Hosting the Lord of Hosts

Welcome to the first evening of this Lenten Bible study. It’s great that you could come.

Heavenly Father, Thank you for every good thing that you so freely give. Thank you for the pancakes provided tonight. But as we can’t live on bread alone, we pray that your Holy Spirit would open your Word of Truth for us, so that as our stomachs are nourished, so our hearts, minds and souls will also be nourished. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Before we get into this, just a few points about how this study will proceed. I’ll start it off by with a short talk, but then I will ask you to answer the first lot of questions as you sit around your table. Then, I’ll sum up what you’ve discovered, & add some more. Then you’ll go back into the discussions around your table again. I’ll sum up & allow time for a few questions at the end. Is that OK?

I have called this series “Hosting the Lord of Hosts”. In Luke’s Gospel, there are 8 occasions when it is recorded that Jesus ate with people. Recently I’ve been investigating the origins of the Holy Communion service, and a few articles I read pointed out the fact that the early Christians really enjoyed eating with each other. There are many occasions in the book of Acts when we are told that the new followers broke bread with each other. Some people have automatically assumed that this meant they had a service of Holy Communion, but the much more natural way of understanding those references is that they cared about each other so much that they ate together.

It was more than simply we were hungry, it was time, so we went to Maccas & bought some food. It meant much more, & sharing a meal with someone was a very vital way of sharing their fellowship & acceptance of them. As we go through the 7 weeks, we’ll see from Luke’s Gospel, the important achievements, teaching, fellowship, acceptance, love and rejection that occurred while they reclined on their cushions around the table with the Lord of Hosts.

Tonight we begin with Luke 5:27-39. Does someone want to read verses 27-29 for us?

²⁷After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, ²⁸and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. ²⁹ Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

Verse 27 begins “After this”… After what? Just prior to this incident he had healed the paralysed man who was lowered through the roof, & has amazed them all not only with the healing, but also with claiming that he could forgive sins. So leaving the house, Jesus went along the road & saw Levi, sitting at his tax booth.

For most Jews, seeing Levi sitting at his tax booth would be as welcome as leaving a party or pub after a few stiff drinks & driving down the road to see the booze bus lining you up. The tax collectors were hated with a passion. They were thought of as traitors, because they collected money for Rome, & also they were thought of as thieves, because they always charged extra commissions, which didn’t go on to Rome.

This man who had just claimed to forgive sins, & proved it by healing the paralysed man came across a man who would be generally classed as a “sinner” by most Jews. To the paralysed man, after forgiving him, told him in v24 “Stand up, pick up your bed & go home.” But to Levi (who also had the name Matthew, which we find out in Matthew 9:9 & 10:3), he said “Follow me”.

The responses? v25”Immediately he stood up, picked up his mat, & went home, glorifying God.” & v28 “He got up, left everything, & followed him.”

Levi responded exactly as Jesus asked, just as the paralysed man had. But did Levi leave everything, so that he became absolutely poverty stricken? No. In the grammar, “Left everything” is in the sense of “a been-there-done-that” tense. He left, never to return to it. Basically he quit his job & left even the personal possessions in the drawer. Instead of being told “You’re fired!” he was told “You’re hired!” & he jumped at the opportunity. In the grammar, “& followed him” is in the sense of a “I’m-here-&-want-to-keep-on-doing-that” type of sense.

So how did Levi begin his following of Jesus? He threw him a party. Not in the local Chinese restaurant, but in his own home he held a great banquet. Who did he invite? Was it simply a cosy gathering for the intimate disciples, wanting to increase fellowship & build that sense of community? No. He invited all his work mates & contacts. He did it to introduce them to the Lord of Hosts… to Jesus, the man who had made such a change in his life.

His great banquet was an evangelistic dinner. Isn’t it interesting that the first time we are told that Jesus ate a meal in Luke’s Gospel was when he was in the company of tax collectors & other “sinners” at an evangelistic dinner?

Would this set the pattern? We’ll find out as we go through the 7 weeks. However, another pattern was definitely set because of the company he kept. & in your tables I want you to read the next section v30-32.

³⁰But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” ³¹Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ³²I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Question 1: Who were the people who complained about the company he kept?

Question 4: How do you think these new disciples would have felt facing such complaints about the consequences of following their new master?

Question 5: With great wisdom, Jesus answered the complaint in a way that helped the disciples and rebuffed the complaint. Share some examples of times when you have seen Christian ministry shrink from being like a doctor, and some examples when you have seen Christian ministry shine as people reached out like a doctor.

Question 6: In light of the lessons of this passage, what kinds of people around us should we be reaching out to?

³³They said to him, “John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” ³⁴Jesus answered, “Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? ³⁵But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.”

Not being content with his doctor imagery, they again probed for a way to attack this new teaching Jesus was bringing. The Pharisees trainees or disciples would never dream of eating with tax-collectors, & also knew their eating & fasting rules. So they compared the disciples of Jesus to the other popular teacher of their time, John the Baptist.

John & his disciples were a bit weird, but at least they knew how to fast. They didn’t go around feasting with tax-collectors. They preached against robbing people. In Luke 3:12 & 13, it says “Even tax-collectors came to be baptised, & they asked him ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ John said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’”

When it helped their cause, the Pharisees looked for the things they had in common with John the Baptist & used that to try to attack Jesus. “John's disciples often fast and pray, & so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating & drinking.” Notice that they stopped the very personal attack by not saying “You go on eating & drinking.” However, it still was a very personal attack, for if his disciples did these things, then it was because they had been taught, or he had been slack in not correcting them. Either his teaching or leadership was under attack.

As Jesus responded, he made another huge claim about his own importance. “Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?” Someone special is here before you. Something special is happening in your midst. Now is the time for feasting & joy, not for fasting & sorrow. They’re to rejoice because he was with them, not fast & be sad & mournful. Just as it is rude, dishonouring & inappropriate to fast at a wedding feast, so it is when Jesus is there.

& to support this he says “But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” Here, in the early part of his ministry, Jesus is warning of the time when he would be taken away. It is a veiled reference to his coming death. While he is around, let them rejoice & feast. When he’s taken away, let them mourn & fast.

Since that time, there’s been a lot of wondering about whether Christians should fast or not. The season of Lent has for some people been a time for fasting. For some, fasting is for times of great heartache & prayer or for guidance. For others, fasting doesn’t seem to be a part of their life at all, apart from when they sleep until when they break their sleeping fast in the morning.

As I read the New Testament, I find that fasting in the early church is mentioned with regard to prayer for guidance, rather than accompanying mourning the fact that Jesus has gone. Instead, the early Christians were filled with joy, knowing that he had been taken away, but had risen again, & was with them through His Spirit. So instead of fasting in mourning, they feasted together in joy.

So how do we understand this saying from Jesus? To me, “But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” Refers to the 3 days of that first Easter weekend. Since the resurrection, they feasted. When we look at the 7^th study, we’ll see how this was a feature of hosting the Lord of Hosts after the resurrection.

