Luke 14-15

Luke 14-15

At the beginning of chapter 14, we find Jesus eating with the Pharisees; which happened to be some of the most arrogant, self-righteous people of the day.  So, what do you think Jesus decided to talk about with them?  Humility. 

Today it is so easy to become self-absorbed.  We can spend hours a day on websites that promote our image.  People constantly post pictures of themselves or their family to show how great or cool they are.  We’ll write funny status updates and then check back every hour to see how many “likes” it got.  We need to make sure that we have the coolest new “toys” or the best new clothes to impress our friends with.  Or perhaps, instead we constantly talk about how spiritual we are: “I prayed the other day for 12 hours straight – naked in the snow – while kneeling on a bed of nails”.  Okay well I am sure that last part was a little extreme, but you get the idea. 

We puff ourselves up so much to make US look good, and we lose sight that we are here to make JESUS look good.

In chapter 15, Jesus begins to talk about the one person that is lost.  He tells the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

Of course the Prodigal Son is arguably the most famous of Jesus’ parables, and there are so many nuggets of truth that can be pulled from this story, but I think that within the context of chapter 14, chapter 15 seems to make more sense. 

All of the stories, in one way or another, highlight humility. The lowly shepherd goes out in search of his lost sheep.  The woman who loses her coin and turns over everything just to find it.  The son who was so arrogant and self-absorbed that he leaves home only to lose everything he had.  He had to be humbled so much, to the point of wanting to eat the pigs’ food, before he would return home.  These are stories that the Pharisees would not understand because they had so much that losing one of these things, or not having enough to eat did not matter to them.  But to the ordinary person that was there listening to Jesus... they understood. 

Jesus cares about the low-in-status people, the poor people, the dejected people, the lost, the hated, and the humbled so much, that Jesus was willing to humble himself to come and find them (Philippians 2).  And once they were found, a party was thrown.