for the entire Gospel of Luke, Jesus is saying, I'm here, and the kingdom is being established in my presence. You know, later on, he'll say, The kingdom is within you, the kingdom is around you, the kingdom is being spread, the kingdom is advancing on earth. So, what is the kingdom of God like? He's going to talk about something small growing larger, right? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches. Where did we begin in the Gospel of Luke? How large and influential and powerful is Jesus in the beginning of the story? Your heart spins back to Christmas time, and he, like a mustard seed, is a helpless infant in a manger. He's a he's a fetus inside Mary. He's a he's an acceptance of a promise inside Mary's heart. I mean, the kingdom, if the kingdom is established in the incarnation and the presence of God, it really did begin like a seed. And now it's grown into a full man, full God, Jesus Christ is Lord kind of person. But also he's saying it is growing, it is growing beyond just me. What Jesus has come to do is scatter lots of seeds and and make an entire garden, a garden that influences the rest of creation. You know, that here's here's where the birds come in. You know? Uh that the mustard seed is a bit of nothing to birds, maybe one tiny bit of food to one tiny bird. But as it grows, it becomes this tree and the bird's perched in its branches. Now I think he's got a bit of a mystery in this text, because if you've ever seen a mustard bush, you know it's not a tree. And it's not really a place where very many birds would want to perch in its branches. It doesn't really even have branches, it's a floppy bush. So when he says that the tree or the seed becomes a mustard seed becomes a tree, or in other places it's a great tree that becomes a house for birds, I think he's also talking about a kind of transformation. I think he's winking at resurrection. That Jesus Christ, as we're encountering him now in chapter 13 of Luke, yes, he's the incarnate Lord, he's fully man and fully God, but he's also going to die. And then after he dies, after he's planted into the earth, he will be resurrected into a glorious new form, a new creation, something that is uh genetically similar yet totally new from what he was before. So it you know, it would be like a a a bush becoming something more than what it could naturally become, like a from a bush to a tree, you know, from Jesus Jesus from from a man who is mortal to a gloriously resurrected human being who will never die.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

From the smallest of seeds that grow.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Right.

unknown 8:11

So it really grows.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah. It really grows.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

One thing you go down a road when there's a field of Western portions. Just feel it should not look all tree.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

So is nothing compared to like the Cedars of Lebanon, you know? Yeah, yeah. Right. Yep. Yeah. So uh again, we ask the question, what is the kingdom of God? And immediately our hearts spin off to over there, up there, heaven, a different dimension, something like that. Jesus asks the question, and he is describing actually his mission on earth, which is to make something grow. And it's gonna start small and it's going to spread. And that's the kingdom spreading on earth. And in the next parable, he said again, he said, What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about 60 pounds of flour until it worked through all the dough. So here comes the kingdom is within us. Well, how does how does it work to have ye like what does yeast do when you're baking? Any any bakers here?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Well, it grows. It grows. It grows before you're baking killer, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

It grows before you bake. Once you cook it, you're killing the bacteria. But what's it what's it doing in the meantime while you're letting the it's it it multiplied. And does it just does it just infect a little bit of dough?