³⁶He told them this parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. ³⁷And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. ³⁸No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. ³⁹And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

Question 9: With the imagery of drinking old and new wine, has Jesus used an argument which the Pharisees would agree with, or in what ways can you see that this is an argument against the Pharisees?

Question 10: Now putting all three images together, in line with the rest of the passages we have been looking at, what is the major point of this part of his answers?

Question 11: Obviously Jesus was referring to the old ways of Judaism compared with his new teaching. Yet sometimes Christians can feel that they too have been entrapped in “old” ways, and find that there is tension and rupturing as new expressions of living the old, old story are tried. What do you feel could be helpful ways through this traumatic drama in many Christians’ lives?

Question 12: Some Christians emphasise love and acceptance of others, implying that there should be no criticism and no denouncing of other views of people. Is that what Jesus was like in this passage? If not, in what ways was he being loving and accepting?

Tonight we have seen Jesus feasting with tax collectors & sinners in an evangelistic dinner. Next week, we’ll look at what happened when a Pharisee hosts the Lord of Hosts.

Just a few points about how this study will proceed for those who weren’t here last week. I have organised the evening so that we have times of me talking up the front, & times when we’re answering questions in our table groups. After each table time, I’ll sum up what you’ve discovered, & add some more. Then I’ll allow time for a few questions at the end. Is that OK?

Last week, we looked at Luke 5:27-39, & saw that the first time Jesus is recorded as having a meal in Luke’s gospel, it was an evangelistic dinner in the house of Levi, also known as Matthew. The Lord of Hosts was hosted by a reformed tax collector, who invited the sinners to come freely into his house to eat with Jesus & hear him. There are Pharisees observing his moves. We also saw that there was a lot of friction with the Pharisees, as they saw that Jesus was different & happy to feast with people they called sinners.

Tonight we look at the 2^nd meal described in Luke’s gospel. This time Jesus feasts in the house of a Pharisee. The so-called sinners are not invited, yet they are there. Like in the passage we looked at last week, the Pharisees are still watching his every move we might expect after last week, things don’t go smoothly. Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit will open your Word of Truth for us, so that our hearts, minds and souls will be nourished, and our fellowship be nurtured. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Our passage tonight is from Luke 7:36-50. Before we read it and discuss the text, I’d like you to answer the first few questions in your tables. So please answer questions 1 to 5.

Question 1: If you were to host a dinner party for your neighbours, what things would you have to do to prepare for it?

Question 2: Make a list of things you might do when you greet your neighbours when they came to your door for the dinner party.

Question 3: If there was someone in your neighbourhood that you really did not like or trust, but they accepted your invitation to come, how would you treat them?

Question 4: Suppose you had a special guest at your dinner party, who was a bit controversial, yet well known, in what ways would you greet that person differently, if at all?

Question 5: How would you respond if the special guest did not get on well with you, but really got on well with the person you did not like or trust who came anyway?

³⁶One of the Pharisees asked Jesusto eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. ³⁷And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. ³⁸She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.³⁹Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.”

So far the Pharisee is nameless, although in a few verses, we will be told that he is Simon. This is a different Simon to the apostle Simon Peter, who was a fisherman, not a Pharisee. & he is not Simon the leper, who lived in Bethany, & who also had Jesus for a meal near the end of Jesus’ 3 years of ministry, as described in Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:1-11 & John 12:1-10. The anointing in Bethany differs because

· The woman in Matthew Mark & John is not said to be sinful, & it appears to be Mary, the sister of Martha & Lazarus.

· The problem in Matthew, Mark & John is not the reputation of the woman, but the expense of the nard.

Some of you may be thinking how could a sinful woman (who was most probably a prostitute) get into his house? To host a visiting rabbi or teacher, especially one who was very newsworthy was a great honour. As we’ll see, Simon was not bowled over by Jesus, & was probably very skeptical. He certainly was ready to question much of what Jesus said & did. Yet because he had a reasonably large house, & could afford to put on a banquet, he did what they tended to do, & had an open house, where anyone in the neighbourhood could come in & listen to their table talk.

Even though that is true, it would take a great amount of courage for a sinful woman like that lady to walk into Simon’s place. If Simon & his friends were anything like modern people, she would have faced an awful time of rejection. We know she was there either before Jesus showed up or came in with him, because v45 says from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. & we know that she had not been personally invited, because v37 says she came after having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house. This also probably implies that she was not travelling with Jesus, nor stalking him, but turned up a bit earlier than him to get a good position.

Last week I stated that in those days they ate reclined at low tables, with their left elbow on cushions or a divan, eating with their right hand. This passage in Luke 7 supports this, because it says in v38 She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. I would like one person at each table to stand up and stand behind someone else seated at the table. While your standing there, could your tears fall on the feet of the person in front of you? How could you easily touch their feet? Thank you, please resume your seats.

It is much easier to stand behind someone at their feet if people are reclined at the table on cushions, with their feet sticking out towards the wall.

As she stood behind him crying, she noticed her tears were wetting his feet. Good Jewish women had their hair covered, but hers was uncovered & drying his feet from the tears. Once again this points to this sinful woman being a prostitute.

In our modern world with it’s focus on M, MA, R or X rated movies, some people may snigger at the thought of what the prostitute might have been doing for Jesus. But remember that this was in public, & in a Pharisee’s house, & it was Jesus. She wasn’t doing what Hollywood may imagine, instead she was showing a deep reverence for Jesus. Fixing up the problem of her wetting his feet, she is overawed with him that she respectfully kisses his feet.

Yet this brings a swift & ugly response inside the Pharisee. He can guess the woman’s occupation & morals just by looking at her. & he is personally disgusted by her behaviour. But he also then is disgusted about Jesus & it confirms his bias against Jesus. We’re told he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who & what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.”

Any self respecting upright Jew would kick her away. It was obvious to him that Jesus was a fraud, because he failed to reject the woman, & therefore Jesus could be rejected.

But Jesus responds to him with some questions. So in your table groups I want you to read this next passage & answer the next 5 questions. But just before you do, a little word of explanation. A denarius was a coin (plural is denarii).

⁴⁰Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” ⁴¹“A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴²When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” ⁴³Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

Question 6: Up until verse 40, Jesus has not started any of the activity. In verse 36 he took his place at the table. Then the woman is the focus, and then we hear Simon’s thoughts. In verse 40, Jesus directs the course of the conversation. What does he do?

Question 7: If a denarius is worth about $250, how much did the men owe the creditor?

Question 8: Why do you think the one who had the greater debt cancelled would love the creditor more?

Question 9: Before we look at how Jesus used the answer for the question without notice, think of a situation in your life, where a timely word or question has prevented a lot of problems. If appropriate, share one of those times with the people around your table.

Question 10: (A series of questions for you to think about, without answering aloud). How observant are you? Do you notice how others are behaving in a room? Can you detect when someone is extremely unhappy with something going on? Are you like Simon and quick to condemn? Normally in a group, would you have watched the foot washing incident with horror, or acceptance, or with a joke, or simply watched it like watching a movie played out I front of you?

