Plan "B" ...

 

How many backup plans do you have?  What kind of things might they cover?  Perhaps you are looking for some kind of car, with a certain set of features, and a certain color.  You go to the dealership and find the combination you are looking for is just not on the lot.  You could keep looking.  You could search until you find exactly what you want, but then you might pay quite the premium for that.  So perhaps instead of going with your first plan, you settle for your second plan, for plan “B”.  But let’s face it, our second choice is second for a reason.  The first choice is first by the same token, because we want it more, because we envision ourselves happier in our first choice.  Our second choice is only for backup purposes, in the event we cannot easily get what we first envisioned wanting.  Where this comes to automobiles, we can probably live with it.  Where this happens with spouses, perhaps not so much?  Whoever wants to feel like the second choice, like the booby prize at the fair?  No woman wants that.  Rest assured no man does either.  When love is involved, everyone likes or dreams, of thinking they will find that special someone who will always pick them ahead of everyone else, forever and ever.  So can you imagine what this idea is like for the heart of God?  Can you imagine God settling to be our plan “B”?  You know, in case the whole righteousness thing has merit, and/or if we find ourselves in times of desperation, we come back to good old plan “B”; and call Him God.

To picture this kind of thinking in church just seems so foreign.  How could some folks treat the church, the body of Christ, as a “maybe” in the course of their lives.  To keep flirting with worldly backup plans seems about as tolerable to God, as it would be to your spouse.  Imagine the pain that causes.  Imagine how stupid it is.  If you are married, you have made your choice, to rethink it is an entertainment in stupidity and a golden invitation to pain all around.  If you are a Christian, you too have made your choice.  You have chosen salvation over desperation, a real life, over an existence of pain all around.  But when the heart is not fixed, the devil tries to convince us that something “else” is what we are looking for, in nearly all of our relationships, and the most intimate one with our God is not immune for that thinking either.  Even Jesus knows it happens.  You would hope your spouse is unaware if you are engaged in plan “B” thinking, but rest assured your God is always keenly aware of it.  And the pain you cause Him, is every bit as real, and damaging as the pain you would cause any mortal person you can see.

Luke writes about these ideas in his gospel letter to his friend Theophilus about what we believe and why starting out in the sixteenth chapter picking up in verse 1 it reads … “And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. [verse 2] And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.”  Busted.  So many things to unpack here, let us begin with the idea that this story does not happen in poverty but in wealth.  This story is about a steward, about a person put in charge of managing the wealth, the assets, the liabilities, of another, of a very rich man.  That is an awesome job if you can get it.  Not everyone would carry that kind of trust.  Not everyone would be considered for it.  You have to have a head for what is important.  Could that be you?  Do you know what is truly important in your own life, and what God may have entrusted to you to manage.  Your wealth is not your own, it is God’s.  It is His gift to you.  And it comes in more flavors than simple currency.  Your kids who adore you, need you, and see you with love in their eyes.  That my friend is wealth of the best variety.  But as good as that gets, that special someone, who gives their heart to you without reserve, that is worth more than anything too.  All of it your wealth to manage, gifts from our very rich Father God.

But as good as life gets, the story begins with a calling to account for what we have done with the wealth we have been entrusted to manage?  Have we been embezzling from our employer, or enriching ourselves at his expense?  Entirely possible this steward was, and now that his evil was possibly catching up with him, he faced losing everything.  After all the wealth was entrusted to him, and it could be entrusted to another.  The pain we sometimes cause with what we have been given happens, because we forget it was never truly ours, but instead a gift as well from the Father God in heaven.  We are entrusted with our families, not granted ownership of anything.  Our kids are God’s.  Our spouse belongs to God.  Their hearts, their love comes from God, and if we drive them away by how we manage those precious entrusted treasures we stand to risk losing everything.  If that strikes fear into you, it probably should.  I am certain it terrified this steward, as you usually don’t get called into account, if everything was going smoothly with no wrinkles.