unknown 10:01

Alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

It works through the whole thing. Right. And and it makes bread rise. So he's I think he's doing a lot with a little tiny. It's weird that we remember this parable, but if you get some of the depth to it, uh Jesus is, here's one. He's talking about uh risen dough instead of unleavened bread. And there's a story in the Bible about unleavened bread that's pretty substantial. And what is it? The Passover, right? And what's that Passover story all about? Why is the bread unleavened? They had to leave fast. There was no time. So Jesus is telling a story that is sort of the opposite of that. Oh, we've got some time. We're gonna let it, we're gonna let it rise. We're gonna let it cook, we're gonna let it become what the bread was always supposed to be. But also he's telling the same story of liberation from slave from enslavement. You know, that's that's what his mission is. This world is captive to sin and death, and I am going to liberate all of you enslaved people. And we're gonna, it's gonna be so good. We I'm gonna win so decisively, we won't need unleavened bread for this one. We'll have some risen bread. And again, that word rise, that's the resurrection, right? He's he is going to grow in himself as the kingdom itself grows within us and amongst us. And then, of course, the yeast working through all the dough, if the kingdom is within you, there's this idea that the kingdom will, the spirit of God inside of you will go to work on every bone and cell and fiber and DNA and compound and organ, and that God's going to infect you with goodness, and it's going to impact your entire existence, not just your soul going to heaven, your entire body rising into something more than what flour could ever be on its own. Flour on its own is fine, but you add that other ingredient, and literally a transformation happens. And God is saying, Jesus is saying, Yeah, I'm gonna transform each of you. You like being a human? You like being flower? I'm gonna add yeast. You're going to become more than what you could ever be if you were just flower. Yes, it's his teachings, it's his presence, it's the presence of the Spirit, it's God's grace. God is going to transform you. You wouldn't survive. This is, you know, if you think about C. S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, you couldn't handle heaven if you didn't change. None of us can handle that kind of goodness and light. It would blind us, it would hurt us, it would we can't in in C. S. Lewis's fantastic book, blades of grass are so solid and sharp, they cut the people who aren't solid enough. They haven't been transformed enough to be able to handle God's glorious presence. It's too real. So God's gonna change you. And that's you know, that's discipleship. It's uh, you know, it's saying Paul would use the language of sanctification throughout your life. God is cleaning you out from the inside, like a good, you know, dietary cleanse, getting rid of the bad, healing the cancers, reestablishing who you are, and then when that moment of death comes, resuscitating, reviving, and resurrecting your very body until it's changed and it and it is no longer a mortal body, it's an it's an immortal diamond, right? I mean, so there's a lot there. What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? And he's talking about a garden and he's talking about bread, and there is sort of endless dimensions to both of those categories, and they relate directly to you. Verse 22, then Jesus went through the towns and villages teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, Lord, are only a few people going to be saved? And maybe they are thinking about heaven as he's talking about the kingdom of God, trying to redefine the kingdom of God as this thing that is growing in their midst now. Maybe the guy is thinking mustard bush, 10 feet tall, not that big. Jesus is thinking Cedar of Lebanon, very, very big, very, very mighty. And the disciples, like, is it just going to be a small movement? It are few people gonna be saved? How's it going to work? Who gets in? You know, immediately we're thinking about our neighbors and our friends and not just ourselves. We're also a little worried about ourselves. So, Lord, are only a few people going to be saved? And he said to them, Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, he will stand outside knocking and pleading, Sir, open the door for us. But he will answer, I don't know you, or where you come from. Then you will say, We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets. But he will reply, I don't know you, or where you come from, away from me, all you evil doers. There will be weeping there and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed, there are those who are indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last. And when you read that whole section, what's the answer to will many be saved? If you just read the first section about the narrow gate, what's the answer? Will many be saved? Few. No, it's tough. Not everybody. Warning. But when you read the last, and you read that the last shall be first, who is the last in the paradigm of a narrow gate where only few enter? Who is the last? The ones outside where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. And so he ends the story with the last shall be first. Now, some people might say, Oh, the last shall be first happens before the weeping and gnashing of teeth. But in the narrative structure, it comes at the end. And there's always continually a great reversal where God scoops up the ones who are last and least and brings them to the front of the line. And the people who are walking through the narrow gate, look at me, fancy me, I'm the best and I'm the first. He says, Hold on a second, can you can you get to the back of the line? And so there's always this great reversal. And then also, where are people coming from? Everyone from every direction, from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west. Is that few people or a lot of people? Unclear. I I read lots.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Well, perhaps being Jewish would not guarantee a place in the kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Gentiles.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yep. So that's part of what he is warning is uh you want to sit back and rest on your laurels and and not try. You're gonna be like a bread of dough that doesn't rise. You know, you go back to that. Okay, just because you eat unleavened bread and celebrate the Passover doesn't mean you have any clue about the risen bread that I'm offering you now. Right? Just because you uh listened to my teaching or went to church your whole life does not mean you understand the kingdom. It doesn't mean that God is active in your life. There is a there is a stark warning in this. Pay attention, people. What's at stake? Your life, the world. How long are we gonna go on pretending that this is all there is and this is what matters, and might does right, and prosperity is the highest form of life, and wealth and power will get us there? Come on. No, things are gonna change, they have to change. All of us need to be changed into a greater kind of existence than just flour without yeast. And if you stay flower, you're just flower. Now who brings the yeast? God. And God's got enough yeast for all of us. But some of us will say no thank you to the yeast.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Like uh there are people who are good people who are religious in a religion. Maybe they don't need the yeast and they need baking powder. You know, that's Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

