Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Terms

Haberim “The Associates”

This is the group that the Pharisees and lawyers belonged to.

They spent their free time after working all day discussing and debating how to understand and keep the Torah (God’s instructions).

They considered the “people of the land” to be unclean and would not have table fellowship with them.

The עַם הָאָרֶץ (ahm ha aretz): The “People of the Land”

These were those who did not spend their free time studying and discussing and debating how to understand and keep the Law.

They did the “bare minimum”, as it were, and only attended the Temple when they were required to, but otherwise did not really concern themselves with keeping God’s Law.

They were considered unclean and unholy and so unworthy of participation in the kingdom of God.

Referred to as “sinners” in the Scriptures by the Pharisees.

An example would be the younger son in .

Our text for this morning is from .

But before we get there, we need to understand some of the background to what is going on here.

To do that we turn to the beginning of this chapter.

Luke writes in verses 1-6,

One Sabbath, Jesus is dining at the house of one of the ruler of the Pharisees, and Luke tells us that they were watching him carefully.

And so also in attendance at this meal are other Pharisees and lawyers.

We remember that the lawyers were considered to be experts in the Law of Moses.

These lawyers would be the same people as the Gospels elsewhere describe as the “scribes.”

(νομικός (lawyers) = γραμματεύς (scribes))

Dr. Ken Bailey is helpful in understanding what is going on here.

He writes,

The setting is authentically Middle Eastern.

A traveling rabbi/preacher passes through a local village.

The religious leaders invite the village guest to a meal during which they investigate his political and theological views.

So that is what is going on here.

Dr. Bailey also argues convincingly that Jesus was among the Pharisees and known to them.

The Pharisees belonged to a group called the “Haberim,” which means, “The Associates” or “The Friends.”

The Pharisees were that group of people who worked their blue-collar job during the day to put food on the table but who spent their free time studying the Torah (Old Testament) and rabbinic tradition and interpretation and discussed and debated amongst themselves how best to understand the Law and keep it.

That Jesus was among them is evidenced by the fact that during his childhood he spent time among the teachers of the Law, asking them questions and discussing the Law with them (), and the fact that when he emerges on the scene as an adult and begins his public ministry he is readily referred to as “Rabbi,” recognizing his training and expertise in the Scriptures.

This is also evidenced by situations like this in , where he eats with the Pharisees.

The Pharisees only had table fellowship with their own.

They did not welcome those they called the עַם הָאָרֶץ (ahm ha aretz), the “people of the land,” whom they considered unclean because they were not scrupulous in their observation of the Law.

And so the fact that they welcomed Jesus to eat with them shows that he was one of them, as it were, and this is also why it made them so angry when Jesus ate with tax collectors and “sinners,” that is, Jesus ate with the עַם הָאָרֶץ (ahm ha aretz), the unclean people of the land.

(Bailey, Finding the Lost, p. 22-28)

And so this ruler of the Pharisees held a dinner party with his fellow Pharisees and lawyers and invited Jesus, the traveling Rabbi, to come as well and they watched him closely so that they could see where Jesus stood both politically and theologically.

This is the setting.

A Question Concerning Sabbath-keeping

Jesus reverses the Pharisees’ understanding of what it means to keep the Sabbath

The Sabbath is about Redemption () and Restoring that which was damaged and lost in the Fall.

It points us ahead to the true Sabbath rest, which we have now in Jesus, and will have in full experience in the new heavens and new earth.

A question concerning the keeping of the Sabbath is what starts off the engagement of Jesus with these scribes and Pharisees.

A man was there who had “dropsy” or edema, as we would call it.

This is a swelling of certain body parts due to the buildup of fluid.

In such condition this man was considered unclean.

And yet Jesus heals him.

He restores him to fellowship in the worshipping community.

This restoration is really what the Sabbath is all about and it points us forward to our true Sabbath rest in Christ in the new heavens and new earth where all of creation is restored and the effects of sin wiped out forever.