Jesus continues in verse 3 saying … “Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.”  Fear will now drive the brainstorming.  The steward recognizes his limitations.  He is not a very physical kind of person, not someone who could work at a physically demanding job.  Digging ditches would kill him.  Working out in the hot sun might just as easily kill him.  He knows it.  The fear deepens.  This was such a great gig, why would I mess that up, for mere scraps the rich man might have given me if I had but asked.  But no, it was more “fun” to take what I wanted, to give myself an illusion of self-control, when there really was none.  So physical alternatives are out.  As for begging, there is too much pride.  Think of that for a moment.  This situation might have been resolved, if the steward had the humility to beg the rich man for forgiveness, even if no one else, at least beg him.  But the steward “would” not, he could not bear the shame of that humiliation.  And so pride, the original sin, just keeps right on ticking, and destroying lives that may not have ever needed to suffer at all.  Mismanagement cannot be undone.  But we can.  If we are willing to humble ourselves before God, there is nothing He cannot restore, forgive, and move us past.  He can maintain His gifts with us, even when we have thrown them away.  But that does not happen with the proud, too ashamed to seek it.  It can only happen with the humble who know there is no other way.

Jesus continues in verse 4 saying … “I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. [verse 5] So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? [verse 6] And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. [verse 7] Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.”  Enter Plan “B”.  The rich man’s trust will now be abused one final time, while at the same time, creating a climate of very grateful debtors who will “owe” this steward their gratitude in very tangible ways.  At the time of this parable telling, debtor’s prison was a very real thing.  If you owed someone something, and could not pay it, they could have you put into prison until your family paid the debt on your behalf.  And the interest may have been no small thing, because the jailors would want their cut as well.  If your family could not pay either, an entire family might be cast into slavery for the years it takes to pay the debt.  Very bad outcomes.  Very real.

So the plan “B” the steward devises makes debtor’s prison far less likely, while at the same time, a backdoor for him to stay with these now grateful debtors whose debts he has erased off the books of the rich man.  You will note this plan does not involve any humility at all, but it does further prove the case against the steward, that he thinks of himself, ahead of the interests of the rich man, or anyone else.  And God becomes the booby prize once again.  Serve Him if it does not cost you anything, even simple obedience.  But if it looks like that is no longer “fun”, or profitable, then find another way to make you happy, even if it is at His expense, and ironically even if happiness is the last thing you will ever find.  Walking a path away from God never leads to “fun” or happiness.  It only leads to causing more pain to everyone, even to you, and especially to God, who wishes so bad you would give up this choice and come back home again.

Jesus continues in verse 8 saying … “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. [verse 9] And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.”  The rich man, even Jesus in this case, sees the worldly wisdom of making friends, or close associations with money to preserve us in the hard times.  It is a craftier strategy than those sheep who serve the Lord.  For the sheep are utterly dependent upon the Shepherd to lead them to places to eat and drink, and keep them safe.  This steward was no sheep.  He wanted self-control.  He wanted to find his own places to eat and drink.  He was not content to be led, to be dependent on anyone including God.  Is that what your “faith” is like?  Do you serve God on your terms, content to take care of everything yourself, have need of no one, or nothing?  If it is, then you will need money, a lot of it.  Money will give you the band-aide you think you need.  But the wisdom of the wicked is not wisdom at all, it is simply a strategy to avoid humiliation, while they throw their lives away.

Jesus continues in verse 10 saying … “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”  And this is the text we tend to remember the most in this passage, but it only comes as part of the story of the seemingly crafty, but unfaithful, and proud steward who was caught, yet refused to yield, or beg, or carry the shame of admitting he needed grace.  Our whole lives require grace.  That is fact, non-optional, if we are to live that is.  Grasping that gift of grace may require the humility of us admitting we need it, and do not deserve it, but that price of admission is nothing next to what it took to offer Grace to us.  Our Savior paid it all on our behalf, so we would never need to pay any of it ourselves.  That is the God we serve.  That is how His love for us is defined for all to see.  Is it really so hard to say “I’m sorry”, is it really so hard to mean it?