I'll let you have that conversation with God. God, I think I like baking powder better than yeast. No, I'm gonna say you do you, Lois. People think you're going to win saying nothing yeast, but I have some leavening in there. Right. Yeah, that sound that kind of bargaining sounds exactly like the person in this story. People will come to you and say, We ate and drank with you, you taught in our streets, we have leavening. And he will say, I don't know you or where you come from, away from me, all you evildoers. The thing is, the kingdom of God is so perfectly pure in light and God's goodness, there is no space for violence. There is no space for evil. There is no space for darkness. And the truth is, every human being has darkness in them. Everyone does. Even the most holy of holy, I don't know who's the most holy person, the Dalai Lama, the Pope, somebody, definitely not me. Even they have darkness in them, right? And so none of us are worthy. And everyone is getting to heaven by the grace of God. And if you don't understand that it is by God's grace that you are here, arriving in this alternate realm, how do you get in without accepting the grace? You have to accept the grace, you have to, you don't get in. To that party that is free if you say, I want to get in, but I don't want a free ticket. Like there, we just have an ability to refuse it. I don't know how it works, you guys. It's complicated. I asked the same question as the disciple, Lord, are only a few people going to be saved? Because it it seems like very few people uh understand this. You know? And and Jesus is doing all the heavy lifting here. Right?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

What is that the make going down and be earth? Isn't earth going to be good or bad if it's just going to be a milder form because the meat are for sheep?

SPEAKER_00 22:42

I think that he's talking about the last shall be first in that kind of an example. The Beatitudes are reversing what our world qualifies or quantifies as significant. And he's lifting up the insignificant, the poor, the meek, the small, and the weak. And he's saying, They will get the kingdom. Is it possible for a meek person by inheriting the kingdom to also then get to the front of the line and lose it due to their own ego? Yeah, that's kind of the point. Right? But when we fall, God goes and scoops up the lowest of the low and the last in line and says, Alright, now you, you inherit my kingdom. And there's there's always this invitation from God, and and yet there's so many of us that get off the conveyor belt, that step out of line. We all do. We all do. You know, I'm gonna guess that the Pope really was super holy when he was a kid. You know, I don't I don't know the Pope. And I'm gonna guess that something about being the Pope corrupts his soul. Not all the way. I think he seems like a good guy. He's saying some really he's preaching some good sermons right now. I don't know enough about him to know anything other than once in a while, I like some of the Pope memes. You know, I like some of the words he's putting out into the universe. Uh but I sometimes I think holiness peaks in children, and uh, and we unlearn that as we learn the ways of this world instead of that kingdom. Jesus talks like that, that the kids, children will be first. And he's saying the same kind of thing. Ignorance is not a, you know, you don't you don't miss out on heaven because you're ignorant. You don't miss out on the afterlife in my glory because you don't know. You miss out because you are so stubbornly clinging to what you think is right, and guess what? You're not right. You can't be. None of us can.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

God is God, and you are not little creature.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

