The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus had been invited to eat a meal on the Sabbath at the home of one of the leading Pharisees around Jerusalem. Now if you have paid any attention to how the Gospels work, and how Jesus’s enemies work, you know that when a scribe or a Pharisee or a priest or a Sadducee or a lawyer invites Jesus to dinner, or even asks Him a question — something’s up. It’s a trap. Obviously, from the very early start of His earthly ministry, they were constantly scheming and planning and trying to set up scenarios where Jesus simply couldn’t win.
It had been planned and arranged, this meal at the Pharisee’s house. Hosting a banquet on the Sabbath was a common practice, especially among the wealthy, the religious leaders. The banquet lunch was held after the worship service in the local synagogue had ended, or the temple service was over. It was a dinner party with a lot of food, a lot of guests, a lot of family, a lot of friends, a lot of distinguished people of the community — the who’s who of the then and now. It was forbidden by Law to work on the Sabbath, so everything had to be done and prepared in advance: the food the day before, all the other arrangements preceding that Saturday morning, including the invitees. It was a plan that had been in the works for at least about a week.
In addition to the usual invitees — the who’s who of religious and political life — the host had invited a man, a sickly man, the kind of man not pleasant to look at. He suffered from edema, a severe water retention problem. It was kind of disgusting to look at, especially at a dinner function. But there he was, invited — but not by accident. He was there for a specific reason. He was there because he was the bait in the trap for Jesus’s compassion. He was bait, intended to snare Jesus in a violation of what they understood as Sabbath Law.
And from the moment Jesus entered the house, the religious leaders were watching Him closely. The Greek word actually has more to do with scrutinizing. They were scrutinizing. They were trying to find a scandal. They were trying to find something Jesus would say or do that would be a clear violation of the Law of Moses, and thus demonstrate to the people that Jesus was a false teacher and an impious man. And nothing was left to chance. They even made sure that the man would be in front of Jesus. There would be no way for Jesus not to see him at this banquet feast.
In this case, the religious leaders wanted Jesus to actually do a miracle on the spot. They actually wanted Him to have compassion on the man and to heal him — but not for the sake of the man, but for the sake of their legal case against Jesus. They wanted Him to break the Law and to show Himself to be what they accused Him of being: a false teacher, an impious man, and a man who had no regard for the Law of Moses.
So they were watching — more accurately, they’re scrutinizing. And Jesus knew what they were doing and why they were doing it. He knows it’s a trap. So He engages in a pre-emptive strike. He puts the question to them before they can put a question to Him: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” It’s a simple yes-or-no answer, a simple, direct question. But they can’t answer. They refuse to answer, because they apparently knew what Jesus was now up to and what He was doing.
And Jesus knew well Deuteronomy 22, verse 4, which tells a Jew, a child of God: “You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fallen down on the road and avoid them. You shall certainly help him raise them up.” That is: even the beast of burden in trouble, that belongs to your neighbor, your fellow Jew, your Israelite friend — you are to help him rescue his beast of burden. In other words, acts of kindness, mercy, and aid are not only lawful on the Sabbath, they’re commanded to be done on the Sabbath. And Jesus knew it. And from the reply of the religious elite at the banquet, they knew it too. They just didn’t care. They’re the ones that didn’t have regard for the Law of Moses.
Paul writes about this kind of Christian attitude and work in Galatians 5:22-23: the fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no Law. The Pharisees here think there’s a Law against such things, and they’re trying to impose it on Jesus.
So Jesus asks His host: “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” Again, Jesus puts the Word of God — right theology, faith, and compassion — front and center. He’s not making a new Law, and He’s not breaking an old one. He’s doing what every child of God ought to do, particularly on the Sabbath day. He’s engaged in an act of mercy and kindness and rescue. Even knowing that it’s a trap, He steps in willingly and justly. He puts Deuteronomy 22:4 before them, and they could offer no reply.