Jesus concludes picking up in verse 11 saying … “If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? [verse 12] And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? [verse 13] No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”  If we mess up our money, how can we ever know what is true wealth?  If we mess up other people’s wealth, how can we ever be entrusted with our own, or come to know what real wealth is made up of.  It is not money.  Money is nothing.  Love is everything.  If we throw away our love for stupidity, how can we ever be truly loved?  For we cannot serve the wealth of this world, and at the same time, the wealth of the next.  The wealth of the next world is all that will ever transcend the one we live in.  And that wealth is made of love and nothing more or less.  Money has no part in the equation.  Money only serves as a distraction from what was ever truly important.  And even in that distraction we find ourselves unfaithful.

To find restoration, we must be willing to be made humble.  We must embrace the cost of what it took to offer us Grace.  We must divorce ourselves from pride of any kind.  Come to know what is truly important.  There should be no plan “B” in any of our relationships, only one plan, God’s plan, we wish to never let go of.  And least of all, there should be no plan “B” where God is concerned.  No attempts to make half-hearted service of any kind – but instead to be content to be the sheep who is led to everything, to food, to water, to the protection of the Shepherd.  The sheep may be dim-witted, it may be fully dependent, but it is never unfulfilled.  Trust brings the contentment that nothing else can.  Let trust in our God begin to bring us commitment, restoration, and a passion for His kingdom that nothing else dare try to replace.

 

Home for the Damaged ...

Sometimes a mistake is not just a singular event.  Sometimes what begins as a choice devolves into a habit, then further as it attempts to define your life.  And you come to think the damage is insurmountable.  So you hide it, deny it, and in so doing enable it.  Eventually you lose hope that your life might ever be better than it is, because after all, you did this to you.  It might be convenient to look at others, or other events as catalysts that drove you to your initial choices, and then what followed.  But that is merely revisionist history.  An attempt to avoid a blame we know ultimately falls back on to our own shoulders and nowhere else.  It is hard to know the mind of the lost sheep in our previous study.  Whether that sheep was self-aware enough to feel this way or think this way.  Or whether it just stumbled through life ignoring the bad choices it made until it discovered it was alone in the wilderness, having forsaken the safety of the flock, and the tender care of the Shepherd.  But for the character in the next parable of Christ, his mind was easier to read, and explained more in depth.

But stories in the gospel of Luke are not just stories are they?  Many of them cut right into the hearts of our own lives and histories.  I have known too many marriages that began with a sacred covenant to establish a home, centered in the very plans of God.  But time, and circumstance, and the building of bad choice on top of bad choice, occurs until that home is forsaken.  Not all these marriages end in divorce.  But many languish on in the abandoned homes of the mind, heart, and all too often bodies of those who should have never wandered away in the first place.  And so rationalization becomes our greatest enemy.  As the prodigal son would reason you only live once, so why not enjoy this life to the fullest?  So the components of two who have been made to be one flesh reason, that they are free to explore their own needs in the arms or hearts of another, and somehow this is something that is “not” all that bad.  And rationalization is used to ignore the pain we cause.  Used again to ignore that we play a role in the dissolution of another’s marriage, telling ourselves, we would never treat a spouse that way, or justify them leaving, while this is exactly what goes on in our own experiences and we blind to them by choice.  And we make ourselves the damaged, the unworthy.  And Satan need not torture us with lies, when the truth of our lives is more than ample ammunition.

So has home been lost to us forever?  It is what our enemy would have us believe.  It is what the “normal” response to cause-and-effect would seem to dictate.  What hope is there for the damaged?  What home would ever welcome back the damaged under its graces?  We do not deserve a home.  We have abandoned it, lied to it, forsaken it.  That was done to us.  That was done by us.  And we remain the damaged.  This is the ultimate state of the prodigal son in the gospel parable of Christ Himself.  This is where sin leads, all sin, any sin.  We need to truly understand the depths to which this unfortunate sinner had slid before we can truly understand the point of this parable.  Compare it to your own life.  Find the common ground between you and the prodigal and begin to understand the entirety of the story.  Luke continues this revelation in his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why. 

