Honor: comprises the reputation, self-perception or moral identity of an individual or of a group. Webster’s says it has three parts: reputation, recognition, and privilege. Reputation is the opinion of other people have of you. Recognition is what they say about you because of that opinion, and privilege is what you get to do because they think so highly of you.
Honor itself is not bad-except when it is not deserved, or when the effect of honor is self serving.
Andrew Carnegie once said of honor: "All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted."
In Luke 14 Jesus teaches us about honor’s trap when its focus is ourselves-and that through humbleness we can experience true honor.
Verses 1 - 6 Men are not pawns for men or rules
The Pharisee’s problem was that they wanted two things - position for themselves, and rules to help keep the positions of authority.
So here Jesus is at this dinner party and it’s quite likely that the Pharisees plant a person to try to trip Jesus up again. The Pharisees’ oral tradition forbade healing on the Sabbath because it was doing a doctor’s profession and you weren’t supposed to do any work on the Sabbath.
If the average person was to question whether this was at the heart of the Sabbath-that is rest and healing for man-they would excommunicate you for daring to come against those in authority.
Their tradition said it was only lawful to heal on the Sabbath if it was life threatening. This man had what’s called dropsy. Dropsy may have been edema, where fluids build up in the bodily tissues and cavities, possibly caused by a heart problem. It was serious but not life threatening.
Jesus says: if your son or your ox falls into a pit you wouldn’t hesitate - and that’s not life threatening either. Common sense had been pushed aside for rules. People love rules - it allows you to know whether you are right or wrong, in or out.
Jesus didn’t need rules because He had God’s heart.
We want a list - things I can do and things I can’t. For me, I like what Paul the Apostle said:
1 Corinthians 10:23-24 "All things are lawful ," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful ," but not all things build up.
And then I love how he finishes the thought because it fits right in with our chapter:
24 Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. ESV
Notice how that idea works into the next section:
Verses 7 - 11 Taking Honor
I love how Jesus uses the situation around Him to teach truth. We can do that too, you know. You don’t have to come up with incredible word pictures of philosophical constructs to share the gospel. If you are out snow skiing you can remark how wonderful it is that God made every snowflake unique, and how He has made each of us unique yet loves us all. If you are at the grocery store you can talk about bargain hunting and coupons and how the greatest bargain you ever found was a free deal on salvation.
Here He talks about the banquet He was at. In Jewish tradition they would sit around a "u" shaped table. The honored positions were at the apex of the "U’ and the lowest positions were at the edges. A person who wants to "take" honor sits as high up as he thinks he can get away with. Jesus says to watch out, lest the host tell you you have reached too high when someone comes who is more honored than you. Then your only choice is to sit at the last space left - the lowest position.
Spiritually this is true for all humans. We like to think we are something special with our knowledge and our technology and science and athletic prowess and philosophies. We seat ourselves pretty high at the table. It’s not until we see how perfect God is and how evil we really are that we realize we have reached up too far.
If we approach God with humbleness instead, realizing that we cannot even enter His presence because He is so perfect and we are so not - then God can reach out to us and say "because of what My Son Jesus has done for you, come up here and sit next to Me and we’ll eat together."
This I think also has a practical application to the Christian. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking we are pretty important to the body of Christ-that God just wouldn’t be as successful here on earth if it weren’t for us. What a fallacy! We should take on the attitude of a lowly servant in everything we do, and let God exalt Himself through that work any way He wants.
Now Jesus paints this picture of how God fills His banquet room-the Kingdom of God.
Verses 12 - 24 Giving Honor
Like it or not we give so we will get something in return. It is simple human nature, but it is not God’s nature. When God gave salvation through His Son Jesus what did He get in return? People to love Him? He doesn’t need that. God is completely self sufficient - the only being in the universe who can say that.
God wants us to be like Him, so Jesus shows us what unselfish love is really about, and a little of how He goes about wooing people into His kingdom.
This story should have hit the Pharisees right between the eyes. The servant was the prophets and Jesus Himself, inviting God’s people, the Israelites, to recognize the Messiah and fulfill God’s plan from the beginning. But they had all kinds of excuses: Jesus doesn’t fill our idea of a Messiah; we have too much invested in our powerbase to give it up and follow Jesus, etc.
When the Israelites rejected Him he turned to those who would hear, though they might not feel deserving of the invitation. His voice becomes ever more urgent, not because he is panicking but because He knows what is at stake: our eternal salvation. Don’t ever say that God is an exclusive club that only a few can get into if they know the right people or do the right things. This is the heart of our King-He wants ALL to come in, though not all will.
For us who are a part of that kingdom-how do you accord honor to others? James talks about that-how when a rich or important person comes into church we invite them to sit in the place of honor. We do that even today-big donors get pews named after them or buildings or get sky-boxes in our mega churches-while the lowly person who only gives $20 a month, but it comes from their grocery budget, gets no recognition at all, at least not from the church.
The point for us is that we need to use the same selfless standard that God uses, who has a special place in His heart for those who do not have, yet are willing to accept His free gift of love and in turn give their lives to Him.
Verses 25 - 33 A True Perspective on Self Leads to Humbleness
We’ll go into this section in depth this Wednesday.
The question we have to face is, what are we willing to leave behind to serve Jesus? It helps to have a true perspective on ourselves. When we have that it leads us to humbleness, not pride.
Verse 26 is not saying that we should hate everyone around us-but in comparison to our love and devotion to God our love for others should seem like hate.
It means coming from a place of humbleness you will change by the presence of His Spirit in your life. That change should be visible on the outside. That’s what He gets to next.
Verses 34 - 35 How the Humble Bring Honor to God
Salt in those days was mostly taken from the marshes by the Dead Sea. It was impure and if it deteriorated it could not be used for anything else, not as a soil amendment or even to be recycled-it was simply thrown away. Salt was used as a flavoring agent and as a preservative. It is a good picture of the Christian. We flavor the world with Christ. Paul talks about in terms of a fragrance (2 Cor 2:16). You should taste "salty" or "Christy" to those around you. Do you? When people look at you do they see salt, or just bland food? Do you live your Christian life on the outside or just the inside? Be a transparent believer.
We are also a preservative-our presence and the presence of the Holy Spirit in us does have an effect on keeping the world from "going to hell in a hand basket." If you do not live Jesus in your life and let His righteousness inform and form your reality then what good are you? It doesn’t mean that God throws out believers that are not "on fire for God!" But being like God means you will be different, and if you aren’t different then you won’t be of use to the Lord as He uses the salty people to invite others to the banquet table in His kingdom.
Conclusions
God is inviting you to His banquet table - are you listening? Will you respond? Will you come in humbleness of heart and place yourself in the lowest of position, realizing the evil in you and the goodness in Him? Jesus says in Revelation: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, any man who hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him."
Don’t be like the ones invited to the feast who came up with excuse after excuse. "I’m not good enough to come to God." "I’m having too much fun sinning." "I’m afraid He’ll send me to deepest darkest Africa." "What if He doesn’t like me after saving me?"
For those of us who believe - you know, being salt isn’t really all that glorious. If I could choose a food group I’d want to be chocolate, or a T-bone steak. We sometimes want to be flamboyant and important and flashy in our service. Salt is just little clear-whitish crystals that you pass around with the pepper. But imagine food without salt - it would be bland and unappealing. You can be the missing ingredient that brings meaning and purpose to someone’s life just by sprinkling on some of Jesus. So: pass the salt!
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