You Were There (10/21/09)
One can feel the embarrassment that must have been rising in the cheeks of this man as Jesus spoke what was clearly the way he had gone about choosing his invitees. To be sure, other than that man who had wandered in, been healed, and gone his way again, one wasn’t likely to find anybody else here of the sort that Jesus recommended inviting. No. Only the best here, with the possible exception of Jesus, Himself. But, He was obtaining honors as a teacher, so allowances could be made for Him.
But, yes, one wanted to invite the right sort of folks, and one could always hope for a reciprocal invite at some other time. Such an invite would be, as it were, a confirmation that this party had been a success. So, certainly, he had put such considerations into selecting his guests. Oh, one wasn’t so crass as to be blatant and open about such things, but it was there, and one might suppose everybody knew it. For, everybody played the same games themselves. It’s just how things are done.
Indeed, including Jesus may well have struck this man as a good deed, if it were not a nefarious one. What a favor to give this one access to the likes of his associates! But, the advice his guest has just given him… it’s a thinly veiled insult, isn’t it? You had best hope the dinners you’re invited to are really good, because they’re all the reward you’ll have? Wow.
Once again, Jesus brings on the moral crisis. How will His host react? Will he take offense at the suggestion that he’s not as good as he likes to think he is? Or, will he hear unto repentance and a change of his ways?
New Thoughts (10/22/09-10/24/09)
Pride, prestige, recognition: There is something in the nature of man that craves these things. Yet, God is opposed. He is not opposed to us taking pride in our accomplishments to the degree that they are worthy. He is opposed to that pride which doesn’t know when to stop. There is that about pride that is ever seeking more than is deserved. Those who hunger after prestige, who insist on being recognized for their name, their accomplishments or their titles; they are suffering from a disease of pride.
The psychologist may explain to us that they are simply not comfortable with themselves. They are insecure. The ego needs its strokes. But, these are at best excuses, and poor excuses at that. It’s rather as if one were pulled over for speeding and offered up the fact that he were late for an appointment as if it were relevant. The officer will perhaps sympathize. But, the ticket’s still coming your way. It’s no excuse. Your inability to start out early enough to keep your appointment does not invalidate the law.
What Jesus just finished addressing in the guests at this dinner was just this sort of prestige-seeking pride. Look at me! Don’t you know who I am? I’m better than you. You can tell by the seat I have taken. Pride and honor may not have been everything in this culture, but they were almost everything. But, it’s not an issue that the host has escaped, and Jesus will not leave him room to suppose he has. You have the disease too, sir! Look who you’ve invited. You’ve invited the names. You’ve invited those you hope will be inviting you to dinners of their own. And, when they do, you’ll be right there with the other guests fighting for the prime seat, just as they are doing now. You’re all birds of a feather. You’re all pride, and little to no righteousness.
When you stop calculating as you choose your guests, when you become less class-conscious, when social distinctions come to have no value in your sight; then you will have begun to approach real righteousness. When you start choosing your guests for the simple joy of blessing them, rather than for the prestige that may accrue to you for having them at your table, then maybe you’ll have a little something to boast of, but not before God. When you have subdued your pride, then we can talk. But, God opposes the proud.
So, how are we to take the lesson Jesus imparts here? Is He literally telling us that we should never again invite anybody we actually know well to house? I would suggest that He means this about as literally as He meant to cut off your hand and put out your eye. That is to say, the point is not in literal interpretation, but in understanding the point behind the words. The point is not to distance yourself from friends and family. The point is to stop the mental calculus.
You know, I watch this in my teenager. Friends are numerous. Well, let’s be honest, here. Acquaintances are numerous. Friends are few. But, there’s this whole gymnastic approach to managing which friends are allowed to associate with which. Who’s mad at who today, and in which camp is she going to place herself? Hmm. These friends are from one crowd, so they should know me in my Facebook persona. Those friends, though, will think me too saccharine if they see that persona, so I’ll send them over to my edgy MySpace persona instead. These two groups must never know that I associate with the other! It must be exhausting to manage the whole thing! But, there it is. And now, as new folks come into her sphere, well: which bin to put them in? What to do? Which me do I put on display? And what am I to do should I ever find myself in a group where both crowds are present?
We adults can slip into thinking this is a game we left behind with our youth. But, as demonstrated in this dinner party, that simply isn’t true. We play the same sorts of games, just on a different level. Ask yourself whether you treat people the same way when they are present as you do when they are not. Ideally, of course, the answer should be that you do indeed speak respectfully of them regardless of their presence. But, the reality may be far different.