He picks up with Jesus speaking in chapter 15 beginning in verse 11 saying … “And he said, A certain man had two sons: [verse 12] And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. [verse 13] And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.”  Home already had wealth.  Home should have already had fulfillment.  There was rewarding work there for many who lived there.  A son would have been like a prince in that home.  Taught to manage the affairs of a sprawling home or estate with much animals, land, paid servants, etc..  The Father would have been like a king there.  His rule would be law, as all the wealth started with him, and his own connection to our God.  So while the sons would live a life second only to the father, for this son, that life was not good enough.  Chefs, and masseuse, and maids, and butlers, staff of every variety to wait upon you, do your laundry, and treat you as the prince you truly are.  All of it, not good enough.  There was still a hunger in this son, which could not be fulfilled in wholesome living.

But why grant his request?  Why would a wise father, allow a son to leave with the blessing of much wealth, knowing what was sure to happen to it?  Could not have God simply ended this parable short, by telling the rebellious son, sorry kid, you are going to make bad choices, spend money foolishly, ruin your life, and wind up eating with pigs, lusting after how good the pigs had it.  That is your future if you leave.  Why not instead settle down with a good wife I could help you choose?  Why not find a heart that will be forever true to your own?  Is not fidelity, loyalty, humility, and beauty worth more to you than any “variety” you may encounter?  Grow a family instead of a streak of self-destruction. Find a wife who would forever look only to your heart for fulfillment, than a woman only interested in the pleasures of a moment, with no real thought of you after that.  The father could have said all this, but does not seem to.  Instead he quietly puts the affairs and wealth in order and passes it to his princely son.  The father breaks his own heart to let his son make his own choices.  Love cannot be mandated.  Love must be chosen.  Or it is not love at all.

So the son leaves, and finds exactly the lifestyle he had always imagined.  And he falls into a literally riotous way of living.  Drinking, drugs (such as they were back then), hookers, orgies, a total excursion to fill his body with all manner of licentiousness.  To no end, to no purpose, only to live for the moment in front of him.  And damage takes up the mantle that home can no longer ever provide.  We have left the wholesome for the wicked imaginations of the heart, only to find those imaginations can now become real to us.  Money enables it.  But money does not do, anything the imagination has not first conceived of.  Money becomes a tool of evil, because choice has already determined where it will be spent, and wasted.  And in the self-deception of anyone who has left what is intended to be wholesome, for something else, damage creeps in and destroys the desire for what we know is better, and what is right.  Damage perverts us.  Damage twists us into a creature who prefers the night, who prefers the unusual, the different, the something else.  Home is not only gone for us; it is barely a memory for us.

Jesus continues in verse 14 saying … “And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. [verse 15] And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. [verse 16] And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.”  Time to hit rock bottom.  First the money runs out.  Evil often has a high price tag.  And damage deludes us into thinking that spending to attain our desires is a good idea, even if we stop eating, or lose everything in the process.  But after already losing all the money, the unpredictable hits.  A famine.  No one could have seen that coming.  But any fair weather friends you might have made in your evil wanderings, are now more concerned about feeding themselves, than they are about some formerly rich schmuck, whose only imagination was ever more perverted each time they encountered the boy.  So the best this former prince can do, is to get a job feeding pigs.  Kosher ideas would prevent him from touching pigs, let alone feeding them.  But it gets worse.  He is feeding pigs food he is not allowed to eat himself.  He is now literally starving to death in front of pigs he has to maintain from that same fate.  Here is where the damage has led him to.  Here is where every sin leads.