And then it happened — the thing that they wanted, the thing that the man needed, and the thing that Jesus wanted to do for the man. Jesus took hold of him and healed him and sent him away. Probably sent him away so he wouldn’t catch their contagion of the bad doctrine of the religious leaders of the day.
They set out to trap Jesus. Instead, they found themselves caught in their own snare. They found themselves breaking the Law of Moses — the Law they sought to uphold. They were, in fact, breaking it. We have a word for that: it’s false piety. Jesus exposed the inconsistency and the downright cruelty of the religious leaders at the banquet. They treated the man with edema as a pawn, as an object, as bait in a trap. But Jesus fulfilled the Law of love. He showed mercy toward the man, and freedom from a life of illness and a life of ill-treatment.
Now Christians ought to be that kind of person — the kindness and the mercy kind of person. Christian churches ought to be known for that. In the early church, they were. In the early church, the church was known among the pagans for two things. First: their strong adherence to the preaching, teaching, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were a church that fought over doctrine. They were a church that fought for the truth, that contended for the faith once delivered to the saints. And at the same time, they were a church that cared and loved the poor, the downtrodden, the sick, the widow, the orphan — so much so that Roman governors complained that the kindness and love and charity of the church could not be turned away, and that they were appealing more to the people than the Roman government could, mostly because the Romans had spent themselves into oblivion and could no longer help their own citizens, let alone protect them.
But Jesus wasn’t finished with this. He demonstrated what true faith and compassion and the Law actually required, but there was more to teach. And as the banquet moved along, He noticed how people had been picking out the places of honor at the table. They were jockeying for position. They not only didn’t care about this man, they also only cared about themselves and the public praise and admiration. They simply sat in the right place, filled with self-importance and wanting to be noticed. The attendees were in an unspoken competition for public recognition.
I’ve spent a lot of time at various functions in the church over the years — not so much lately — but there’s an awful lot of jockeying for position going on in those various rooms. You can tell who’s running for office right off the bat.
And once again, these people in the banquet show they did not understand either the spirit or the letter of the Law. But Jesus can’t help but notice, and He says to them: “Whenever you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you might have been invited by him. And the one who invited you both will come and say, ‘Give your place to this person.’ Then in disgrace you will proceed to the last place. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.”
It seems that the people in the banquet had not only forgotten Deuteronomy 22:4, or didn’t care about it — they didn’t like our Old Testament lesson for this morning either: Proverbs 25: “Do not boast in the presence of the king, and do not stand in the same place as great people. For it is better that it be said of you, ‘Come up here,’ than for you to be put in the lower place in the presence of the prince.” Jesus simply paraphrased Proverbs 25 in our reading.
But Jesus wasn’t giving a simple political or social etiquette, face-saving piece of advice. He was actually teaching them — and us — that true Christian faith produces automatically humility. A humble person doesn’t think of him or herself as worthy of praise. Our general confession of sin is hardly a boast about anyone: we are poor, miserable sinners, deserving nothing but temporal and eternal punishment.
Jesus is actually teaching them what true Christian faith looks like, what it does. Talk to any of the 3,500-plus military men or women who’ve received the highest military honor available — the Medal of Honor — for acts of battle. They’ll tell you that they didn’t really deserve it. They were just doing their jobs. They were just saving their friends. They were just doing what had to be done in the moment. That’s all. They were doing the right thing. You see, that’s what true humility looks like.
A Christian knows, by virtue of the Word of God, that he or she is unworthy and deserves absolutely nothing — not even a seat at the table. Faith, the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, participation in the heavenly banquet, is all given to us as a free gift in Jesus Christ alone. True Christian faith and humility walk hand in hand in the life of a Christian. The Christian, as it’s put: someone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Luther was once asked: as a Christian, what’s the first step? He said: humility. The questioner asked: what’s the second step? And the third? Humility.
There’s a shortage of that these days, from the old to the young. In our day and age, they’re filled with superficial arrogance. They know more. They can do more. They can control more. If they get their way, everything will be better. They are gods walking among mere mortals. They lack humility that produces kindness and understanding for others. People don’t even bother to pretend to be humble. They know better than the authors of the Bible — not only of the Bible, or of the great confessions of the church, or of the history of the church, or of the great contributions the church has made to the Western world — but they know everything else, and are happy to share it and demand it of us.