Jesus didn’t ask the question as a red herring. He made it sing and sting. Does someone want to read verses 44-50 for us?

^44?Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. ^?45?You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. ^?46?You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ^?47?Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” ^?48?Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” ^?49?But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” ^?50?And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

At the start of tonight’s study, I asked what you would do when neighbours came in for a dinner party. Here is the list of your answers. As a host, Simon was either very rude, or neglectful, or showed contempt by his failure to observe the usual courtesies.

Jesus compared Simon the Pharisee with the prostitute, & such a bold move would have created much anger.

Simon’s Acts	Sinful Woman’s Acts
No water to wash feet	Washed feet with tears, wiped with hair
No kiss of welcome	Kissed feet continually
No scented olive oil for his guest's hair	Poured perfume on his feet

But he did not do it to make Simon feel on edge, aggravated & embarrassed. He did it to show the difference in the responses of the 2 people. Remember what had happened with Zaccheus? When he responded by saying that he would give away half his money, & repay 4x the amount he had stolen from anyone, Jesus said “Here is a true child of Abraham”. That was straight after forgiving the sins of the man lowered through the roof. But here in Simon’s house he said in verse 47-48^?Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

As with his question about the creditor forgiving the debts of 2 people, here Jesus closely ties love with forgiveness. If you are forgiven much, you love much. If you are forgiven little you love little.

They then bickered again about who can forgive sins, confirming in their attitudes that they really didn’t love Jesus, but were critical of him, because they didn’t think they had need for much forgiveness.

How much do you need forgiving? (DRAW SET OF SCALES ON BOARD, then doodle as talk, showing how our awareness of sins against God is often diminished, but our awareness of how others sin against us is exaggerated tremendously... need to see reality, which is huge compared with little (as in previous parable)... but as we realise how much he forgives us, our love for him will grow.)

If we don’t think we’ve been very bad, or we downplay the seriousness of sin, we think that God doesn’t have to forgive us much. We therefore tend to get the attitude that God owes us, & God should be pretty impressed with our efforts, because God loves us & treats us with what we deserve.

But if we really understood how much we do sin (in thought, word, deed, & inactivity) then we would realise how much we’ve been forgiven, & therefore our love for God would grow. Remember Revelation 2:4, where the Ephesian church had let their first love grow cold? That happens so regularly, because we grow in X, & we strive in growing more like him, & we get blaze about the amount of sins we have been, are being & will be forgiven. Be grateful for forgiveness, & grow in your love. Don’t grow like Simon, rather respond more like the changing sinful woman and the changing Zaccheus.

Tonight we have seen Jesus eating with the Pharisees, & how one lady responded in love, while Simon reacted with cynical bitterness. Next week, we’ll look at what happened when the disciples hosted the Lord of Hosts at a picnic.

This is now the 3^rd study in our series. We have looked at the evangelistic Dinner that Zaccheus had, & the dinner at the Pharisee’s place which was forever flavoured with the aroma of that loving aromatic gift of kissing & washing Jesus’ feet, compared to the stark barely courteous behaviour of Simon.

Dear Heavenly Father, Fulfil your desire to help us grow more like Christ. Stir your Holy Spirit in us to hear and understand the truth, quench our doubts and enliven our passion for Jesus. As we dig deeper into the Scriptures, we pray for attentive minds, open hearts, and an overflowing compassion for people, seeing not only the message you have for us, but also the ways we can grow through this time. Speed your answer to us dear Lord, for the sake of Jesus, Amen.

Tonight we have a surprise banquet in our series of Hosting the Lord of Hosts. Have you ever had unexpected visitors drop in & stay & stay & stay? It’s too late to send them home before dinner, & you (or your more thoughtful partner) is scratching their heads trying to work out what is in the cupboard, fridge or freezer that could possibly go far enough to feed the whole lot. That is the type of banquet that we find in Luke 9:10-17, as the apostles are pushed by Jesus to set up their own restaurant, (without Dicko coming with his crew of experts & cameramen).

^?^10?On their return the apostles told Jesus all they had done. He took them with him and withdrew privately to a city called Bethsaida. ^?11?When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.

Where had they returned from? The 12 had been on their mission. Jesus had given them the authority to proclaim the good news & heal. But in Luke’s gospel, just prior to their return, we’re told that Herod is puzzled about Jesus. Some were claiming that he was John the Baptist come back to life. Herod is curious & wants to see Jesus. & straight after telling us that, Luke has the 12 reporting back in to Jesus, telling him all that had happened.

As with anyone who goes on Beach Mission, or on any short term missionary work, you come back excited, but exhausted. So caring Jesus took them to a private place called Bethsaida. The exact location of Bethsaida is not known now, but it most probably is on the northern shore of Lake Galilee, near to where the Jordan River pours into it. However, John’s gospel says that Philip Andrew & Peter all came from Bethsaida.

By this stage of Jesus’ ministry, where many, many people knew he had the power to heal, & they loved his teaching, & he cared so much for the ordinary people, people wanted to be near him. He had also begun delegating responsibility out to his disciples, so more people were looking for him, having discovered this wonderful man with his unique teachings.

So when Jesus & the 12 seemed to vanish off the map, they searched until they found him, & they followed him.

We recently had the spotlight on Nicole Kidman in Australia. The media was hounding her, & the court case involved whether someone had bugged her house to eaves drop on her conversations with the security guards. Most very popular people enjoy their privacy, & hate it when crowds or snooping individuals track them down in their private moments. Yet what are we told happened when they found Jesus? V11 says he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.

Whether Jesus was distraught due to the death of his cousin, John the Baptist, or whether he wanted private moments to share more with his intimate friends who had completed such an exciting important mission we may never know in this life. Yet we do know that he graciously welcomed the crowd, taught them more & healed them.

It irks me when people tell me that they don’t want to bother God with things, or they think that their concern is too small for God to deal with. The image of God, the Lord of Hosts, as we see in Christ, is of a caring God who loved people so much that he always has time for them. This has to be balanced with Jesus knowing what his mission was, & not getting sidetracked into doing things that the crowd wanted him to do that didn’t fit in with his plan (such as in Luke 4:42-44 ^?^42?At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. ^?43?But he said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.” ^?44?So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea. But overall, the big picture is that he really cares for us.

In your table groups I want you to read this next passage & answer the next 5 questions.

¹²The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.” ¹³But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” ¹⁴For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” ¹⁵They did so and made them all sit down.

Question 1: What reasons did the disciples have for sending the crowd away?

Question 2: If there were 5000 men, and their wives and children, what sort of a hungry crowd do you think they were faced with?

Question 3: The Lord of Hosts wants the disciples to provide a meal for the crowd. It is obviously a very difficult task, yet what had the disciples been doing before this section of the gospel? Was that any easier?