Jesus now continues in verse 17 saying … “And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! [verse 18] I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, [verse 19] And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.”  A rare moment of clarity dawns upon the brain of the damaged.  Home is better.  It always was.  Even in the times of great want and need, the wholesome is always better than the perverted.  Faithful love is always better, than fleeting lust.  The son now realizes the magnitude of what he has done.  His sin now lies naked before his own eyes.  He has damaged himself.  He has sinned against God, not just his father.  He has destroyed his life and turned himself into something less than pigs.  He now only aspires to be a hired hand, a servant in his father’s home once again.  No more the prince, as he has forsaken that honor, just a field hand would do nicely, at least the hired servants eat bread, they have always had more than enough to eat.  But while he remembers that fact now, he never noticed its value when it was right in front of him.  Becoming a servant, that is justice, or perhaps more justice than he even deserves.  But this is the limits of his hope based upon who he has become, who he has allowed his choices to turn him in to.

Jesus continues in verse 20 saying … “And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”  Here is where all of our ideas about ourselves are broken upon the anvil of God’s love.  We do not deserve it.  And so we cannot fathom why God would love us with the passion He does.  We have done nothing to earn it, and in fact, everything to run away from it.  We have insisted upon our own wisdom, and left His home.  We have insisted upon our own wicked ideas, and forsaken the wholesome for the perverted.  We are damaged.  He sees us damaged.  But while we are a great way off, He is already moved with compassion.  He runs down the pathways we long ago abandoned to meet us such a long way from the front door we are trying to reach.  And when Jesus meets us, He does not begin to tell us – “I told you so”.  In fact there is no condemnation at all.  Even though we deserve it.  Even though we know we deserve it and so does He.  Instead there is weeping tears of joy, a hug tighter than that of a bear, and a fatherly kiss upon the neck to further reassure us we are welcome once again.

Jesus continues in verse 21 saying … “And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. [verse 22] But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: [verse 23] And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: [verse 24] For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”  The damaged begins with a declaration of admittance of who he has become.  The damaged realizes he is no longer worthy.  The damaged understands he has sinned, and caused pain like the ripples of water when a stone is dropped into it.  So he begins his confession.  But it is interrupted.  Dad is not having it.  Dad knows what he says is true, he knows the confession is well earned.  But Dad is not having it.  He will not be met by the fate he aspires to, but instead will be met by the fate His Father aspires for him.  The best of the Father’s robes is brought out.  The Father’s own ring is to be brought out and given to this returning prince though he only wished to be a servant.  A party is held, and the whole of the estate is to participate, a holiday is declared and happiness abounds across the entirety of the fathers domain.

Home for the damaged.  Home to undo the damage.  Home to offer what it always offered.  And the free will to choose it.  Love has been chosen, and not forced.  And greater love has been offered full of forgiveness not even dreamed of.  Restoration is now abounding.  What was lost is now found.  What was dead, is now alive.  But sometimes the damaged know better the value of a thing they did not deserve but were able to be given anyway.  The ones still in the paradise of home, have not yet learned that they live in paradise.  They spend their lives seeing the restrictions that come from wholesome living.  These restrictions are not seen as the fences around a castle, but rather as begrudging prison bars.  This happens because the imaginations of the residents of this home are as evil as the one who left it.  But they use the determination of their sheer will to restrain their bad behavior, but want it just as much.  And the motives of the one who lives in paradise are not less damaged, but only damaged in a different way.

Jesus continues the story in verse 25 saying … “Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. [verse 26] And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. [verse 27] And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. [verse 28] And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.”  So not only does the stay-at-home brother not feel better about his brother coming home, he is resentful about it, gets angry, and throws his own version of a temper tantrum refusing to go inside to join the party.  But the dad loves all his sons, and He goes outside to invite this angry brother in.  He does not send a servant out to order the son to go in, instead he goes out himself.  Imagine this, the humility of the father, to have to pursue his home-bound son for something that should have brought joy to him naturally.  But if all you see is a prison instead of a castle, it is easy to miss the paradise you reside within.  Home should be more than that.

