Jesus heals a man with dropsy and the parable of the wedding feast

Study of Luke 14:1-14 

It happened that when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching Him closely. And there in front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy. And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they kept silent. And He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away. And He said to them, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” And they could make no reply to this. 

And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

— Luke 14:1-14

Jesus was invited to an event at the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees. As He often does, He accepts the invitation and goes not merely to socialize but to evangelize. Jesus' ministry is not only for the poor, weak, and lowly but also for the higher echelons of society. 

Jesus is known to the Pharisees as a Sabbath violator so they were watching Him very closely as they set up in front of him a man suffering with dropsy or what is called edema in modern times. It is a symptom of an underlying kidney, liver, or heart disease where fluids are accumulated in the body's tissues that causes swelling. A man with this kind of disease is not usually invited to civic gatherings but they did so they could trap Jesus. They positioned the man with dropsy in front of Jesus so He would surely see him. If Jesus did not heal the man, He is not compassionate, if He healed him, He violates the Sabbath.

Jesus then asked a question they could not answer, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”. The Sabbath law prohibited work but not showing compassion and helping the needy. The Pharisees have distorted the meaning of work to mean whatever they want. But even that is not sufficient to condemn Jesus because He heals instantly and effortlessly unlike physicians who would do many elaborate procedures to heal. 

Since the Pharisees were silent it could be taken as approval and they can't just suddenly charge Jesus of violating the Sabbath while they did not answer His question when they had the chance. Jesus proceeded to heal the man, sent him away and asked another question to the Pharisees that they could not answer because it exposes their hypocrisy that allows for their animals to be helped during Sabbath but not a sick human being.

Jesus noticed that the other guests are making their way to VIP seats so He told a parable.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

People naturally want to feel important. In fact, if you want to be a successful people-person and climb the social ladder you must know this 'secret' and able to use it to your advantage. If you can somehow make people feel important, you can manipulate them to make yourself important as well. If you flatter and praise people publicly, they will flatter and praise you back and those who hear would think you are important. One of the most effective ways to feel important is if you associate yourself with important people.

In the context of Jesus' day, the closer you are seated to the host of the party, the higher is your social ranking and will surely affect people's perception about you. That's why people were racing for the best seats because they want to be important. But Jesus said don't take the honored seats for the host might ask you to move and give it to someone socially higher than you. Today we may not understand it fully but in their culture it is great humiliation to be asked to move to a lower seat.

On the other hand Jesus said that if you choose the last place and the host asked you to move up, you will be honored in the people's sight. People would think of you as humble in taking the last place but was honored to be a VIP. Jesus is not teaching a technique to earn honor here nor endorses false humility. He's not saying that we fake humility in choosing the last place but inwardly expecting to be elevated. God hates false humility the same as open boast. Both are rooted in pride. True humility is not thinking less of oneself, but rather, not thinking about self at all. A truly humble person always think of the welfare, benefit, honor, and good of others and not of self.

Then Jesus turned to the leader of the Pharisees who invited Him and said 

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Jesus does not prohibit hospitality to friends and relatives here but He is exposing the wrong motives of the Pharisee. He invites people who are able to repay him back. He invites those who invited him in the past to pay them back, and he invites others so they would feel obliged to invite him also to their feasts. The only one he invited that probably he is not expecting repayment is the man with dropsy.

The craving for self-importance is always present in people. Methods and practices may vary from time and place but the fundamental attitude is still the same. It's all rooted in pride, we want to be treated with respect, dignity, favor, admiration, priority, and love. If we don't receive it from others we sometimes get depressed and starts demanding it. Others enjoy the cycle of using each other to boost their importance. We pick friends who are reputable, give gifts to those who give us back, invite to our events those who are worth displaying as VIP guests, loves those who love us back, flatter those who flatter us back etc etc etc. (Surely there is legitimate recognition and showing of appreciation to deserving people but that is not the one in view here.)

But Jesus teaches the reverse. We are not to seek self-promotion for "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

We are not to show partiality and be hospitable and generous only to people who can be hospitable and generous to us as well. If we get our reward here we have no more reward in heaven. We choose from whom we want to receive our reward, from men or from God. The motive for giving our money, time, resources, and skills to people regardless of social status, but especially to those who need it, the weak, poor, sick, lowly, should be love for God and people.

If we want to feel important let us always remember Who died for us. The Most High God, The King of Kings. 

For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

— Romans 5:7-8

We must not let our lust for earthly rewards trump our desire for heavenly rewards. The God that we serve is lavish in His love and generosity. Let's not settle for cheap things that this decaying world offers and fix our hope "to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,"— 1 Peter 1:4

Finally, let us learn from our King how to be humble before God and men.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

— Philippians 2:3-11