Question 4: When the disciples accounted for all the food resources they had, the only obvious alternative to everyone starving or being sent away, was to go and buy food. On some other occasions, Jesus is critical of their lack of faith when they focused on the resources available and failed to count on the miraculous. (An example of this is in the boat on the lake when he stilled the storm in Mark 4 and said “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”). Read the passage again to see if Jesus was critical of them for not expecting a more miraculous answer to come.

Question 5: If you have watched people receiving food from relief vehicles in times of severe famine or tsunami devastation, what is the usual way that people get their food? By seating them in groups of 50, approximately how many groups do you think there would have been?

¹⁶And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. ¹⁷And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

Taking the 5 loaves & 2 fish, he looked up to heaven… Looking up to heaven wasn’t the usual stance for a Jewish prayer, except in that slightly odd group of Jews called the Essenes, who hid the dead sea scrolls when the Romans were about to destroy their communities around 70AD. In a story Jesus told in Luke 18:13, the tax collector refused to look up to heaven, because of his awareness of his sinfulness. He compares with the Pharisee, who confidently prayed by putting others down & boasting about himself. But Jesus apparently prayed in this way a few times. Apart from here, he also looked up to heaven in Mark 7:34 as he gave hearing to the deaf man, & when Lazarus was raised from the dead. Was this the stance he took when he was publicly doing something miraculous? Or was it for those times which were much more incredible & therefore stresses the need for God’s power in more than the “normal” sort of miraculous way (if there is such a thing)?

He blessed and broke them… This is most probably where the idea of saying a grace before a meal came from. Some people say that a grace is asking God to bless the food, others say that a grace is thanking God for the food & asking him to bless the people eating it. However, normally a Jewish blessing at the start of various parts of a meal is not asking God to bless anything. The normal Jewish blessing at the meal table, was the faithful blessing God. A common blessing before eating bread was “Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the world, who has caused bread to come forth out of the earth.” So often when we read in the Bible that there was a blessing before the bread was broken, it means that God was blessed.

Having said that, this verse in Luke 9:16 has an extra word in it, which has caused a lot of debate. To roughly translate the Greek it says “And taking the 5 breads and the 2 fish, he looked up into heaven blessed them (or maybe gave thanks for them) and broke and repeatedly gave to his disciples to place before the people.” The extra word is the “THEM”. The placement of the word in the spot it is in, and the fact that it is there at all is unusual, so people have asked why it is there. Was Jesus blessing the bread & fish? Or was he blessing God for them, as some would suggest, or was he giving thanks for the bread & fish?

The actual word for ‘Bless’ that he used is the word that we now use for the talk about someone at a funeral… the word is “eulogy” which means a ‘good word’, to speak well of someone or praise them. So was Jesus speaking well of the bread? No. It’s the same word which is used in the last supper when he took the bread, “eulogised” & broke it. Normally it does mean to praise God or bless him when used with breaking bread.

My own personal view is that he was praising God for them, & in this case asking God to bless them in the sense of using them in the miraculous way. As far as grace goes, I will praise & thank God for the food, rather than asking him to bless the food, mainly because it is rare for things to be blessed in the New Testament. People are blessed & God is, but usually not objects.

And all ate & were filled… I try to imagine what it would have been like to have been a disciple, giving Jesus the 5 loaves & 2 fish, watching him pray, & then keep going back with the baskets getting more to give out. They certainly would’ve been busy going to each of the groups of 50, even if they split the job up between themselves, so that 600 people were catered for each run, assuming 50 were fed with one basket full (which is only a guess). To work out how many times, let’s wrongly assume that families were split up into men, women & then children. 9 runs for each of the 12 disciples would cover the men, another 9 for the wives, & about 18 to 27 for the kids, giving them at least 40-45 runs each. That’s a lot of catering! & they were all filled!

But then even more abundance… 12 baskets of broken pieces were left over! That’s one each for the disciples. They weren’t to be left hungry. Ample for them to have & even for breakfast or lunch the next day. They had a surprise hosting of the Lord of Hosts, & their meagre 5 loaves & 2 fish were miraculously broken to feed 15 to 20,000 people, & have an abundance left over. It reminds me of the water into wine incident in John 2. In fact, if this were in John, which it is in John 6:1-14, we would have more reactions of the people, for John records how the disciples, & the people responded to the works & words of Jesus. Yet Luke doesn’t give us that. Simply the facts are recorded, & we are left to either believe it or not.

So what more can we say? It certainly fits in with the extraordinary things that Jesus was able to do. In John 6, Jesus links this feeding to the manna from heaven, but Luke doesn’t. But we do observe the care & love of X again in his marvellous provision, & forces us to keep looking to him to supply all we need, even if our obvious resources may be pretty paltry. Our God is an abundantly generous & surprising God.

When Jesus multiplied the loaves & fish, he didn’t bypass the disciples in order to impress the people how wonderful he was. He shared his marvellous gift with them, so that they too would know & experience & grow in their ministry experience.

To our 4^th study in the series Hosting the Lord of Hosts. We have seen Jesus dine with Levi & Tax collectors, with Simon the Pharisee, with the disciples in the wilderness, and tonight with another Pharisee. So let’s begin with prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, you want us to live our faith like a light shining out to the world. We cannot do this without your help. So keep filling us with Your Holy Spirit, so that your Word may convict us in truth and love, so that we may grow more like Christ. As we dig deeper into the Scriptures, we pray for attentive minds, open hearts, and an overflowing desire for holiness drenched in grace and love. We pray this in the name of your Son our saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

How often do you eat each day? Many Australians have settled on the pattern of three main meals a day, with a few times of light refreshment in between. However others have differing patterns of eating. I can remember having different meals while working on a sheep farm during shearing. There we had 5 main meals a day. Other people have one long meal of snacking all the time. In other parts of our world, many people consider themselves fortunate if they get one meal a day.

Sometimes we can have special guests come for specific meals. eg on the 19^th March we’re having a Men’s Breakfast here, & often at those breakfasts we have an invited guest speaker. I was recently at a lunch with some clergy where we invited a psychologist to meet to have a chat. At our monthly Missionary Dinner we have an invited guest speaker come to chat, & our next one is the first Sunday in April.

In Jesus’ time, upper class Jews had 2 meals a day, with 3 on the Sabbath. Just as we have different names for our meals at different times of the day, so did they. & the meal we’ll be looking at in Luke 11:37-54 is the mid-morning light meal, “ariston”.

³⁷While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. ³⁸The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner.

Thank you. The word for dine is where ariston appears. What the motives behind the invitation were, we can only guess. However, the Pharisee was gob-smacked by the customs of Jesus. It reminds me a bit of a movie I saw on Saturday, Bride & Prejudice, where during a meal with a possible suitor for one of the 4 daughters of an Indian couple, all 4 daughters were amazed & disgusted by the way that the suitor ate his food. So in Luke 11, the Pharisee was amazed that Jesus did not wash his hands before eating.

