The Politics of the Table in Luke 14
The lectionary gospel reading for Trinity 11 in Year C, Luke 14.1, 7–fourteen, continues to engage with material that is unique to Luke, arranged in Luke'southward distinctive order, and bridging the worlds of the original context of Jesus and Judaism and Luke's context in wider Roman culture.
The passage comes in a sequence of episodes that don't look to the modern reader to exist very closely linked, but announced to accept verbal or thematic connections with one some other similar adjacent stepping stones crossing a stream. In final week's reading, we learned that the apparently insignificant healing of a adult female was in fact the work of the kingdom which would leaven the whole batch of dough. The smallness of the work of the kingdom so links to the smallness ofresponse to the kingdom in terms of the surprisingly few who will exist saved (Luke xiii.23–25). This then links to the surprising people who enter the kingdom, not existence the ones who are expected, and in turn connects to the rejection of Jesus past Herod (perhaps less surprising, Luke 13.31) and the metropolis of Jerusalem (more surprising, Luke xiii.34), these two representing the northern and southern bases of ability and influence. We and so arrive at our lectionary reading, set on some unspecified Sabbath in some unspecified Pharisee'southward house.
That Jesus is welcomed into the firm of a 'prominent Pharisee' (literally, 'a ruler of/among the Pharisees') demonstrates that, at least for some of his ministry, Jesus had a close human relationship with the Pharisee movement, even though most of the fabric in the gospels sees him criticising them. Pharisees did get his followers (John 3.ane, 12.42), they had just warned him about Herod in a supportive fashion, and he commended their teaching (Matt 23.2).
There is some irony in Luke's comment that the others in the house ('they') were taking careful note of Jesus and his deportment—since it turns out in poetry vii that Jesus has himself been taking careful note of their actions. As the narrative unfolds, the watchers become the watched!
The lectionary omits the healing story that comes next, which is a shame, since information technology provides an of import part of the context of the didactics that follows. The healing narrative follows quite closely, though in abbreviated form, the healing of the woman aptitude double in the previous affiliate. Inside Jesus' Jewish context, the main question presented here is the disputed question of healing on the Sabbath; as earlier, Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater, and, equally earlier, mentions an ox as ane (along with family unit members) to whom Sabbath do besides applies, but whom any normal person wouldn't fail to aid.
Only, in Luke's Graeco-Roman context, the story has further significance. The man'south condition is translated 'dropsy' in older translations, but we would now phone call it edema, the swelling of parts of his body because of the aggregating of fluids. The Greek term Luke uses, ὑδρωπικὸς, suggests the aggregating of fluid. One time more than, in Greek thought, the bodily symptoms indicated a sickness of the inner person—in this example, it was idea to betoken insatiable greed.
In the case of dropsy the thirst of the sufferer never ceases and is never allayed by the assistants of liquids from without, unless we cure the morbid condition of the body itself, so information technology is incommunicable to satiate the greed for gain, unless we correct past reasoning the vice inherent in the soul. (Polybius,Hist, 13.2.two, cited past Mikeal Parsons, Paideia commentary, p 226).
In the healing, then, Jesus is non only established as the administrative teacher (as before), simply as well equally the one who can cure the condition of the greed and desire for gain and status.
This brings us to his teaching in the lectionary reading; here is the moment when the watched becomes the watcher and the tables are turned (pun intended!). Although Luke uses the term 'parable' here, he has used it fairly flexibly elsewhere (Luke iv.23, 5.36). The two lessons that follow are very closely related, though some ETs don't show the parallels very conspicuously, told from the two perspectives of being invited to a feast and doing the inviting oneself. (It is worth noting here that Jesus is, in offering these 2 'parables', addressing those without ability equally well as those with power.)
| Verses 7–11 | Verses 12–14 |
| Jesus addresses his fellow guests | Jesus addresses his host |
| When you are invited to a repast… | When yous host a meal with guests… |
| Do not…lest… | Exercise not…lest… |
| Merely when y'all are invited to a meal… | But when you are a host at a meal… |
| Then you volition…because… | So you will…because… |
(Table from Joel Light-green NICNT commentary p 549.) Inside these two scenarios, Jesus is addressing and undermining ii key aspects of the first century world, the offset of which would have been important in both his context and the context of Luke's readers, and the second of which would take been especially pregnant in Luke's globe.
The commencement is the question of laurels and social status. Social condition and social stratification were vital aspects of life in the ancient globe; where you sat in the pecking society determined every aspect of your life—your work, your income, who you could associate with, and with whom you could intermarry—and the places effectually a repast, nearer or farther from your host, were a tangible expression of this status. And the culture was one of struggle and competition; condition was something for you to compete for and grasp, and if y'all climbed upwardly the social order it was past your own efforts. Jesus' teaching here non only undercuts the importance of status; information technology also sees condition and standing equally something that is given, non something that is gained—a souvenir from another (specifically God), not something accrued by one'southward own effort. The importance of God as the 1 determining honour and status is expressed in the 'divine passive' in the summarising statement in Luke 14.11.
