Proverbs 23 1:-3

1 When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is
before you,
2 and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite.
3 Do not desire his delicacies, for they are deceptive food.

Jesus was himself made the object of

such motives in Luke 14 when he was
invited to dine with an unknown
Pharisee ruler and his friends. The host
did not love Jesus, and it is fairly certain
that neither did his fellow Pharisees
friends who shared the meal.

The occasion was the Sabbath day, and

they wanted to test Jesus to see
whether he would defy their
conventions and heal a man who had
dropsy (the person might have oedema due to congestive
heart failure.). From the beginning of the
meal they were watching the Lord Jesus

Would he heal the man before such a

distinguished company of strict
Sabbatarians, or not?

As usual, the Lord Jesus knew their

thoughts, and also as usual he threw
them on the defensive. "Is it lawful to
heal on the sabbath day?" he asked.

Unable to pronounce the good because

their hearts were evil; unable to speak
the bad for very shame; they held their
peace. So he healed the man with the
dropsy, and let him go.

Not until he had left did Jesus continue

to address his hosts, and his restraint in
this regard is worth noting.

When the formerly dropsical man had

left, the Lord Jesus turned to his
learned hosts and reasoned with them.
Which of them, he asked, if his son, or
even his ox, fell down a well on the
sabbath day, would not immediately
draw him out, however much "work"
was involved? They could not answer
again to what Jesus had said.

They had invited the Lord Jesus so that

they might watch him. The couches
upon which the guests reclined at
meals were arranged so to form three
sides of a square, the fourth being left
open, to allow the servants to bring in
the dishes.
The "highest place" on the highest
couch, was, thus, the "chief place";
and human nature, the same in all
ages, inevitably made it eagerly
coveted, and then the next highest
seat was marked by its nearness to
the highest, usually the host’s place.

There was no little scheming among

the Rabbis for the best position, and
much anxiety on the part of the host
not to give offence; by placing lower
standing guests above others of
higher standing.

The Lord Jesus had watched the antics

of these men of social status, as they
sought for themselves the chief places
at the meal, and so he told them a
parable.

When they were bidden to a marriage

feast (where no doubt the place-seeking
would be even more hectic) they should
not recline in the chief place, lest
someone of higher standing should
come along, and the host ask them to
take a lower place to make room for the
honoured guest. in this way, they would
be humiliated before all. If, however,
when they were bidden they sat in the
lowest place, the host might say to
them, "Go up higher", and then they
would be honoured in the presence of
all the guests. "

Lk 14:11For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled,

and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The pride of these men lay, however,

not solely in their constant efforts at
self-exaltation, but in their mutual
exclusiveness from the rest of society.
To them, the masses (the great
unwashed) of the people, who,
because they had to labour by honest
sweat, could not spend their time on
the endless rites needed to avoid
"defilement", were a world apart. The
labourer in the fields had no where to
wash his hands before he ate, and if
he had, would not have known the
elaborate Rabbinical procedure for
doing it. He was, therefore, no fit
company for these Rabbis, who would
have themselves become "defiled" by
contact with him.

So the Scribes and Pharisees lived out

their lives moving in their own narrow
circles; tier upon tier of exclusive
"sets" in an exclusive society. The
true principle that makes all men
equal before God had been
submerged beneath a man-made code
that pandered to their pride and
intellectual conceit, and worked only
towards their own social
advancement. According to Geikie, "It
was an old custom in Israel to invite
the poorer neighbours to the special
meals on the consecrated flesh of
offerings not used at the altar, and on
similar half-religious occasions, to
brighten their poverty for the moment
by kindly hospitality. This beautiful
usage was, in the time of Jesus, a
thing of the past, for the priest or
Rabbi of his day would have trembled
at the thought of being defiled by
contact with people whose position
made it impossible to be as
scrupulous in the observance of the
endless legal injunctions demanded,
as themselves".
We who have lived most of our lives
in an affluent society can, despite the
corona, barely appreciate the plight of
the poor in Christ's day. Like masses
of the population in India today, they
scarcely knew where their next meal
was to come from. Nor was their
condition temporary. There was no
Welfare State, and there were few
social services such as we know. The
only hope of the poor for relief from
their misery was the loving kindness
of their fellowmen-a loving kindness
which, if the Law of Moses had been
obeyed in the spirit, would have been
evidenced on every hand.

