The lectionary gospel reading for Trinity 11 in Year C, Luke 14.1, 7–14, continues to engage with material that is unique to Luke, arranged in Luke’s distinctive order, and bridging the worlds of the original context of Jesus and Judaism and Luke’s context in wider Roman culture.
(You can watch the video discussion of this passage with Ian and James here, also linked at the end. And if you enjoy this article or the video, why not buy us a coffee?) 
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The passage comes in a sequence of episodes that don’t look to the modern reader to be very closely linked, but appear to have verbal or thematic connections with one another like adjacent stepping stones crossing a stream—and perhaps, in so doing, offer something of a ‘manual of discipleship’. In last week’s reading, we learned that the apparently insignificant healing of a woman was in fact the work of the kingdom which would leaven the whole batch of dough. The smallness of the work of the kingdom then links to the smallness of response to the kingdom in terms of the surprisingly few who will be saved (Luke 13.23–25). This then links to the surprising people who enter the kingdom, not being the ones who are expected, and in turn connects to the rejection of Jesus by Herod (perhaps less surprising, Luke 13.31) and the city of Jerusalem (more surprising, Luke 13.34), these two representing the northern and southern bases of power and influence. We then arrive at our lectionary reading, set on some unspecified Sabbath in some unspecified Pharisee’s house.
That Jesus is welcomed into the house of a ‘prominent Pharisee’ (literally, ‘a ruler of/amongst the Pharisees’) demonstrates that, at least for some of his ministry, Jesus had a close relationship with the Pharisee movement, even though most of the material in the gospels sees him criticising them. Pharisees did become his followers (John 3.1, 12.42), they had just warned him about Herod in a supportive way, and he commended their teaching (Matt 23.2).
There is some irony in Luke’s comment that the others in the house (‘they’) were taking careful note of Jesus and his actions—since it turns out in verse 7 that Jesus has himself been taking careful note of their actions. As the narrative unfolds, the watchers become the watched!
The lectionary omits the healing story that comes next, which is a shame (and something of a puzzle), since it provides an important part of the context of the teaching that follows. The healing narrative follows quite closely, though in abbreviated form, the healing of the woman bent double in the previous chapter. Within Jesus’ Jewish context, the main question presented here is the disputed question of healing on the Sabbath; as before, Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater, and, as before, mentions an ox as one (along with family members) to whom Sabbath practice also applies, but whom any normal person wouldn’t fail to assist.
But, in Luke’s Graeco-Roman context, the story has further significance. The man’s condition is translated ‘dropsy’ in older translations, but we would now call it edema, the swelling of parts of his body because of the accumulation of fluids. The Greek term Luke uses, ὑδρωπικὸς, suggests the accumulation of fluid. Once more, in Greek thought, the bodily symptoms indicated a sickness of the inner person—in this case, it was thought to indicate insatiable greed.
In the case of dropsy the thirst of the sufferer never ceases and is never allayed by the administration of liquids from without, unless we cure the morbid condition of the body itself, so it is impossible to satiate the greed for gain, unless we correct by reasoning the vice inherent in the soul. (Polybius, Hist, 13.2.2, cited by Mikeal Parsons, Paideia commentary, p 226).
In the healing, then, Jesus is not only established as the authoritative teacher (as before), but also as the one who can cure the condition of the greed and desire for gain and status.
This brings us to his teaching in the lectionary reading; here is the moment when the watched becomes the watcher, and the watchers the watched, and the tables are turned (pun intended!). Although Luke uses the term ‘parable’ here, he has used it fairly flexibly elsewhere (Luke 4.23, 5.36). The two lessons that follow are very closely related, though some ETs don’t show the parallels very clearly, told from the two perspectives of being invited to a feast and doing the inviting oneself. (It is worth noting here that Jesus is, in offering these two ‘parables’, addressing those without power as well as those with power.)
| Verses 7–11 | Verses 12–14 |
| Jesus addresses his fellow guests | Jesus addresses his host |
| When you are invited to a meal… | When you host a meal with guests… |
| Do not…lest… | Do not…lest… |
| But when you are invited to a meal… | But when you are a host at a meal… |
| Then you will…because… | Then you will…because… |
(Table from Joel Green NICNT commentary p 549.) Within these two scenarios, Jesus is addressing and undermining two key aspects of the first century world, the first of which would have been important in both his context and the context of Luke’s readers, and the second of which would have been particularly significant in Luke’s world.