So Jesus has woe. He has warning, it's stark. We think, Jesus, you're always nice. Why are you some of us will be left where there's weeping and there's gnashing of teeth? It seems harsh, but he's shaking the people. Wake up, wake up, the way you're living isn't working. If you can't see the corruption and the brokenness from the top to the bottom, you're blind. It's not working. And then he has sorrow too for Jerusalem because it's not working in his time. This world is just not working out. At that time, verse 31 At that time, some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you. He replied, Go tell that fox, I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal. In any case I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day, for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Okay, a lot here. Why is Jesus weeping and lamenting over Jerusalem? In this text, he gives a specific reason. What does Jerusalem do to the prophet? Jerusalem kills the prophet. Why? You challenge their power. The prophet speaks truth to the king. The prophet speaks truth to the temple. The prophet speaks truth to the elite. And what do the powerful and the elite do when somebody speaks out against them? They kill them. The prophet speaks truth to society. The spot the prophet speaks truth to the way every human being lives. And what do human beings do to the one who tells them they're not living the way they should live? We argue. We say, get out of here. We kick them in the teeth. We say no way. And if that person happens to align with, you know, somebody else who has an enemy against him, and other people have an enemy against, and you get both crowds and the powerful hating the same person aligned against a prophet like Jesus. Jerusalem, Yerushalem, Shalom, is meant to be the city of peace. Just think about that for a second. Yeah, I mean, laugh about it. It is literally named City of Peace. How's that working out, Middle East? How's that working out? Uh let's let's just name all the groups, Christians, Jewish people, and Muslim people. How is it working out? Three major world religions. You got some peace there? A little bit of fake peace when we slice the pie into wedges, and we have segments of the city for this religion and segments of the city for that religion, and segments of that's not wholeness, though. That's a pie wedged out, and everybody gets a little bit of a slice. We can't do it. We don't know what makes for peace. Jesus goes to Jerusalem and weeps. This is not a coincidence that major cultures and major religions collide in the Middle East. It is where the North, the South, the East, and the West meet on that group of continents, right? All through history. Now, the Americas are a little different. We've got some oceans separating us. We're a little weird. But in Jesus' world, this is where the Roman Empire meets the Egyptian Empire, meets the Assyrian Empire, meets the Babylonian Empire, you know, where the Persians and the Greeks would meet is just in this middle spot. And all through history it has been warred over and battled over. And every people group has a claim to holiness in this place. And Jesus weeps. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if you knew what made for peace, you don't know. I will come in the name of peace. You will say, Blessed is the one who comes. That's the phrase used. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We're going to wave palm fronds this Sunday, and we're going to say, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. And it will be on the lips of everyone when Jesus enters the city, because everyone thinks he's on my team. And finally, God's going to come and save my people and liberate my people, and we'll get all the benefit of it. And the second they learn he's not going to divide it up that way, they leave. They skip out. They start pointing fingers. And a week later, the entire crowd says, kill him. Kill him. Kill him. He's not on my team. I'd rather have that rebel thief over there who is on my team. That's the choice that the crowd makes when they choose Barabbas versus Jesus. Barabbas is a rebel who wants to cause an uprising against the people they want to drive out. And they say, give us war, because at least we've got a shot to win. Don't give us love and peace and nonviolence. Pooy. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if only you knew what would make for peace, we don't know. We have to change. We have to change as a species. We can't just be flower anymore. We have to be flower with yeast. Risen by God's own grace, by God's transforming love into something more than what we used to be, just a human. It sure is a big order. It's overwhelming. It feels like it's not coming to fruition. And and you go back to Jesus asking the question, what is the kingdom of God like? It starts small. It starts small like a mustard seed. And by the grace of God it grows into a tree. Yeah, how do you end war and conflict and bring peace? The honest answer is we can't. Come, Lord Jesus. Seriously, we can't. We can sign a peace treaty and have peace for ten years or twenty years. But the next generation will war over the same thing they have for at this point? How many thousands of years? Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. You know, the the disciple asked Jesus, Lord, how many are how many people are actually gonna be saved? And the question is, are you know, how many chicks are gonna run under Mother Hen's wings? You know, and I I don't know if you've got any footnotes on that. It's kind of a cool image. Chicks or hens will protect their baby chicks. Uh in in there's certain bird species, I think uh pheasants maybe, or I don't know, where uh um prairie fires can burn an entire prairie, and a bird can literally protect her wing, you know, gather her young under her wings and burn herself and die, but the little chicks will survive. And that and that's part of the image of what Jesus is saying is I'm gonna gather, I wish I could gather you under my wings and just take it off for you and die for you, and protect you from real wrath, which is real, right? It'll it'll come in a million different forms from each other and from God Himself, and I can protect you from that, and I will die for you, and that's what he does. And yet, how many of us are willing to go and gather under his wings? You know, some of us, some of us. Many from the north, the south, the east, and the west will come. And some of us who are the most desperate will finally understand grace and will say, Yeah, okay, sign me up. Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom to understand grace. You got a footnote, Wayne? Oh, I thought you had one. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I mean, he sounds like Isaiah here, doesn't he? He sounds like a prophet. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So Jesus is, here we are, chapter 13. We're a couple chapters away from Jesus entering the city on the donkey with people, you know, saying, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, a phrase used for David's coming back to liberate the city, looking for a war hero, right? Verse or chapter 14, New Day, new story. One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. That sounds uncomfortable. Jesus asked the Pharisees and the experts in the law, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Why did they remain silent? We've we've read this type of a scene before where Jesus heals on a Sabbath and he gets in trouble. Here, he's at the house of a prominent Pharisee, and uh and they remain silent. What's going on?