The supreme condemnation of these

Rabbis, therefore, was that they had
taken this Law, which was good, and
had turned it to their own ends. Whilst
affecting to model their lives upon it,
they had, in fact, denied it. They
obeyed it in the letter-and went far
beyond it by adding many more
letters of their own-but, as for the
spirit of loving their neighbour as
themselves, they were complete and
utter failures. They affected to love
God, when indeed, they loved only
themselves. For suffering humanity,
such as the poor dropsical man who
had so lately stood before them, they
had no eye to pity. All they were
concerned with was that their
intellectual prowess should be
recognised, and their social status
advanced. One even suspects that
they fed like leeches upon the life-
blood of the nation, and sucked up
much of the wealth that should have
goneto the poor. Certainly, by their
endless concern over the minor matters
of the law, and the time they spent on
ritual observances, they must have
been parasites, for they could never
have worked as other men.
The parable of the Wedding Feast, the
Lord Jesus had uttered to all. Now, he
addressed himself to the host, and said,
"When thou makest a dinner or a
supper call not thy friends, nor thy
brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor rich
neighbours; lest they also bid thee
again, and a recompense be made thee.
But when thou makest a feast bid the
poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:
and thou shalt be blessed for they
cannot recompense thee; and thou shalt
be recompensed in the resur rection of
the just".
One can imagine the host blushing,
either with humiliation, or with rage, at
this latest injunction. He knew full well
how exclusive he was in his invitations
to those who dined with him. The poor
and the socially inferior might, after the
custom of the east, look in at his august
gathering, but never join it. Their gaze
of hunger was ignored; their gaze of
respect was part of the adulation due to
those superior to them. The poor were
part of the "accursed" who knew not the
Law. They had nothing whatever to
offer these Rabbis except respect, and
that would certainly not have been
heightened by closer contact. So they
were left outside, and the spring of love
was choked at its source with pride.

"If ye do good to them that do good to

you, what thank have ye?" How easy it
is to do good among ourselves-with
those who are our kith and kin, or our
social equals, or those we know can
help us in return. How hard indeed to
love our neighbour as ourselves! We
can be thankful that our association
together at the Memorial Feast of our
Lord, week by week, teaches us not to
think more highly of ourselves than we
ought to think, and brings us into close
contact with brethren and sisters who,
but for the grace of God in calling us,
we would never have met.

Our meetings are, or should be,

classless, and they should help us,
when we go outside into the highways
and the byways of life, to offer the
same kind of service, and be motivated
by the same kind of love, as our Lord.

The Scribes and Pharisees are remote

from us, both in time and circumstance.
We trust their attitude of mind is also
remote; nevertheless, we do well to be
on our guard against it. The fashions of
self-advancement and self exaltation
may change with the set-up of the
society in which we live, but the human
heart remains the same.

The Lord Jesus pronounced his

judgement upon the ways of the Scribes
and Pharisees during his pilgrimage.

An inclusive world is promised.

Israel's failure to live according to their
Law matched their rejection of him in
whom it was fulfilled. In spirit they
rejected their God. In fact they rejected
their Messiah :

"He came to his own and his own

received him
not".

Disobedience was followed by disaster

which overtook the nation in AD 70
from which only in recent times have
they really begun to recover.

Israel's rejection of Messiah culminated

in his death. But such is the wisdom of
God that in the outworking of His plan
even this was according to His
foreknowledge and counsel.

The Son was obedient to the Father in

all points. He was made perfect through
suffering, and he was raised from the
dead. His resurrection was due to the
fact that his was a sinless life.

Death is for those who are conquered

by sin: here was one who conquered
sin; therefore the grave could not hold
him. With his resurrection the way was
opened for the blessings of the promise
to Abraham to come, and the plan of
God to fill the earth with His glory

But the "times of the Gentiles" have

been running their course and are to be
followed by "times of refreshing" for
Israel: these will come only when the
Lord returns from heaven.
The kingdom of Israel will then be
restored, Jerusalem will become the
"throne of the Lord", and from this God-
appointed capital will go forth laws
which will be operative throughout the
whole world. During this millennium—
for this is what God has planned—all
peoples (Jews and Gentiles) will taste
the fruits of the promise to Abraham
that in him and his seed all families are
to be blessed.

In God's wisdom, a wonderful

opportunity was presented to the
Gentiles when Israel rejected the Word
of God.

God's plan is on a large scale, covering

the whole world. But while it is moving
inexorably to its climax a very
significant development is taking place
within it—some Jews and Gentiles are
being prepared for special
responsibilities.