Jesus continues in verse 29 saying … “And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: [verse 30] But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.”  Jealousy, and a non-forgiving spirit.  This son believes he has earned a party or two, for being obedient to dad’s laws.  He believes he should have been recognized for that obedience at least once, or a couple of times.  But never.  You see this son knows nothing of the value of fidelity, or the infinite worth of his wife, and his home.  He takes them all for granted.  But his heart is still somewhere else.  He still secretly wants the ease his brother actually acted upon.  This brother mentions harlots, because harlots have often been upon his own mind.  But he believes that by staying home, and being the good son, he will get his reward in the end.  He fails to see that his reward was ever with him.  His home, the home he lived in, the job he worked at, the family he was given that love him – were already the rewards he should have been acknowledging.  You should not need the fatted goat, or the fatted calf, to understand that value, if your heart is right.  A faithful heart is worth more than an infinite number of harlots, so why imagine something as desired, when what you have is already better?

Jesus picks back up to conclude this series of parables in verse 31 saying … “And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. [verse 32] It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”  The father in this story, the king, and our Lord Jesus, is telling us – heaven is not the reward, a righteous life is the reward.  Evil is not the thing to desire, it is the plague to avoid, for it brings the damage and punishments of a thousand hells with it.  Forget the afterlife, focus on the now.  Seek the wholesome for its own reward.  Find your place in a home built under the roof of God.  Under his restrictions meant to make it a paradise.  Wives look only to your husbands, never letting your hearts, or minds, or bodies find distraction anywhere else.  Become that gift of infinite value, no husband can ever ignore.  Husbands find fulfillment in the homes God has already given you.  Do not let the damage of seeking variety destroy everything of value God would have you live within, everyday of your lives. 

And for those who have already made mistakes, and compounded them, and find themselves damaged beyond what they believe is possible for redemption in the here and now.  Look here at the example of how the heart of God works for that which is damaged beyond all belief.  There is no condemnation.  There is redemption, and restoration.  It is possible, through the lens of the love of God, to forgive that which has been done.  To put the past into the past, not forgetting, or excusing what we have done to ourselves and our homes.  But bathing ourselves in the blood of Christ, and having Him take our sins from us forevermore, to bury them at the bottom of his oceans.  And what is more, to welcome us back right here and right now into the home that God would give you once again.  This is His plan.  This is His ability to love us right back to where we were always supposed to be.  There is a home for the damaged.  There will ever be one.  And its reward is the life that comes with it, a life you will experience everyday from now unto your death, and then beyond …

 

The First Casualty is Pride ...

How does one minister to the rich and the powerful?  This seems a rare question discussed in the modern church of today.  Most all the emphasis today is upon the poor, the desperate, or perhaps the middle class if such a thing still exists.  A crashing economy, and an active pandemic, manufacture many more poor than anything else these days.  And it is certain that Jesus seems to have much more interaction with the poor throughout scripture than He does with the rich.  But that may well be because the poor recognized their need of Jesus, far more often than the rich did.  Still, the rich and powerful had need of Jesus, perhaps even more so because they did not often recognize that need.  And Jesus did not come to save just one type of person.  Jesus came to save everyone.  He loved everyone.  Jesus knew the difficulties of being poor, and He recognized the burden of carrying wealth.  Poverty exposes need.  Wealth covers it up.  Yet the same need exists.  So when the rich and powerful made attempts at including Jesus in their social circles, Jesus did not run away.  Nor did He scold them for an invitation.  Instead He gladly accepted it and went into their homes when invited.  You might think that out of character for Someone who ministers so often to the poor.  But that is whole point, His character was same towards both rich and poor, He loves them and us like only our Creator God could love us.

