Where once we were mere coals black, cold, and lifeless; we've been lit afire with white hot glow - illumined and set aflame. A danger of our living in our newfound privilege and power is that we live to wear our change so conspicuously that we lose our sense of conscience, that should teach us to walk with quietly held wit and worth, which has as its beginning and end, who we've been made in Christ. The truth is apart from his creative work and change in us we are really nothing but mud, dust stuck together, not life-filled souls that will never know extinction.
In this Luke 14 passage, Christ encountered Pharisees lost in their classy living: religious pundits committed to living rigorously, rule-bound and illustriously and true to their place as the town's toast. They were the standard of how to live. All aspired to live in their footsteps, but thought it near impossible to live up to their tier of purity, privilege, and advantage. Well Christ was hardly impressed and saw the holes in their religion. His concern was that their religion be one, which did more to change them inside-out and to bless less privileged others habitually. Unfortunately, their religion was not only showcased before others, it was worn overtly with the best of intentions. Christ, knowing these Pharisees were misdirected, taught against the religious norm telling them graciously yet powerful powerfully that their pontificating, grandstanding religion was embarrassing and untrue to the way of his Father whom he represented.
Luke 14:1-14 NIV
One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say. When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “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. 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. 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. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 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. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Our relationship with God must be viewed through the mirror of Christ's seamless, self-deprecating life. It must be constantly reviewed to ensure it is maintained and developed. It must be a source of real change to us. The change we feel through that relationship must be much more than the praise people shower on us, which can corrupt into believing ourselves to be great people. We must live to better those, who can give us nothing in return. Giving to those who can reward us for our giving may make for personal greed and a religion that becomes shameless in its quest for recognition and gain.
James 1:27 NIV
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
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