Blessed Life

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost  Proper 17

Luke 14:7-14 

7 When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: 8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Jesus often spoke to different kinds of people during his public life. There are words that we can readily accept, but there are words that sound unacceptable or unrealistic. Christians dealing with the latter have two reactions. One is the attitude of not taking it seriously. It's usually a good thing to say, but it's. The other is an awkward but trying to keep it by force. This attitude is caused by misunderstanding Jesus' words. Jesus is not a 'an old fossil' as young people put it today. Jesus doesn't bother us on purpose. Jesus gives us freedom and peace. Jesus gives us exactly the 'Blessed Life.' Let's take a look at what the 14:7-14, the main text of today's sermon is like.

A high seat, a low seat

Here are two similar stories. This is what Jesus said when he was invited by someone. One is metaphor, the other is teaching. The first story is about the verse 14:7-11. Many people were invited to the wedding party. There are separate tables for these parties. The invited person wants to sit at the top of the table. Jesus advises you not to sit at the top. Because it's clear that when a higher social figure comes, the owner will come and ask you to vacate your seat. He said it's wise to sit at the end. Because I'm sure the owner will tell me to move to a higher position later on. In verse 11, he said this in conclusion.

 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Although Jesus's words to lower ourselves are not wrong, the difficult thing is that the world in which we live does not move according to this teaching. The world doesn't raise people who lower themselves, but it weighs them down. They completely ignore people with low social status. People all live by looking at the opportunity to go one step further to avoid being ignored. In a world like this, the word of Jesus that self-deprecating men rise sounds hollow. Or it sounds like an emphasis on the virtue of sheer humility.

Very few people are so humble that they lower themselves. People instinctively try to elevate themselves. Only the pride is rooted in our nature. To put it simply, you're being condescending. We put forward the fact that we know a lot whenever we have the opportunity. We're talking about how morally superior we are and how sacrificial we are. C.S. Lewis describes arrogance as the greatest evil in the "Pure Christianity" category. Let's read a passage on page 193. "According to the teachings of Christian teachers, the most fundamental evil, the most ultimate evil, is arrogance. Sexual injustice, anger, greed and drunkenness are just the blood of a new leaf compared to this evil. The devil became the devil because of this pride. Pride leads to all kinds of different evils. It's a state of mind that's totally against God." Pride does not only manifest itself to those with high social status, but also to those with low social status. Not only in the world, but also in the church. Not only in the immoral, but also in the very moral. We can't lower ourselves socially and personally. Nevertheless, it is difficult to follow Jesus' advice to lower yourself. So we just try to pass by and force ourselves to appear humble.

If you really want to lower yourself, you need to be able to see how high you're sitting right now. A really good person doesn't have to be condescending. People who know so much don't have to pretend to know so much. The physics professor, invited as a special lecturer for middle and high school students who are interested in physics, doesn't act up. He doesn't get angry because students don't approve of him. He's just passing on to his students the world of physics that he knows. We Christians are the disciples of Jesus Christ and the children of God. There is no seat higher than this. People who actually know this don't want to be recognized by others. Some of you might think differently. This is what they think. 'The fact that we are the children of God belongs to a world of faith, so this is not realistic in the world.I'm sure they say that because they haven't actually experienced Christianity.

In this parable, the person who went up to the top is not interested in the seat, but is interested in the wedding feast. There's a wedding party now. It's a festival. Everyone is enjoying eating, drinking, and singing. You don't have to think about who's sitting high. Our life is like a wedding feast. We have to eat, drink, dance and sing together. People who know it don't have time to pay attention to high and low. Some people think they can't afford it because they're having a hard. I understand what that is, but I don't agree with it. Let me give you an example of a church. There's a church with 500 people, and there's a church with 50 people. There are differences in numbers, but both churches are the bodies of Christ. It's an apocalyptic community of worship that distinguishes it from the world's. If you focus on that fact, a believer or pastor in a church with 50 members can take church life as a festival. Don't you think your life is the same? A person who accepts life with this kind of thinking does not feel anxious or anxious because he or she cannot move up to the top. I can see this problem more clearly in the second story.

A person who has nothing to repay

Jesus continued to say something embarrassing to the man who invited him. Jesus asked them not to invite relatives or rich people who knew well to dinner. That's because they might invite you back later as a token of gratitude. He said it was very scary to be invited again, to be rewarded. Jesus tells them to invite the poor and the disabled to a feast. It's a blessing to invite them because they don't have the ability to pay back. This is a story out of our common sense. We live in the world, picking and treating people who are capable of paying back. A person who is good at such a thing can rise in the world. No one is literal about this word of Jesus. People can't actually live that way in the world. It doesn't mean you shouldn't invite close friends or church members. Why did Jesus say something that was hard to understand in common sense and difficult for us to practice?