Jesus challenges the Pharisees’ understanding of Sabbath-keeping and turns it on its head.

Thus, we see a reversal of the prevailing understanding of the Sabbath by the religious leaders of the Jews in Jesus’ day.

So Jesus puts the question to the Pharisees and the lawyers, the supposed experts in the Law, whether or not it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath.

Sabbath observance was a point of major contention between Jesus and the Pharisees, with their detailed descriptions of what was considered “work” and thus a violation of the Sabbath.

Interestingly, they didn’t answer him.

So Jesus healed the man and sent him away.

Something we should note here is that by healing this man Jesus made one who is unclean clean.

He restored to this man liturgical access to God because he was now able to return to the temple and participate in the worship there.

This is something that the Pharisees and the scribes should have rejoiced over.

It should have brought them great joy that one who was unclean and therefore outcast is now restored to fellowship and the life of faith within the worshipping community of Israel.

They should have rejoiced in the mercy of God in restoring this one who was suffering both physically and emotionally and spiritually because he was not only sick physically, but he was cut off from the worshipping community in not having access to the temple.

But instead they are merciless toward this man and others like him and they refuse to rejoice because this man, and Jesus, too, by healing him, aren’t following their rules for Sabbath-keeping.

They care more about their own ideas and man-made definitions of piety and holiness than they do about this man who was suffering.

And they miss entirely the point of the Sabbath.

The Sabbath was to be a reminder to them of God’s mercy upon them in taking them out of Egypt in the Exodus ().

And so the Sabbath was about redemption and the work of God in redeeming and restoring that which was damaged by sin in the fall–both physically and spiritually.

And Jesus was going about this great redemptive/restorative work every time he forgave sinners and healed the sick and cast out demons.

All of this points us ahead to the true Sabbath rest in Christ, which we enter through faith in Christ and the forgiveness of sins, and which we will fully experience on the Day of Resurrection when we enter into the New Heavens and New Earth.

But the scribes and the Pharisees couldn’t see this because they were so blinded by their own self-righteousness.

Jesus exposes their hypocrisy by stating what they all knew to be true:

Luke 14:5

And they couldn’t answer him because they knew that what he said was true and that it exposed their hypocrisy.

So they kept silent.

The Parable of the Wedding Feast

God humbles those who exalt themselves and exalts those who humble themselves (a reversal of human reasoning)

Jesus then told them a parable about not choosing the place of honor at a dinner party, lest someone more distinguished than them arrive and they be shamed publicly by being forced to move to the lowest place.

Rather they should sit in the lowest place and then they would receive honor by being given a higher place.

()

This was a critique of the pride and arrogance of the Pharisees and scribes who liked to take the seats of honor.

They were so proud of themselves and their supposed righteousness.

But Jesus tells them that those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those that humble themselves will be exalted.

The passive voice of these verbs tells us that God is the one who is doing the humbling and exalting.

(Just, , p. 569)

The Great Reversal

God’s ways are not our ways (see, for example, )

God’s ways are often done in reverse of natural human thinking and reasoning (see, for example, )

This is important for us to note because it will help us understand our text for today.

This parable of Jesus helps to illustrate for us what we could call The Great Reversal (Just, , p. 570 ).

That is, Jesus often reverses human wisdom and understanding.

His definition of righteous and unrighteous is different than our natural understanding.

We think, in our fallenness and sinfulness, that those who are righteous are those who follow the rules scrupulously.

Those who don’t are unrighteous.

This would be legalism or moralism.

Righteousness is gained through keeping laws and rules.

Or we think that those who follow the rules are the unrighteous ones because they are hypocrites and think that they are so much better than everyone else.

The truly righteous are those that break the rules and do what they want.

This is called antinomianism, or “anti law-ism.”

Righteousness comes from breaking the laws and rules and doing what you want.

But both are wrong.

Even though they appear outwardly different, they really are the same.

Both approaches see righteousness in man-made terms.

It’s either this behavior or that behavior.