Humility And Hospitality
HUMILITY AND HOSPITALITY
LUKE 14:7-24
What modern excuses in the form of possessions, work and home life are offered for not coming to Christ?
Verses 7-14. There is a touch of irony in this table-talk. The gathering was a crowded one, and the competition for places of importance among the guests was embarrassingly evident. The Lord lays down some simple rules for such occasions, whimsically enough, but with serious rebuke for pride beneath it all. Compare John 5:44.
“How is it,” asks C.S. Lewis, in his chapter on The Great Sin, “that people who are quite obviously eaten up by pride can say that they believe in God and appear to themselves to be very religious? I am afraid it means that they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how he approves of them … this does not come through our animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly…” The whole chapter (Christian Behaviour, chapter 8) should be read.
13:15-24. (Compare carefully with Matthew 22:1-10.) The first man had business which could not be delayed. He was insincere. No man would buy a farm without inspecting it beforehand. He really wanted to enjoy his farm, and there was nothing wrong in the desire. The man’s system of priorities was wrong. Harmless pursuits, hobbies, enthusiasms, pleasure—all these can deprive us of Christ.
The second man likewise was eager to see the brown earth turning as his new team drew the plow. A deep interest in profession or trade, one’s studies or one’s work, can shorten the vision and dry up the soul.
The third man had the Law behind him. A Mosaic regulation freed a newly married man from military service for a year. With conscious rectitude he “cannot come,” like the man who “cannot” be a Christian because the church is “reactionary,” the “tool of the governing class” … or perhaps because he has some substitute for faith and worship in some form of public service. “I cannot come” in all cases is “I will not come.” Rebel man shirks, but shirks in vain, the responsibility for his withholding.
Notes 14:12: lit. “Do not always invite your friends.” 14:15: the hope of every Pharisee—to earn the reward of sitting at the Banquet of the Righteous. 14:16-17: Israel had received the first invitation through the prophets; the customary (in Eastern practice) second invitation had been given by John and Jesus himself. 14:23: the compulsion is not that of force, but of loving earnestness—see same word in Matthew 14:22 and Mark 6:45. 14:24: “you”—the disciples.