Another test for the believer can be found in our behavior when we go to social functions in the church. When there is a dinner or some such at the church, how are we selecting which table we sit at? Is it all about making sure the others at the table are all to be counted important in the church? Is it a question of whether they are all amongst my closer acquaintances? Or do I go out of my way to find the table with more folks I am unfamiliar with? Honestly, I think in such cases, the ideal may be that we go to whatever table happens to be handy, with no particular thought for who may be there before us or who may come sit there after us. If we could achieve that, then there ought be no issue with seating. Ah! Could life but be so simple!
This gets to the core of what I see as the message He is delivering. As much as we ought to avoid the futility of performing our deeds solely for the temporal benefits we might derive from them, I think we must likewise avoid doing them solely in hopes of some eternal reward. It is one thing to know that there is an eternal reward awaiting. It’s quite another to make that your motivation. That is not the right motivation. It is really no different than the motivation of more immediate reward. It’s giving to receive, and those that give only to receive are not being generous at all. They are being self-interested.
In all these things, while it is certainly important to do the right thing, it’s far more important to do them for the right reason. The right thing done for the wrong motive is the wrong thing. It might serve as training for us, but it is not yet right. To go back to the old Boy Scout example, if I’m helping little old ladies across the street, but only in order to extract some payment from them on the other side, I have done no good deed, have I? If I am giving to the collection plate, but solely because I’m looking for that hundred-fold return God writes about, how is that an act of righteousness? That’s just investment.
So, with these issues of association, it’s not about consciously avoiding friend and family in favor of strangers. It’s not about some false martyrdom of forcing oneself to do without the comforts of friendship. It’s about becoming less focused on reasons to invite this one, or reasons not to invite that one. It’s about finding a certain equality of value in people, because they are all created in the image of God. It’s about doing for the sake of doing, not for the sake of being done in return. It’s about giving with no thought for reward at all, just for the pleasure of being able to give.
Now, let me just say those I observe loudly refusing any least bit of reward or recognition for fear that these things will ‘rob them of the blessing’: You’ve got a problem! This whole mindset just gives evidence to a failed motive. You are doing in order to receive, and this loud protestation against receiving the immediate is only because you are greedy. You can disguise it in holy words, but this is the reality of it. You are greedy for that eternal reward, and as such, your motives are polluting your efforts. Knock it off! Nowhere do I see God suggesting that we ought to be ungracious because our focus is on Him. In fact, even looking at some of those verses that come up as parallels to this passage, I see quite the opposite.
Look, for example, at the instructions given in Nehemiah 8:10-12. Go party! Eat your fill, drink to your heart’s content! Be happy! And, as you do these things, make sure to share what you have with those who don’t have. Make sure everybody is able to share in the celebration. If your brother doesn’t have a lamb to cook, send food. If he has no wine, send wine! There is to be no sorrow today, only joy.
It’s not about associating with the right sorts. It’s about doing things for the right reason. It’s about doing them because it comes naturally to you to do it. That’s what God’s looking for with all of this stuff, isn’t it? Get to the point where doing right comes naturally. That’s what training is for, after all, to get the desired action to come naturally.
When one trains for a sport, it is in order that the body will learn to do what is necessary without requiring mental direction. When a musician practices an instrument, it is so that the hands, the mouth, the feet, whatever organs may be involved, will do what’s necessary to produce the sound that thought has imagined, without the thoughts having to get tangled up in technical details. When one learns to type, it is in order that the fingers can find the letters without the thoughts having to focus on where they are. The thoughts can stay on the message to be relayed, and let the fingers do the typing.
Of course, in all these things, however great our practice and training, there remain errors. There remains a need for a certain amount of attention to what those various limbs and organs are up to. But, the effort is greatly reduced as the skill increases. So it is with our righteousness. It requires practice. It requires a great deal of mental focus at the outset, because the ways of righteousness do not come naturally to us. But, the more we practice at it, the more natural it becomes. The goal is always to reach that point where it comes so naturally as to require no effort of thought. To do right is all but automatic in us. But, that is the ideal, not the present reality. The present reality is that we must maintain a certain vigilance over ourselves, knowing that however much we have practiced, the opportunity for error remains.
I want to focus, now, on the message at the end of verse 12, which is echoed in the reverse in verse 14. The NLT captures the essence of verse 12’s point, which Jesus actually leaves unsaid. “They will invite you back, and that will be your only reward.” How that has been twisted around to the point of fearing to accept any reward that may come I don’t know. It smacks, however, of the very same sin of pride arising in yet another disguise. By rejecting the proffered reward, the intended recipient is able to display just how righteous he or she is. See? I can’t accept that! It would cost me my heavenly blessing.