The word “amazed” is only used 13 times in Luke’s Gospel. Twice in chapter 1 we have the Jewish people around the Temple being amazed. The first was when Zechariah was so long in coming out from His Temple duty, they wondered amazingly at what kept him. & then when John was named, they were all amazed that he was called John, because no one in the family had that name. It was like calling a future child of Prince William, Fatso the Wombat.

Then in chapter 2 we have 2 times of amazement. The first is when the shepherds tell the people of Bethlehem what they had seen & heard, & the2nd is when Mary & Joseph are amazed at the prophetic words about Jesus in the Temple. In chapter 4, the members of the Nazarene synagogue are amazed at Jesus’ words. But in chapter 7, the only time we’re told in Luke that Jesus was amazed was when he saw the faith of the centurion. In chapter 8, the disciples were amazed when Jesus calmed the storm, & in chapter 9 everyone was amazed when he threw the demon out of the small boy who fell into fires etc. This amazement is repeated in chapter 11, when he exorcises more demons. Then in chapter 20, his enemies are amazed by the good answers Jesus gave, & finally in chapter 24, Peter is amazed by the empty tomb, & the disciples are amazed when Jesus appeared in the room.

So with those amazing events, I’m amazed at what horrified the Pharisee at this brunch with the Lord of Hosts. For he was amazed at the fact that Jesus didn’t wash before eating.

The Pharisees didn't wash in order to get rid of germs. They washed as required, not by Scripture, but by the "tradition of the elders" in order to cleanse their hands from spiritual defilement that might be taken into the body. The actual washing didn't involve soap or scrubbing, they would dip their hands in a bowl, down to the wrist. They would then raise their hands, and wait for the first drop of water from their elbow. Then they would lower their hands and wait for the first drop of water from their fingertips. It was an act of spiritual cleansing, not physical cleansing.

The horror & amazement of the Pharisee is only matched by the rebuke from Jesus.

In your table groups I want you to read this next passage & answer the next 5 questions.

³⁹Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ⁴⁰You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? ⁴¹So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.

Question 1: Without discussing the Pharisees in this question, what was the argument Jesus’ made about their use of the cup or dish?

Question 2: Now including the Pharisees, what was the argument Jesus’ made about them?

Question 3: In your opinion, how would “giving for alms those things that are within” make them clean?

Question 4: What do you think are the things from within that could be given as alms?

Question 5: What do you think are modern equivalents of the things given for alms from the outside, not from within?

⁴²“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. ⁴³Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honour in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. ⁴⁴Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.”

This passage sounds a bit like my horse-riding skills… It starts off slowly, & then before you know it all you hear is Woe Woe Woe!

Sometimes I hear Woe being used as a threat! “Woe to you, you brood of vipers!!” But most often the woe in the Bible is said in the sense of “How SAD it is for you!”, rather than a gleeful “How BAD it will be for you! Ha Ha!”

A quaint translation is “Alas”. So instead of reading this passage with venom spitting from the tongue, it should be read with compassion & tears. “How sad it is for you Pharisees!

In detailing what they did & what they missed out on, the sadness becomes more apparent, as well as remembering the rewards that their actions would reap.

In v42 we have the clean exterior, but the filthy interior. “For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others.” Their fastidiousness in giving 10% of everything, even down to the herbs they used didn’t show through to being fastidious about much more important things, like the welfare of others around them, & either loving God or basking in his love for them. They neglected justice & the love of God. That is surprising for someone who knows their Old Testament really well. The prophets repeatedly pointed out the lack of justice & the lack of care for people, & the neglect of their relationship with God. Here are a few examples:

“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly & to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

“Even though you bring me burnt offerings & grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:22-24)

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice & untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter -- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:6-7)

The Pharisees concentrated on keeping the law, because their predecessors, when they returned from the exile, knew very well that the exile occurred because the Israelites had neglected God and had not kept his Law. Therefore they concentrated on keeping the Law. They needed to practice loving God & loving people, while keeping the Law.

However, Jesus points out very vividly that Law-keeping is not enough. How sad it is for them! Sad both now & in the future. & the next 2 woes pick up the now & the future. “Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honour in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces.” It’s sad now because their attitudes put major barriers in the way they relate to people. They want the recognition. They crave it. They want people to respect them for their wonderful deeds, so they have the airs & pomp which show their internal greed & covetousness.

“Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.” & it’s sad in the future, because for all their recognition seeking, no-one will even know they’re there. Their legacy is a big nothing. Their future is bleak. Their hope is futile. How sad!

& the question comes, how much of a Pharisee is in us? Before we answer this, another group at the brunch butted in.

In your table groups I want you to read this next passage & answer the next 6 questions.

⁴⁵One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.” ⁴⁶And he said, “Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. ⁴⁷Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. ⁴⁸So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. ⁴⁹Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ ⁵⁰so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, ⁵¹from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. ⁵²Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

Question 6: The lawyers or scribes were insulted by Jesus, because they were specially trained Pharisees, highly skilled in knowing and applying the Law. What is the first sad complaint Jesus made against them?

Question 7: In what way do you think that building tombs for prophets means that they were witnesses for & approving of the killing of the prophets?

Question 8: In the Hebrew order of the Old Testament, the first book is Genesis, and the last is 2 Chronicles. The first blood shed is that of Abel in Genesis 4. The last prophet’s blood shed is that of Zechariah in 2 Chronicles 24:20. Can you see any reasons why the killing of all the prophets in the Old Testament should be charged against that one generation?

Question 9: In the woes to the Pharisees, the future sadness was simply that they would be ignored & forgotten. What further sadness is added now, if that generation is charged?

Question 11: How do you think someone can take away the key of knowledge and not enter themselves and also prevent others entering?

⁵³When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile toward him and to cross-examine him about many things, ⁵⁴lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.”

Until this point in Luke, Jesus has confronted the Pharisees when needed. If he heal someone on a Sabbath, they’d object. If he ate with sinners, they’d object. But as he became popular, the scribes and Pharisees saw Jesus as a larger threat. He challenged their authority over the direction of religious belief. By their open slander early in Luke 11, that Jesus cast out demons by Beelzebub, they declared war on him, and sought to discredit him. At Jesus' brunch with the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus now faces them head on with their sins and the responsibility they bear by preventing people from hearing the truth. Now the warfare is out in the open. Instead of critics at the sidelines, the Pharisees and scribes deliberately seek opportunities to discredit him before the people. & this is only the 11^th chapter of 24! But they’re not angry enough to kill him… not yet!

So what have we learnt? It’s not unexpected that the very next part of Luke’s gospel has Jesus teaching the crowd, saying “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy.”

Traditionally during Lent all the yeast would have been removed from people’s homes. This Lent, remove any yeast of the Pharisees from your lives. How? Ask God to do it… & be ready to be honest. Love God, love people & don’t be 2-faced.

