A Feast - Luke 14:12-14

The teaching at the house of the Pharisee continues when Jesus teaches “when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” I like the saying that goes something like, “you can tell the character of a person by the way they treat those who can do nothing for them.” I feel like this is a similar teaching by the Savior here. Also, “someone who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a good person.” This one really stuck home because I used to be the person who was rude to the waiter. My goal in life has always been to be a good person, and when I heard that I was honestly devastated. I took that hurt as a realization that I couldn’t act like that, and to be fair, I acted that way, not because I had a black heart but because it was a defense mechanism. I look at the way that I used to act and it is appalling to me, but it was where I was at the time. How did my behavior change? A change of heart that came from… Jesus. I read a lot of books and had to confront a lot of my beliefs and insecurities, but as I went back to church, as I started to try to keep the commandments, Jesus worked in my life to change who I was. He didn’t step in after I became perfect, he stepped in the second that I indicated that he was ok to come into my life. I’m still a work in progress with a long way to go, but I am grateful for everything that Jesus has done for me and how he’s helped me become a better person.

There are a couple of parts to consider about the Lord’s teaching here, first we have to consider His audience. Jesus was speaking to Pharisees who were wealthy and respected, they most likely didn’t associate themselves with those who were sick or afflicted because it would have made them unclean. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, we can assume that some probably privately gave money to someone to give to someone to give to someone in need, but that’s not what the Savior asked them to do. A feast made would usually be for some special event to which the friends and family of the Pharisee would be invited, it would be a show of wealth and prestige. It would also be an intimate affair, it would involve the host personally interacting with the guests and taking responsibility ensuring everyone had a good time. Let’s now consider an event that isn’t an intimate “feast,” say a festival of some kind. A Pharisee might be in charge of making sure that it ran smoothly, setting everything up, that God’s message got delivered, but would he have a responsibility to make sure that everyone had a good time? No. Would he feel obligated to ensure that those in attendance were spiritually fed? No. Would he deal with every single person face to face? Absolutely not.

What’s different between the Pharisees who are completely removed from less fortunate Jews, or even the man who might secretly give and what the Savior is asking them is love. I might feel it’s my moral duty to care for those less fortunate, I may even smile at someone, but to see them as a human being, to believe that their hopes and dreams are just as important as mine, that’s the difference that Jesus is asking them to make. He’s pointing out that a hands off approach is not enough, the less fortunate are just as important to God as we are.

I have to be honest, looking at the situation, if Jesus were to say, “ next time you have a party, invite the homeless to celebrate with you.” That would be a very difficult situation for me, and reading this teaching, that is how I would interpret it and look at applying it to my life, but I don’t think that this is the interpretation that we are supposed to find here. For us in our day, it’s not necessarily safe for us to invite compete strangers over to our house, especially those who might have substance abuse problems, and many of the chronically homeless do. I’m a single mom, and I would never feel safe inviting someone over that I didn’t know, especially with my kids in the house. But there are other things that I can do to “make a feast” and invite those who are sick and afflicted. I can be kind to others. One of the prophets said something to the effect of, “treat everyone you meet like they are in the middle of a life crisis and you’ll be right half the time.” How do we act when we know that someone is having a hard time? We are just a little bit gentler with them, we keep them in our thoughts, and we serve them where we can. I don’t know why we can’t do that to everyone, not just those who are struggling, myself included, I’m guilty of this as well.

If we learn to treat everyone like they are just as important as ourselves, if we treat everyone like they are our family, they can’t pay us back. Does that mean that we have lost something because they can’t do favors for us in return? What if they are mean to us, even if we do our best to be kind? We can just know that they are struggling ad extend a little patience. But the point isn’t to get stuff in return. The IM says, “He taught that when we treat individuals who are poor or sick especially well, we will be rewarded in the ‘resurrection of the just.’”