Let me say it again: It’s not about whether you received reward here or not. It’s about why you did what you did in the first place. If you did it in hopes of the earthly reward, then yes, that will be the sum total of your reward. If you did it solely for even the heavenly reward, I suspect the same might well be said. If, though, you did it with no thought for reward whatsoever, then what sin is there in accepting such reward as may come with good grace? Is that not the path of humility? You weren’t seeking it, yet it came to you. Is that not a foretaste of the reward God has in store for you? What cause do you have to make such a scene about rejecting it?
Of course, in verse 14, this heavenly reward is held out. As you do for those who cannot possibly repay you, you are storing up a heavenly reward. This is true, but it is not being stored up for those who are doing their deeds as if they were deposits in some high-return investment portfolio. No! It is true because you were doing the right thing for no greater reason than that it was the right thing to do.
The CJB plays out that thought of verse 14 like this: “How blessed you will be that they have nothing with which to repay you!” This is said as an antidote to the reward seeker. The reward seeker, such as this host, will feel cheated if the guests do not return his favor. He has given one dinner, and we might say that he has given it in hope of a good dozen invitations coming his way in return. How poorly used he shall feel if those invitations are not forthcoming! But, Jesus turns that perspective all around, and says no! The blessing, the rejoicing, should come when you see that they cannot possibly return your favor. For, then you are at least beginning to do something truly good and worthy (if there could be worth in our fleshly efforts!)
I cannot stress this point enough: The deed done in hope of reward is of no value. It matters little whether that hoped for reward is of an earthly or heavenly sort. If that is the motivation, the deed is of no value in heaven’s economy. When our deeds are done because we are moved by compassion, by that same sort of love that moved God to rescue us and invite us to His table, then we are truly storing up treasures in heaven. No, we have still done nothing of merit, certainly not in any sense that might apply to our acceptance in that place. But, as we do the things that God would do for the reasons that He would do them, of course He is well pleased in us.
I am put in mind of the advice so often heard by young men desperate for a romantic interest in their lives: Stop trying. That’s a lot different than advising one to give up. Not at all! It’s just that when we are so caught up in trying to attract attention, we become that much less desirable. Truly, even were we to attract somebody by those means, the effort of maintaining the image we have been projecting will spoil any possible enjoyment of the ensuing relationship. No! Be yourself. Do the things you do. Just be. That might require more patience, but it’s the only way that actually achieves results.
In it’s way, this same advice adheres to the Christian trying to please God. Just be. Stop trying to earn a promotion and just be who He is making you to be. Just be righteous. Don’t be righteous ‘so that’. Don’t be righteous because. Just be righteous. Righteousness is its own reason. Be like God to the extent you can be. Do the things you see Him doing. Take Him as your role model. Don’t worry about outcomes. Don’t measure it like some profit and loss statement. Don’t try! That’s that advice to the romantic. Don’t try so hard. Just be.
It’s when we stop trying that we start being. This is as difficult a point to make with sound theological balance as is the doctrine of justification by faith alone, which has been coming up in Table Talk this month. That reality of justification being solely by faith in Christ does not prevent our doing good works. It does not allow of a cessation of such doing. It has, however, completely altered the motivation for doing so. It’s love. Love of God moves us to do what He likes to see done. It’s God! He who is at work in us (Php 2:13), reshaping us into the image originally intended.
If, then, He is doing the work in us, that work has not ceased has it? The righteous deeds have not stopped. But, the motivation and the driving force behind them is no longer this sinful flesh and its deceitful desires. It is God Himself, the Righteous One at work in me, doing those good things through me, allowing me to enjoy the feel of those works upon my hands and in my thoughts. Reward doesn’t enter into the equation. There is only the joy of working side by side with Dad. Every child knows that joy to be more than enough in itself!
Let us, then, rejoice in knowing this is our present day story: We are blessed to work side by side with Father God, and He is watching over us to ensure that our experience of that work is an experience of success. You will be blessed, since they for whom you work have no means to repay you. You will be blessed, as well, if they do have such means. But, as we work more fully in concern with God, it does seem that our satisfaction is greater when the need we have been allowed to fill is greater. And, doesn’t this give us a view to the motivation of God Himself!
Holy Father! Indeed, it is such a powerful thing to know this is Your motivation. How great to know that the God Whom I serve is best pleased when His efforts have been given to those who cannot hope to repay. Indeed, Lord, it is the common lot of man to find himself having received those efforts from You. For, who could hope to repay You for what You have done? What price, what reward is sufficient for this gift of Life? Who could think to repay You for that which You have given us in the sacrifice of Your own Son? And yet, it pleased You to do so, knowing we could never bring You anything like a reasonable return on what You have invested in us. Indeed, my God, Who is like unto Thee? There is not one who can hold a candle to Your glory and Your goodness!