Welcome to our 5^th study in the series Hosting the Lord of Hosts. Tonight, we have the final time that Luke’s Gospel has Jesus being hosted by people who were not his friends and followers… well not until after the resurrection, when many were converted & followed Jesus. Many Scripture teachers I know faithfully sow seeds, that they pray will one day bear fruit in the lives of the young ones they speak with & sometimes battle with. I sometimes wonder if Jesus went to the meals with the same attitude.

Heavenly Father, As we come into your throne room again because of the merits of your Son Jesus Christ, and as we are aided by your Holy Spirit helping us pray especially when we cannot put the emotions & thoughts into words, guide us in understanding your inspired Words, enable us to live them, and give us great wisdom, beyond our years and natural abilities, so that we will live lives focused on the important issues, honouring our Lord and Saviour, in whose name we pray. Amen.

¹On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. ^?2?Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. ^?3?And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?” ^?4?But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. ^?5?Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?” ^?6?And they could not reply to this.

Even with the controversy that surrounded Jesus and the Pharisees, it was the polite Jewish thing to do to invite the speaker at a synagogue home for lunch. Jesus was so popular that he kept being invited to speak in their synagogues. As you can see from that, the Jewish synagogues did not have the strict licensing laws that the Anglican church enforced during the reformation, & reiterated strongly & very curtly following the Wesleyan revival, where the new Methodist preachers were banned from churches & so they set up their chapels.

I sometimes wonder if the Pharisees in the area he was in that time, had a plan to protect their more vulnerable men, by inviting Jesus to the home of the leader of the Pharisees. We’ve had a progression through Simon’s house in Luke 6, then another Pharisee’s house in Luke 11. Now he has made it to the chief Pharisee’s home. We certainly know that they were watching him closely. They were ready to trap him, & catch him out. But Jesus didn’t wait for them to trap him.

Instead Jesus noticed a certain man with dropsy in front of him. This was before they had been seated. So we are in the equivalent of our drinks & nibbles time. It was prior to the washing of hands. In the mingling, Jesus saw this man. Some have suggested that the man was planted there by the Pharisees to see if Jesus would heal him. Some have said that since Pharisees thought of sick people as sinners, he therefore would have affected their stern cleanliness rules, so how could they have invited him? Some have said he may have been a Pharisee himself. While others have said that he was in the crowd, like the woman was in Simon’s place. I don’t know how he got to be there. But I do know that Jesus immediately went on the front foot (to use my limited cricketing metaphors).

Instead of pointing out the man with dropsy (which is oedema, or lots of fluid under the skin, so he was blown up with painfully stretched skin making him look very swollen & puffy), Jesus asked a question of the lawyers and Pharisees.

“Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?” But they were silent.

They could have answered, trying to argue the position that a doctor could NOT work on the Sabbath. To bandage a wound to keep it from getting worse is allowed, but any treatment to improve a wound or sickness was forbidden unless it was considered life threatening.

We don’t know why they didn’t answer. Some have said that it is because they were Giving Jesus enough rope to hang himself. Others have said it’s because in Luke 13 he had been in a synagogue & healed the bent over woman. A Pharisee had chipped Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, & the reply from Jesus made them all feel ashamed of their hard line stance. Whatever the reason for their lack of answer, instead of Jesus dangling, the Pharisees were now dancing to an awkward tune.

Jesus grabbed him, but not roughly. We’re not told where he touched him, simply that he did grab him & healed him. & then the man was sent away. For some people, the sending away confirms that he was there not as a guest or friend, but rather as one of the local community wanting help from Jesus. Others have said that Jesus wanted him to be away from what was about to happen. & still others see the Greek word for sent away also may mean he was set free, which he used in Luke 13, when he said “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.”

^?Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?”And they could not reply to this.

In chapter 13, Jesus had spoken of giving animals water to drink on the Sabbath. Now he goes to rescuing them from a dangerous peril, & includes a child. They don’t reply. The immediate conclusion from what Jesus has done is that it is very valid to do acts of kindness on the Sabbath.

So the first volley has been fired, but the guns of the Pharisees are strangely quiet. Are they seething with rage? Are they humiliated into silence? Has he outwitted them? What will happen now?

In your table groups I want you to read this next passage & answer the next 4 questions.

^7?When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ^?8?“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; ^?9?and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. ^?10?But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. ^?11?For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Question 2: Name some dining occasions when you have seen a ranking of guests according to honour or closeness to the hosts (either with or without place cards).

Question 3: In your opinion, IF this parable had been found in the Old Testament, where would it be more likely to be found? Eg Genesis, Leviticus, Psalms, Proverbs, Daniel, or Jonah?

^12?He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. ^?13?But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. ^?14?And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Keeping in the theme of teaching the Pharisees great Wisdom for living, Jesus now addressed the host who invited him.

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner” As I said last week, there were 2 main meals a day, ariston (called luncheon here) and deipnon (called dinner). Notice the boldness of Jesus in doing this? He is smashing the ball for sixes at will.

“do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.” This is not a command to never throw a party for your friends or family etc. Rather it’s more like giving advice to young teenagers & greedy 20-somethings whose invitation list is stacked full of those who will bring expensive presents or make great contacts for work or social purposes, while neglecting those who can’t give much. Such a guest list has an eye on what the host will gain out of it, rather than on what the host can do to please or use for alms from within (to pick up on last week’s study). Notice that he lists 4 groupings: friends, brothers, relatives and rich neighbours. With a well thought through balance, Jesus declares 4 other groups should be invited instead.

“But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” These 4 groups of people should be invited. Yet wouldn’t that break with the cleanliness or holiness rules of the Pharisees? Once again Jesus is chipping away with his sledge hammer. Why should they invite the so-called “sinners”?

“And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” If they really trust in God, then let the trust show. If they really believe that God will reward them for good deeds done, then they’re not to look for instant rewards. Let God be God, & therefore go out of the way to invite the poor, crippled, lame, & blind.

Their heart of selfishness is open to Jesus. He’s seen & called on them to be radical in their generosity, not looking for visible outcomes in this life. Their holiness would then be seen not as aloofness above the rest of the world, but a friendliness & compassion which isn’t afraid to get a bit dirty with the world, because their motives will be to honour God. How do we fair with this aspect of our faith? Is our holiness helping us reach out, or is it a barrier of aloofness which alienates?

In your table groups I want you to read this next passage & answer the next 6 questions.

^15?One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” ^?16?Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. ^?17?At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ ^?18?But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ ^?19?Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ ^?20?Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ ^?21?So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ ^?22?And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ ^?23?Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. ^?24?For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ”

Question 5: As we live in a clock-oriented world, it may seem strange to not put a time on the invitation. Can you think of any possible reasons that the slaves had to be sent at the time for the dinner?

Question 6: Look at the 3 reasons for not attending. What areas of life do they concern?

Question 7: The owner responded with anger and a new command. Who were to be brought in, and how does this relate with verses 12-14?

Question 8: What do you think is the intention of the owner concerning his banquet, given by using the words “compel” and “filled”?

Question 9: The dinner guest had interjected with a statement about the heavenly banquet. How do you think the parable address this interjection?

