Scripture Daily

Context No. 2757 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 14:12-18: in context

12He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you make a dinner or a supper, don’t call your friends, nor your brothers, nor your kinsmen, nor rich neighbors, or perhaps they might also return the favor, and pay you back. 13But when you make a feast, ask the poor, the maimed, the lame, or the blind; 14and you will be blessed, because they don’t have the resources to repay you. For you will be repaid in the resurrection of the righteous.” 15When one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is he who will feast in God’s Kingdom!” 16But he said to him, “A certain man made a great supper, and he invited many people. 17He sent out his servant at supper time to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, for everything is ready now.’ 18They all as one began to make excuses. “The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please have me excused.’

At a dinner Jesus turns to his host and says something that upends the usual rules. When you give a feast, do not invite your friends or your rich neighbors, who will just invite you back and repay you. Invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, who cannot repay you, and you will be blessed, because your repayment comes at the resurrection of the righteous.

When a guest, pleased with the sound of it, says, blessed is the one who eats bread in the kingdom of God, Jesus answers with the parable of the great banquet whose invited guests all, as one, begin to make excuses: a field to see, oxen to test, a wife to attend. Jesus is dismantling the whole economy of favor-for-favor. Real generosity gives where nothing can come back. And the parable warns that those most confident of their seat at God's table are the very ones who beg off with trivial reasons when the call finally comes.

Do I do good mainly for people who can do good back to me, or give where there is nothing at all to gain?

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