This connects, then, with the other aspect of life in the ancient world, and specially in Roman culture. Gift-giving was a vital part of the mechanism of social exchange; if I requite you a gift, then you are in my debt, either to requite me a gift in return, or to offer me some favour or other. Jesus' teaching here, expressed in the language of God'southward grace in Paul's writings, was radically counter-cultural. This is how John Barclay describes information technology in his exploration of the subversive ability of grace:
It was very common in Paul's world to speak of the worth of the recipient. Gifts should be given lavishly just discriminately, to plumbing fixtures or worthy recipients. 'Worth' could be divers in unlike ways, according to a number of criteria—ethnicity, social status, age, gender, moral virtue, beauty or success. Just as, today, prizes might be awarded on unlike grounds (for musical, literary, sporting or academic achievement) but keep their value only if they are given discriminately, to people worthy of them, so the good gift in antiquity was normally given according to some criterion of worth. And this was true likewise of the gifts of God (or the gods). God would inappreciably waste gifts on the unfitting, or confuse the moral or social order by giving to unworthy recipients. It was obvious to ancient philosophers that God'southward best gifts would be given to those who are free (not slaves), to the educated, the male person, the virtuous and the grateful. If y'all receive a divine gift, it is 'because you lot are worth it.'
For this reason, the most subversive gift is the gift given without regard to worth (what I described in a higher place as the quaternary possible radicalization of grace, 'incongruity'). If you wait God to give the best gifts to the freeborn developed and educated male, but if you find that, in fact, these gifts are given both to the free and to slaves, both to adults and to children, both to the educated and to the uneducated, both to males and to females, your whole notion of worth, and thus your social values, is thrown into disarray.
There are two further things to note in relation to this disruption of personal and social values, related to where they come from and where they are going.
Starting time, Jesus' education here is rooted in the Quondam Attestation—in fact, his advice sounds about word for word like material from Proverbs.
Practice not exalt yourself in the king's presence, and exercise not claim a place among his great men; it is better for him to say to yous, 'Come up here,' than for him to humiliate you before his nobles. (Proverbs 25:vi-7)
In fact there are numerous sayings, in the Quondam Testament and cited in the New, which follow a similar theme.
"God opposes the proud merely shows favor to the apprehensive." (James 4:six, 1 Peter 5:five, and Proverbs 3:34)
" Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3)
"You save the humble but bring depression those whose eyes are haughty." (Psalm 18:27)
"No one from the due east or the west or from the desert can exalt themselves. It is God who judges: He brings one downwards, he exalts another." (Psalm 75:half dozen-vii)
"When pride comes, then comes disgrace, only with humility comes wisdom. " (Proverbs 11:2)
"Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit proceeds laurels." (Proverbs 29:23)
At ane level, Jesus is teaching nothing new here, but is restoring his people to the heritage that God has always been calling them to.
And yet there is another important pointer to the nature of these values. Luke here records the language of 'wedding feast' on the lips of Jesus, but one time again he uses terms describing meals interchangeably, so we might think of this as applying to any repast. But having mentioned a nuptials banquet, Luke follows this with Jesus' teaching aboutthewedding feast in the kingdom of God. In other words, the disruption to social order and social values is a bringing into the nowadays of the hereafter reality of the coming kingdom. Richard Hays comments:
In the Lukan narrative context … this teaching becomes more than a businesslike hint almost court etiquette; information technology is implicitly a directive almost how the coming kingdom should impinge already on the present, producing a reversal of values and status. In the eschatological kingdom of God, the last will be outset and the first last (Luke 13:thirty); therefore, those who are Jesus' followers should begin already to presume roles of lowliness (cf. Luke 22:24-27).
And Alistair Roberts reflects on this:
It is no accident that meals and shocking departures from the prevailing manners at them are such a central aspect of Jesus' prophetic practice and instruction in the book of Luke. Jesus' meals were a symbolic ways by which he was reforming Israel around himself. Those who rejected Jesus would observe themselves outside of the eschatological feast, while the poor and the outcasts celebrated within. They were also a ways of inculcating a radical newhabitusin his followers, preparation them in new manners, values, and customs, conforming them to the order of the kingdom of God.
A communal meal remains a central feature of the Church building'due south ongoing worship in the Eucharist. Politics and the manners and social relations that represent to them are first learnt at the table. Information technology is at the Eucharist that we begin to learn the manners and politics of the kingdom, where we are trained to act equally cultivated members of the court of its King. It is at the Eucharist that we tin can acquire to put others before ourselves, to extend God'due south goodness to those without the power to repay, to live equally a thankful people, and to release people from their debts to united states. As these new manners and politics become 2nd nature to us, they should extend out to and be confirmed in all areas of our lives and practise.
Together, so, this department of didactics offers us three challenges—or peradventure opportunities. As we reflect on issues of social status, treatment of others, and inclusion and exclusion in our own cultures, nosotros notation that:
- the coming of the kingdom of God challenges all such values, since condition is a gift conferred past God as ultimate giver and arbiter of condition;
- this inversion of human social order is something that God has ever been doing—there is no possible contrast between law and grace, since Jesus and his bringing in of the kingdom makes existent what God has always been calling his people to;
- these patterns of social condition are driven by our clamorous desire for security and status, and Jesus alone is the one who tin can heal our wayward desires and enable usa to alive in these new patterns of community.
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