What you should note is, 'Blessed is the fact that the invitees are incapable of paying back.' I think it's natural for everyone to accept it if they give it to them. Nobody says it's bad. People don't feel very good if they don't respond to each other even though they give it to them. It's also cognitive, so no one's going to say anything. If you don't feel uncomfortable when you don't, you already have too much. He who sits at the end of the feast in the preceding story was already a man who knew the joy of the wedding feast. Now he's also the one who participated in such joy. In other words, he has enough to satisfy himself without receiving more. Some of my church friends are gardening. Tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are held every day. He can give it to someone else who needs it. He doesn't feel bad even if he doesn't pay back. Because he is full of vegetables like that. That's right. Anyone who feels full of the fact that we have received life as a gift from God lives in full satisfaction without receiving what is expected from others. More fundamentally, he doesn't expect anything at all. He forgets the fact that he gave to whoever he gave it to.

Our monthly household budget for our church is approximately 7 million won. 1.54 million won per month is fixedly taken out of the church. There's money that goes out of the box. It's a sharing mission fee. Sometimes some people worry that our monthly rent is too tight for our church, but the finances going outside are too big. This is a reasonable concern. You may think of this as an expenditure that is not directly helpful to the church. That makes sense, too. The well-run cost of sharing is something that should be taken care of by the members of the Missionaries of Sharing and the steering committee, but it should be more than happy to know that we don't receive as much as we do. Because we have already received so much that we do not have to be paid back. We've had enough, both personally and at the church level. You already know what it is. The depth of knowing it reveals the level of faith.

Let me tell you one of the key things about what we've already received. It is that we have learned that life is a gift from God. People in the world who can think know this. They live in natural order without being greedy. I value those who live like that. But I can't get rid of the feeling that I'm missing something. They don't know that God gave us Jesus Christ. They live according to the laws of nature, but we go further and believe in Jesus Christ, and we live close to him. For those who live in the natural world, life feels dim, but for those who believe in Jesus Christ, we actually experience life. That's the experience of liberation from sin and death. Even if people live according to nature, they still cannot escape from the forces of sin. With the fact that nature is anicca, your life goes anicca. They are not greedy, but there is no hope for a new life. Through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have learned that our lives are both God's gift and the process of preparing for a new life. It's like a bride waiting for the groom to come. We don't get upset when we're in a low position or when there's no reward for what we've done, because we're about to celebrate our souls.

I'm sure many of you think this explanation is understandable, but it doesn't really come to reality in real It's still unstable, it's upsetting, it's unfair, and it's going to make me feel like, why is the world like this, why is it so bad? Compulsory will not solve this problem. The best thing to do is to step one step further into the center of the Bible and Christian faith. In that manner, today we are talking about the text of the Bible.

A time of resurrection

The text says the guests at the feast have nothing to pay for, and the reason they're blessed is because they're paid on a completely different level. I'll read the 14th verse, so listen. That's amazing.

 ... and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

The moment of rebirth here is the time of the end of our lives being completed. We believe that at the last time Jesus is reenacted. There are people who argue that such stories only work in the mythological era, and that there is no point in this age of cutting-edge science. You make that argument in a very monotonous light of the world. The meaning of Jesus' reenactment is that all the secrets of the world, the secrets of life, are revealed. We don't know much about life and the world right now. No matter how advanced physics and biology are, they can't reveal their secrets. This may sound like a pun, but it's what physicists say. In the book "God, Human, Science," physicist and philosopher Hans Peter Durr explains the ultimate physics world by analogy with the ant colony. In some parts of Africa, there are large column size ant colonies of ants. If you look from a distance, it looks like you're standing still. As you get closer, thousands and tens of thousands of ants are intertwined. Now we look at the world from too far away and everything seems to be in a stable. And if you go very close, if you look at it with an electron microscope, you can see that almost infinite number of particles continue to appear, disappear, disappear, and then reappear. When the secret of the world comes to light, we will receive a reward that we never expected. What do you mean? It means entering the absolute world of life.

If you think today's words mean living by helping the poor and the disabled who cannot afford to pay back while waiting for the end, you know the part. If you know one thing, you may think God is worthy of us, but if you know the two, you are a very happy man, a blessed man. To know both is to know that the end of the resurrection is not only the distant future, but it is now. If he can pull the end of his life out of here now, he's already paid off. This is the preoccupation of the end. Some of you might think it's ambiguous to live with apocalypse. I think it's clear and unambiguous. For example, if you're actually aware that you're going to die tomorrow, you can live a whole different life today.

It's not easy to actually live that way, even if you know it clearly. A life full of resurrection, end-of-life, joy and freedom is not a word. I still have a small argument with my wife about nothing, and I feel uncomfortable when I'm with someone who's stubborn. There are many more people who live a lot more life-sufficiently in real life than I do in every week's plausible preaching. These are people who don't feel uncomfortable at the end, and don't want to be rewarded, just like the people in the text today. They've been paid back by the power of life that's already been completed at the end. Some people feel that they've already received it, others don't.

You've probably got a hold of what's at the heart of today's talk. It's not about being recognized or treated in the world, it's about relationships with God. Human relationships in the world are not that difficult. You can have a good relationship with at least personality and common sense. You can do it yourself. The most important thing is the relationship with God. That's because only there is a blessed life.