Jesus was the perfect picture of humility.  Such a stark contrast to hearts of mankind.  We think of ourselves as rich or powerful when we measure against those we know, or have heard about.  We like to “take pride” in our homes, or our careers, or our families.  We lift ourselves up.  But it is vanity.  It is false pride and arrogance.  Jesus, by contrast, is the God of Creation, the God of Life, the God of the Universe.  There is no position across time and space which would be more exalted.  Yet He carried Himself in our world, and in His ministry to us, as the chief servant of everyone.  He carried Himself this way, He did not push you away because you didn’t.  Jesus did not require the poor to confess their worthlessness before He would stoop down to minister to them.  No, Jesus saw the poor as the invaluable treasure they are, each person of infinite value to Himself.  And so He treated us as kings, when we should be nothing.  The same was true of the rich.  Jesus treated them with the same love.  He did not require the rich to abase themselves first, before He would minister to them.  Instead He showed us all, how we should live, love, and treat each other.  His sermon was His living example.  Are we willing to follow that approach?

Luke tells us of an incident around ministry to the rich and powerful in his gospel letter in chapter 14.  This incident begins with a Sabbath feast to which Jesus has been invited.  Picking up in verse 1 it begins … “And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. [verse 2] And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.”  Jesus had been invited to one of the chief Pharisees for a Sabbath feast.  And He went.  These men were far from fans of Jesus.  Rather this invitation may well have been to spy on Jesus, to watch Him up close and find some occasion to trip Jesus up with law.  Ironic that foolish men would even attempt to trip up the Lawgiver with His own laws, but such is what happens when vanity rules the heart, instead of love for others.  And whether by chance coincidence, or through a setup of conspiracy, along the way to the feast there is a poor man afflicted with dropsy.

Consider for a minute what you might do in the same circumstance?  You know these rulers are not fans.  You know they believe that healing on Sabbath is a big break in the rules Moses handed down.  If you heal the man, you will decidedly cause mayhem with the folks you are trying to minister to.  So do you delay the healing perhaps?  Maybe have the disciples find out this man’s home address and come back to him as soon as the sun goes down.  Or perhaps minister to the man orally right there and then, but have his healing take effect as soon as the sun goes down.  Either of those options is exactly what the rich and powerful would prefer.  In fact, they always state exactly that kind of approach.  You can heal all you want, just wait till after Sabbath.  And what is so wrong with that?  Only one thing.  It cares more for the “rules” of Sabbath observance than it does for the victim who needs healing.  In fact, it twists the ideas of Sabbath observance to be performed without deep love for each other.  And how can the Sabbath be observed, if we do not love?  Short answer, it can’t.  Jesus knows this.  And Jesus will not change “who” He is, or how He loves, because we do not hold the right view of doctrinal beliefs.

So Luke continues in verse 3 saying … “And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? [verse 4] And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; [verse 5] And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? [verse 6] And they could not answer him again to these things.”  Jesus hits them (and us) where we live.  Whether for pity, or greed, or fear, these men would have helped their animals in distress upon the Sabbath.  They would not wish them to wait until sundown, and prolong their suffering, they would take action to end that suffering right there and right then.  Perhaps because more of us feel more sympathy for a wounded pet, than a wounded soul.  But the of our Lord cannot be contained.  He loves us too much, to see us wait until sundown, before He relieves that suffering.  Jesus heals, right then, and right there because this is where our need is.  Jesus is keen to meet our needs right as He encounters them, as we bring them to Him, as we let Him heal us.  The man was healed.  And the nature of love of Jesus was revealed to that man, to all those in attendance.  And if it were possible, an error in how we observe the law would have been corrected.  But vanity likely prolonged the error, despite the revelation of Truth given them (and perhaps us).

The invitation to the feast was not rescinded because of this incident, and they traveled on to arrive at the Pharisee’s home.  In those days, many homes had open courtyards in the center of the home, and rooms on the lower floor that surrounded them.  Of course, the rooms on the second floor, or upper floor, also surrounded those courtyards but because they were elevated, they had a much better view of center gardens and decorations below, as well as the city or countryside facing outwards.  So over time, the upper floors became the rooms of prominence and tended to be reserved for the most important invitees to a feast of any kind.  Vanity being what it is, being placed in one of the upper rooms would enforce the idea that “you” were an important guest, an important person generally.  This was especially true as the space in any home was always limited, so not everyone could be placed in the upper rooms, there were always folks who had to be placed on the first floor.  They were less important guests, less important people in general.  And as this procession with Jesus arrives at the home of the chief Pharisee, Jesus takes note of the people all heading up to the upper rooms before they fill up.  Each man believing, that he is important, regardless of what the owner of the home thinks, or what other thinks.