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Well, you know what that they were gonna say. Is it law for the hell?

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yeah, maybe they're starting to, you know, take a less rigid stance on the issue, and they're starting to wonder okay, what's this guy doing? And in this section, it does, it's important to remind ourselves, you know, uh, Jesus is being critical of Israel. He is being critical of Jewish people. Also, he is Jewish, and not all Pharisees are bad people. These Pharisees earlier, just a few verses before, when they warn him, you know, Herod wants your life, they're trying to help, right? They're not threatening him in that scene. They're trying to say, Hey, did you know? And Jesus says, Yeah, I know, right? And here, maybe, maybe they're being a little more sympathetic to his uh to his cause. Uh, of course, we know Nicodemus is a Pharisee that becomes a follower of Jesus. So this is not like an anti-Semitic, an anti-Jewish thing. Jesus is trying to save the world. And he is starting with his own people, offering literally an olive branch and a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, right? Uh, and so here we get some Pharisees that maybe, okay, they don't quite, at least they don't scold him in the beginning. Yeah, what do you got?

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Questioning um before the miracle made it more difficult.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Because he hadn't officially worked yet, or they hadn't more heavy than we had during the complex.

unknown 38:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Right, right. So there's maybe there's a bit of a public aspect to this. He's challenging them. And and they look foolish in an honor-sham paradigm if they say no and then he goes ahead and does it, because he has real authority over them in that kind of a situation. Okay, maybe. Some of them are, you bet. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so maybe they're just arms crossed silent. You know, you've been in those rooms before. I'm just not gonna make a comment. I'm gonna let him keep talking and do his thing, but I'm gonna get him later. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Don't just find that we can trace the Jewish people and the people that are fighting right now back to brothers.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Yeah. Right. Yeah. All of us. Don't you find it odd that you can trace all of us back to humanity? Right? That's like that's the whole deal. It really is. Yeah. Uh but you know, I know brothers fight. That happens. That's part of what it means to be brothers.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Between themselves. But then if a third party comes to, hey, why not?

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Right. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

A brother go with a brother.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Right. Okay, so then he asked them if uh okay, so so they remain silent. Uh taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Verse five. Then Jesus asked them, if one of you has a child, uh some manuscripts have donkey here. Uh, if one of you has a child or a donkey or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out? And they had nothing to say. That's you know, that's a Levitical law, right? Don't do work. If one of your animals, if you're a farmer, one of your animals gets injured, falls into a ditch on the Sabbath, you gotta let it moan, right? Don't do work. And he's saying, Would you really not do that's your livelihood? You probably only have one donkey. Are you really not gonna pull it out? Right. Yeah, a child. You're gonna not, you know, pull out a ladder or go get some rope and help that kid out? Come on. Yeah. When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable. So pause before we even read the parable. How do guests pick places at a fancy dinner party? You know? Yeah. Have you ever been to a wedding before?