Don’t become complacent, callused, and careless. Let this parable Jesus' told at a leading Pharisee's table stir us and infuse us with God's heart and perspective.

Welcome to our 6^th study in the series Hosting the Lord of Hosts. Tonight, we have a favourite of many people, and a well known story as the Lord of Hosts chose to eat with a short rich guy in Jericho.

Heavenly Father, Give us the eagerness to seek your will in our lives. Help us to be empty when it comes to the glory of the things this world offers, and make us hungry for every word that comes from you. Yet don’t leave us in the confusion that many Judeans & Galileans had as they heard your fascinating words, but could not make sense of them. Move your Holy Spirit to bring them alive in our hearts and minds so that we may all grow in Christ, through whom we pray. Amen.

¹He entered Jericho and was passing through it. ²A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. ⁴So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. ⁷All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” ⁸Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Jericho was near the Jordan river, in a very fertile part of the land. The road from Jericho to Jerusalem was steep, windy & through a mountain pass, that was often frequented by people you would rather not meet, (remember the parable of the good Samaritan). Jesus is definitely going through, on his way to Jerusalem.

The crown prince Frederick & crown princess Mary of Denmark have been stirring up the crowds in Australia over the past few weeks. Why do you think they seem to attract a crowd? What is it about Prince Charles that didn’t stir up as good a crowd? Do you think Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden will create a similar stir?

Jesus created a stir wherever he went. Crowds flocked. Jericho was no exception, & the street was lined with people wanting to see Jesus. One of the crowd happened to be a short man, of whom we’re not told much.

“A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich.” That verse is printed on your page. I’m going to list on the board the various things you can tell me that can be deduced from that verse about this man. (LIST ON BOARD) Include the following:

So because of who he was & what he did, the crowd made it hard for him, & blocked him out.

“He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature” Did you notice that when I said the crowd made it hard for him, that I automatically assumed that they did this because they hated him? I sometimes wonder if they crowd nudged & pushed him out, or if the crowd was simply behaving like a crowd, & Zacchaeus was simply a shorty who couldn’t get through.

While we’re speaking about crowds, I thought it might be interesting to see how Luke described crowds. This past week, as I read Luke focusing on the crowds, the first thing that struck me was how often Jesus was surrounded by crowds of people. He was very popular. From Luke 5:1, when Jesus called his disciples, through until his trial before Pilate, there are crowds everywhere. In fact, Jesus isn’t arrested by the Temple guards many times, because of the crowds. In Luke 22:6, Judas agrees to betray Jesus when No crowd was present. His ministry was often lived in the crowds, who were buzzing around to see him & be healed by him.

Apart from the guards, three times people are prevented by the sheer numbers from getting to Jesus. The first is in Luke 5:19, when the 4 men are forced to drastically dig through the roof to get their friend to Jesus. The second is in Luke 8:19, when his mother & brothers are prevented from coming in & taking him away because the crowd is too large. & the third is in Luke 19, with Zacchaeus, who had to climb a tree to see him. Only once in Luke’s gospel is the crowd ever portrayed in a negative light, & that is in 22:47 when the crowds came with Judas to arrest Jesus. At other times, even when John the Baptist or Jesus are chastising the crowds, they respond positively.

Zacchaeus, like the enterprising 4 friends of the lame man, really wanted to see who Jesus was, so he ran ahead & parked himself in a sycamore fig tree. This type of tree has leaves like a mulberry, but fruit like a fig.

When Jesus is in the exact spot, he looks up & talks to Zaccheus. Does he know Zacchaeus' name ahead of time, or does he pick it up from angry whispers in the crowd about the man Jesus was peering up at? We will find out in heaven. He says he "must" come to dinner! Now! Immediately! We might think of this as presumptuous and rude. But Zacchaeus is overjoyed. Here he was, a social outcast being offered the opportunity to host one of the most famous men in the country. Of course, he is happy. He scrambles down the tree and welcomes Jesus.

“⁷All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” ⁸Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Question 1: What does the grumbling show about all the people in that crowd?

Question 2: “Stood there” can make it seem that they were still outside, but a better translation might be something like “Having stood”. He has reclined to eat, but stands to make an announcement. What do you think is the importance (if any) of giving half his possessions to the poor?

Question 3: “If I have defrauded…” To you, does this sound like he knew he was guilty, or was only making a hypothetical claim?

Question 4: How do you think the proclaiming of Zacchaeus, a hated chief tax-collector, to be a son of Abraham, would have been taken by the disciples, the crowd, and the Pharisees?

This is now the 3^rd encounter with different men that Luke has put in a few short verses. In Luke 18:18-30 the rich young ruler approached Jesus, with his question about who can inherit eternal life. He has been fulfilling the commandments (remember the Pharisaic code?), but he lacks one thing: “Sell all you have, distribute it to the poor, then come and follow me.” But this was too great a cost, & he refused by going away sad. Jesus says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven -- & remember this followed saying that people had to become like little children to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples are dumb-struck. “Who then can be saved?”

He then bumps into the blind man whom the crowd treats shamefully because of his yelling for help. (Maybe it was a problem with the crowds from Jericho… maybe they needed a contract with a code of conduct too). The blind man is healed & he follows Jesus while the crowd is praising God.

Then while the good news is rippling down the crowds waiting in Jericho, a rich short stumpy Zac is preparing to climb a tree. & Jesus is about to show, even with the brevity of the account, that God can do the impossible, & a rich man can be included as a true son of Abraham & be saved.

But we are still left with the aftermath of the 3 encounters. I jumped for joy & saw where he landed, one provided a massive charity donation & jumped for joy, & one went wee, wee, wee sadly all the way home.

3 men sought Jesus out. 2 saved, one lost. Yet the Son of Man came to seek out & save the lost.

Question 6: What does it say about the power of God to save people, if the rich man could go away sad and not saved?

Question 7: When we think of Jesus coming to seek out and save, did he always have to go into the places where the lost congregated? Can you think of any time when he did? Should we be expected to go into such places?

Have you ever been on a progressive meal, where you eat one course at one place, then move to another for the 2^nd etc? They can be fun, but I’d hate to have to run in between courses… that sounds a bit like anorexia or bulimia to me.

The meal hosted for the Lord of Hosts that we investigate tonight was a progressive meal, full of shocks & surprises.

Heavenly Father, in your Word we have life, love, & the certain knowledge of you. Bring your Word alive in our hearts by your Holy Spirit, so that we do not hear the words and think either yeah, we know that, or what does that mean?? Open our eyes to behold you in and through your Word. & we ask this in the name of Christ, our Saviour. Amen.

²⁸As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within uswhile he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

For this meal, there was no crowd. There were simply 3 men walking the 11km from Jerusalem to Emmaus. One of the 3 decided that Emmaus wasn’t the place to pull on the hand brake, so kept going further, but the other 2 made him stop. This day, the first Easter Sunday was almost finished. Night was falling, & it was only polite to invite people in to stay. But the 2 men strongly urged him to stay for dinner. It was the polite thing to do. This time Jesus didn’t come to them & make them be hosts, like he had done with Zacchaeus. This time they urged him to stay, virtually twisting his arm.