Jesus continues in verse 7 saying … “And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, [verse 8] When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; [verse 9] And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. [verse 10] But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. [verse 11] For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”  Jesus offers practical advice to everyone.  Put yourself in the lowest rooms by choice, of free will, and with no expectations.  Be happy there, as you should be happy to attend any feast as a guest in another’s home.  If such is the occasion that the owner of the home did not intend you to be seated there, let them come to you, and bring you up to where they intended.  Putting yourself in the prominent place, could lead to you being forcibly placed in lower floors, with a good degree of shame in the process.  Our vanity will lead to our humiliation.  But our humility may well lead to our exaltation.  We should not fain humility in order to be exalted, we should be happy in the state of our humility.  For it is only in a state of humility, that we are truly able to minister to others.  And it is that ministry, which should be our goal.  For us to be effective ministers, pride must be the first casualty.

But the lessons Jesus wished to convey were not only for those invited to attend, but for those blessed enough to be able to host such a wonderful Sabbath feast.  Jesus continues in verse 12 saying … “Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. [verse 13] But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: [verse 14] And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”  So often, we give with silent expectation that our giving will be rewarded back to us again.  I send you a Christmas gift, I figure you will send me one in return.  Who wants to be “that guy” who never returns a gift or gesture like that?  Usually in fact, if you have someone who you send a card to every year, or a gift of some type, and that gift or card is never returned in kind.  You stop sending them.  Why?  Because you think the recipient did not appreciate it (you may not know that) – more likely because you never get anything back.  How often do you loan money to someone who never pays you back before you make it practice not to loan money anymore?  This kind of thinking pervades our social fabric until it is so woven into who we are, we do not even notice it is there.  This was true in the days of Jesus as well.

So Jesus asks us to break from our normal behavior and try something new.  Jesus asks us to give to people we absolutely know cannot ever pay us back.  People we know are too poor, or too sick, or to lonely to ever make a difference in our lives.  The “unimportant” people.  Look at that list of who to avoid for starters.  No friends, no family, no rich folks – people we would all tacitly expect to reward our giving in some way.  No, the new feast is not supposed to be for them.  But instead for the poor, the maimed or crippled or disabled, the blind – people who in those days would likely be beggars by profession as no other professions were left to them.  These “homeless” folks did not have means to repay you even if they wanted to.  They did not have upper rooms, or lower rooms, or food for feasts.  They struggled to live everyday.  Jesus asks us to give to them freely, and be happy in the giving, with zero expectation of reward.

And what is the recompense at the resurrection of the just (by the way, another subtle reminder to the Sadducees that they had this doctrine wrong)?  When your heart is fully and finally remade by Jesus at that resurrection.  You will finally love others, like Jesus loves other, and perfectly.  When your heart is filled with only that kind of love, what you have given here, freely and without expectation, will be the only truly happy memories you carry with you into the next world.  When you realize what effect you may have had on those in need, while they were yet in need, nothing else will mean as much to you.  Your reward will not come in gold, or diamonds, or recognition to feed a vanity that no longer exists.  But your reward will be more precious to you than all of those things, as it will live on in your heart forever.  One less thing to have to wipe tears away from, and one more thing akin to the love that lasts forever.

If we are to minister to the rich, let us begin by striving for the humility of Jesus in our hearts.  Let pride be our first casualty and not demand that of those we try to serve.  Let His love reflect through us.  We need not change “who” we are to be accepted by the rich.  We need only allow Jesus to change “who” we are that we might share in His ministry to everyone.  Let our transformation become sermon by example.  For rich and poor are drawn to the selfless love of Jesus, and if that love is reflected through you, you will become a beacon to point them to His great light of love.  Those will be memories you carry into the next world that will forever warm your heart.  His grace, through you.