unknown 40:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

In most of the wedding, not all weddings, some weddings are just it's a backyard barbecue, y'all do you, right? That's fine. But in like I'd say 95% of the weddings I've attended, is there arranged seating? By level of importance? Like if I show up as the pastor of a wedding and I'm just there to do the wedding, I'm not there because I'm lifelong best friends with the bride and the groom, and I plop down next to the bride at the head table. Is that gonna be cool? No, no, they're gonna be like, get out of here. That's for my best friend, right? That is for the bridegroom, or you know, whoever, the the maid of honor. You know, if I sit down in mom's seat, is that gonna be no? We have a pecking order, right? We choose the best seats, we want the best seats, and certain people get best seats. That's how all societies have worked forever. So Jesus is watching people take the place of honor, and he tells them a story. When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor. For a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, give this person your seat. Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. Back of the room, please, Pastor Matt, your seat's over there. And you the walk of shame down from the seat of honor. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, Friend, move up to a better place. Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. You go back to what he was saying in chapter 13 about the narrow door. Many are coming from east and west and north and south, and they are elbowing their way into the kingdom. And he says to you, the last shall be first. And and what he's saying is, What you want to get in, just go hang out with the lowest people. Stop trying to be the most elite VIP, just cut it out. You want to be on the right side of the war? Go find a family whose child has been killed and feed them. Try living with them, invite them into your home, even if that brings shame upon you. You want to be the most important person? Don't think of yourself as better than any of the people over in that shelter for people who are struggling with homelessness, or those people in the hospital today. You know, right now Trinity is filled with people, and and there is a pecking order in hospitals. I don't know if you've ever seen this. The doctors who are like elite brain surgeon anesthesiologists, they roam the hall. Like dinosaurs. And the nurses are scared to even like ask the doctor their opinion because they are the boss. Right. And you can hardly get time with the doctor often. Unless you have visitors with you, then sometimes the doctor will be like, oh, there's people here. I'm going to actually talk to this patient and seem important because Jim might need a golf buddy someday, you know. But in hospitals, there's this pecking order. The doctors are these elite, and then these nurses are next in line, and then and then you get the person who just brings the food, you know, here's your lunch, and then they go back to the cafeteria and get another tray and bring the food. And all the way down to who? The person in the bed who is actually struggling. Their kidney isn't working and they're dying. And Jesus is saying, You want to be great in the kingdom of heaven, go climb into bed next to that person and say, Here, have my kidney. I'll take your place.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Okay, so this is this is something we should have. A banner board. Humility is the fan to promote in the kingdom. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's part of the way. Humility which which is different than just staying quiet and staying small. He's talking about a kind of humility that is generous and generative and life-giving, and you're not better than the people that come and sit at the AA meeting. You are with them. You're with them. You're not better because you're sober, you're the same as them. Right? You're not better than the immigrant, you're the same as the immigrant. You're not better than the person who is a murderer and in prison. You're the same as that person who is a murderer and in prison. You know, and there are these pockets in our society where we will not go and we don't want, you know, and and yet those are the places Jesus would go first. And those are the last places we want to go. And Jesus is saying, the last are the first. And that's not so that you get yourself out of prison and you become a gajillionaire and then you can laugh at the other people who didn't make it like you did. No, it's like this is the kingdom. The kingdom is profound empathy and humility and love. It's love. We just gotta love each other. We gotta support each other. We gotta be kind to each other and serve each other. You know. Then Jesus said to his host, When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors. If you do, they may invite you back, and so you will be repaid. You know how that works? You know? Yeah. You know, for Thanksgiving, we bounce between two families every other year. And we go to one side of our family one year, my mom's side, and then we go to Hillary's mom's side the other year, and we bounce between those two families. And and once in a while at Thanksgiving, somebody brings a guest, you know, Jimmy who's struggling, and we just want to give him a seat at the table. And uh, but I have never walked into a Thanksgiving meal and known no one. I've never walked into a Thanksgiving feast at my mom's house and been surprised that there's 50 people I do not know at her party that she I'll tell you who she's gonna invite. And there's maybe one or two special guests. And Jesus is saying, listen, when you throw a party, quit inviting the people you already like and start inviting the people who are challenging to invite or who don't deserve an invitation, you know. Boy, who wants that? I mean, honestly, who wants to just not hang out? I love my family so much.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Well, sometimes Thanksgiving is the only time you receive.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Exactly. All overcreated, right? See how easy it is to justify how our world is look, this is the best we can do. We'll just stick with our families. But Jesus is he is so optimistic that humanity can be a human family, and that you can maybe start by inviting some other people into your life. When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. We'll end there today. Uh, that's the encouragement this week. Um, how can you be kind, hospitable, and generous towards the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind? Maybe you could make a visit to somebody in the hospital today. Maybe you could keep caring for a spouse who needs caring for. You know, maybe you could find a neighbor in need and you could help them out.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

Um go to a nursing home and go to the luncheon, and you're clear. You'll have a half a dozen sitting in there before dinner.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Right. Yeah, and go say hi. Be kind. Exactly. They're so happy to have some. They really are. Go visit any of these nursing homes you could walk into at lunchtime and just strike up a conversation and be kind to somebody, you know. Um, if you're in line at Starbucks, surprise somebody by paying for their coffee, you know. Find a family who you think, man, I bet it's tough to pay your bills. Here's 50 bucks. You know? If we always go through all the same channels, we're not doing anything different. And we do need to disrupt some of our systems and be radically generous and hospitable in small ways in our own life, start small. The kingdom starts small. Extend love and kindness. All right, we'll leave it there. Grace and peace, everybody. Have a wonderful week.