He consented to stay with them. Reclining at table with them, or as our English version says “When he was at the table with them”, he did what we would naturally think was the OK thing for him to do: “he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”

However, this was not the natural thing for him to do. The host was the person who usually had the task to break the bread, not the guest. Sometimes when at other people’s tables, I’m asked to say grace, other times the head of the house does it, other times the children all take turns in saying grace. But in Jewish practice back then, the head of the family would take bread at the start of the daily meal, bless the Lord not ask the Lord to bless the food, and break it. One of the most used prayers at the table went something like this: "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the world, who has caused bread to come forth out of the earth."

When we looked at the feeding of the 5000, it appeared that the Greek wording did have Jesus blessing (or saying the good word) the bread & fish, & you might remember that may have been seen in the multiplication of it. At the Last Supper, he gave thanks before breaking the bread, but that was the Greek word for “give thanks” which is eucharisteo, from which some people call the Lord’s Supper the eucharist, & why we have a thanksgiving prayer in the communion service. But here in Luke 24, he simply eulogised or said the good word, which was to bless the Lord.

Yet something happened when he did this. For us with our industrial revolution, & having coins stuck in pay machines, we might say “the penny dropped.” For them, we are told “Then their eyes were opened”

Why did their eyes open at that point? Was it because they put 2 & 2 together & came up with Jesus? Was it divine? Was it a function of his breaking of the bread that was so familiar to them?

The text gives us some clues. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ^?16?but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.15-16 says “While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ^?16?but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Remember that this was the day of the resurrection. Cleopas and his friend had left the locked room & had started home, dejected. Their discussions had not yet fizzled out into futility, & while they were talking, Jesus came up, “but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

He wouldn’t be too hard to recognise, would he? How many people do you know who go walking 11 kilometres with nail marks through their hands, let alone their feet? How many people do you know with a massive open wound in their abdomen, go walking 11 kilometres, without giving away that they have a bit of pain, or leak a touch of blood? How many people do you know who have had a massive crown of thorns smashed onto their heads, & have been severely whipped just a few days earlier, can carry on an intelligent conversation without winces & letting on what’s happened physically? But then again, how many once-dead-now-alive-forevermore people have you seen walking around? No wonder we’re told “but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

Through Luke there is the usual way of knowing something, by finding out. In the 3^rd study, we saw that the crowd “learned” where Jesus was. This discovery or knowledge wasn’t kept from them by divine intervention, nor was it revealed by divine intervention. They simply did some detective work & found it out. However, there are times when it seems that the knowledge or understanding has a spiritual dimension, which although readily available & understandable to some, is absolutely smothered in fog to others. In chapter 8, Jesus says that the purpose of the parables (while he was walking & talking with them) was to be obvious with the message, yet leave them at the same time in a fog. The secret of understanding had been given to the special group, who would then make it widely known after Jesus had ascended into heaven.

But even the disciples had their blind spots as far as knowledge went. As Jesus revealed more about his coming death, it appears that the disciples were blindly ignorant of anything to do with his death, until it happened. Then they remembered what he had said, & it began to make sense. Some things no one will know, except the Father alone (such as when Jesus will return, Acts 1:7). & it appears that the walk to Emmaus had another one of those divine interventions where knowledge of who the man was, was withheld from the 2 men until that significant point in the meal. “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” & “Then their eyes were opened”. We didn’t get the scales falling from their eyes, unlike Saul’s conversion, but Mary had a similar enlightenment to Cleopas in John 20, thinking Jesus was a gardener until he called her name.

However, back to the meal. It was then interrupted, because once they did recognise him, he disappeared. So they hurried back to tell the others.

In your groups, read the 2 accounts of the travelling the 11 kilometres, & answer the questions.

¹³Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about eleven kilometres from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. ¹⁷And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad.¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” ¹⁹He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. ²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” ²⁵Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

³²They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within uswhile he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” ³³That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ³⁴They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” ³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Question 1: “They stood still, looking sad.” In your opinion, why were the men so downcast?

Question 2: What amazed the 2 men so much about the stranger’s question in v17?

Question 3: What did Cleopas know about Jesus before the stranger added to his knowledge?

Question 4: Even knowing that information, the stranger added a new dimension to their thinking. What was that new dimension?

Question 5: What happened inside the disciples as the stranger talked on the road? On what occasions have you felt like that?

Question 6: In your opinion, what was the return trip to Jerusalem like?

Question 7: “how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread” has been given several interpretations throughout the church’s history. How do you understand it?

Remember I began with the idea of the progressive dinner? Well now we have to come to the second course. Remember the feeding of the 5000 men? What was on the menu? (bread and fish). We’ve had the bread, so guess what is coming? (fish).

³⁶While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ³⁷They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. ³⁸He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” ⁴⁰And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.⁴¹While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” ⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ^?43?and he took it and ate in their presence.

Throughout the gospel, whenever an extraordinary supernatural event occurred, like the coming of an angel, or on the mount of transfiguration, or Jesus appearing after death, people were terrified. These appearances were not common, nor are we ever led to believe that they would be common. They are so extraordinary & unexpected that they create absolute fear. The people of the New Testament were not very different from us when it came to expecting supernatural visitations.

Jesus combined the “don’t be afraid” with “Peace be with you.” Often when he healed someone, he would make a statement about them now having peace as well. This nicely balances & fulfils the angels singing of the coming of peace through the birth of Jesus. His death & resurrection is the way that he is able to give us that peace.

There is someone actively promoting among Sydney churches the idea that Peace is really the name of Heaven. Have any of you heard this? He wrote to me many times from the Northern beaches. Jesus as the Prince of Peace, implies to that person that he is the Prince of Heaven. His argument is flawed, as peace is a fruit of the Spirit, just as love is, and heaven is characterised by peace, joy, love, godliness etc, but it is not merely a name of the place.

“Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” Notice that Jesus understands their doubts, but names them, & provides a way for testing the truth. He didn’t want them left in their doubts. In Luke 8:25, when he had stilled the storm & they were cringing in fear of this powerful man, he said “Where is your faith?” But they respond with great joy when they do check out the facts.

“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” See they were so overwhelmed, that it was better than winning the lottery, even when you haven’t bought a ticket. They had joyful disbelief, which would soon crystallise into diamond like faith that would even die for him. But in the mean time, Jesus wanted to eat with them.

If I were to ask you if we have anything here to eat (or John were), where would you search? Some would head for the fridge. Some would scour the cupboards. Some might even go into the church to look in the tin-bin. They found some broiled fish. He ate it.

This Jesus can walk 11 kilometres, chat, break bread with those hands, disappear, reappear 11 kms away in a locked room & eat broiled fish (I don’t suppose he had to worry about his cholesterol levels).

So finally, break into groups again and look at his final words over this dinner.

⁴⁴Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

"The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright \, 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.".