And a great many people think they know something better than the founding fathers. They think they know more, even though they know nothing of the philosophies that have been handed down throughout the ages — the wisdom that enabled the founding of our country: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers. Yet they think they can do better in their own ignorance.
And a lot of Christians have done the same thing to the church. We know better than those old hymns and those old ancient liturgies and those old formulations. We know happy and clappy, and that’s all we need. If you listen to what the creators of our contemporary, man-made civil religions say — what they promise they can and will do for us — you won’t find one ounce of humility in the whole lot. It’s simply not a virtue praised or regarded anymore as worth having. Not since the days of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 have we seen such hubris running rampant, inside and outside the church.
Even after Luther’s death, he preached humility to us. You all know this story: February 18, 1546, 3 a.m. in the morning. Luther’s heart attack finally runs its course. He breathes his last breath. His confessor, Dr. Jonas, reaches into his pocket and pulls out that little note someone had given to him the day before. On the note was written: “We are all beggars before God.” And Luther replied in his own handwriting: “Amen.” We’re all beggars. Humble, deserving of nothing, by nature sinful and unclean. We are not honorable creatures in God’s sight.
Beneath what seemed to be a benign political and social strategy, Jesus was warning the banquet-goers of their sin and calling them to repent. If they try to exalt themselves before God in their life, they will be humbled on the Judgment Day of Jesus Christ, and they will be relegated to the worst kind of seats imaginable for all eternity. If they want to be virtuous and honorable people, Jesus tells them: invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind.
Now remember: in first-century Judaism, if you were poor and lame and maimed and blind, if you were suffering from any malady at all, really — it was because you or your parents committed some unspeakable sin, and you’re not worthy to be counted amongst God’s children. There were parts of the society that were downtrodden, and those parts of society were punished by God. And the religious leaders — it was their duty to recognize that sad fact. But true Christian faith does for others without expectation, centered on self, expecting nothing in return.
See, all three parts of the reading this morning show us the Lord’s attitude when it comes to the subject of self-importance and of knowing our place in the world as God’s very own children. The attitude that is pleasing toward God is the attitude of humility: a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
Again Luther, on the relationship between humility and true Christian faith: “The Gospel was not given that we might seek our own praise and glory through it, or that common people might praise us as ministers on account of it. But it was given that through it the blessing and glory of Christ Himself might be illuminated, that the Father might be glorified in His mercy — namely, for us — which He has shown us in Christ His Son, who gave Himself up for us, and with whom He has given us all things. Therefore the Gospel is the sort of teaching in which the last thing to look for is our own glory.”
The Law breaks us and shows us our sin. But it’s the Gospel that humbles us. It sets forth heavenly and eternal things which do not belong to us, which we have neither made nor have we earned.
So Jesus took the wash basin and the towel, switched places with the lowly, and washed the feet of His disciples on the night in which He was betrayed — even Judas. Jesus took your place to be counted among sinners. And being found in the appearance of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death — even death on the cross. That’s what it means to be a true Christian. That’s what it means to be the least and the foremost at the same time.
1 Peter 3:8: “To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, loving, compassionate, and humble.” That’s what it means to be the least. What does it mean to be the greatest? “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God is opposed to the proud, and He gives His grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you at the proper time.” He will say to you: “Come up here. Sit here in the place of honor.”
He switched places with you so He could do that. Through the water and the Word, He has already invited and elevated you to the place of honor. That is: you are a chosen people, a royal nation, a holy priesthood, a people of God’s very own possession. He has given you a place of honor at the communion rail. He has gone ahead of you to prepare a place in His heavenly mansion for you to dwell eternally. He has reserved the seat for you at the heavenly banquet, the victory feast in heaven. Why? Because your sins are forgiven. Amen.
And may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.