The first is the question of honour and social status. Social status and social stratification were vital aspects of life in the ancient world; where you sat in the pecking order determined every aspect of your life—your work, your income, who you could associate with, and with whom you could intermarry—and the places around a meal, nearer or further from your host, were a tangible expression of this status. And the culture was one of struggle and competition; status was something for you to compete for and grasp, and if you climbed up the social order it was by your own efforts. Jesus’ teaching here not only undercuts the importance of status; it also sees status and standing as something that is given, not something that is gained—a gift from another (specifically God), not something accrued by one’s own effort. The importance of God as the one determining honour and status is expressed in the ‘divine passive’ in the summarising statement in Luke 14.11.
This connects, then, with the other aspect of life in the ancient world, and particularly in Roman culture. Gift-giving was a vital part of the mechanism of social exchange; if I give you a gift, then you are in my debt, either to give me a gift in return, or to offer me some favour or other. Jesus’ teaching here, expressed in the language of God’s grace in Paul’s writings, was radically counter-cultural. This is how John Barclay describes it in his exploration of the subversive power of grace:
It was very common in Paul’s world to speak of the worth of the recipient. Gifts should be given lavishly but discriminately, to fitting or worthy recipients. ‘Worth’ could be defined in different ways, according to a number of criteria—ethnicity, social status, age, gender, moral virtue, beauty or success. Just as, today, prizes might be awarded on different grounds (for musical, literary, sporting or academic achievement) but keep their value only if they are given discriminately, to people worthy of them, so the good gift in antiquity was normally given according to some criterion of worth. And this was true also of the gifts of God (or the gods). God would hardly waste gifts on the unfitting, or confuse the moral or social order by giving to unworthy recipients. It was obvious to ancient philosophers that God’s best gifts would be given to those who are free (not slaves), to the educated, the male, the virtuous and the grateful. If you receive a divine gift, it is ‘because you are worth it.’
For this reason, the most subversive gift is the gift given without regard to worth (what I described above as the fourth possible radicalization of grace, ‘incongruity’). If you expect God to give the best gifts to the freeborn adult and educated male, but if you find that, in fact, these gifts are given both to the free and to slaves, both to adults and to children, both to the educated and to the uneducated, both to males and to females, your whole notion of worth, and thus your social values, is thrown into disarray.
There are two further things to note in relation to this disruption of personal and social values, related to where they come from and where they are going.
First, Jesus’ teaching here is rooted in the Old Testament—in fact, his advice sounds almost word for word like material from Proverbs.
Do not exalt yourself in the king’s presence, and do not claim a place among his great men; it is better for him to say to you, ‘Come up here,’ than for him to humiliate you before his nobles. (Proverbs 25:6-7)
In fact there are numerous sayings, in the Old Testament and cited in the New, which follow a similar theme.
“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5, and Proverbs 3:34)
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)
“You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.” (Psalm 18:27)
“No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt themselves. It is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.” (Psalm 75:6-7)
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2)
“Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor.” (Proverbs 29:23)
At one level, Jesus is teaching nothing new here, but is restoring his people to the heritage that God has always been calling them to.
And yet there is another important pointer to the nature of these values. Luke here records the language of ‘wedding feast’ on the lips of Jesus, but once again he uses terms describing meals interchangeably, so we might think of this as applying to any meal. But having mentioned a wedding feast, Luke follows this with Jesus’ teaching about the wedding feast in the kingdom of God. In other words, the disruption to social order and social values is a bringing into the present of the future reality of the coming kingdom. Richard Hays comments:
In the Lukan narrative context … this teaching becomes more than a pragmatic hint about court etiquette; it is implicitly a directive about how the coming kingdom should impinge already on the present, producing a reversal of values and status. In the eschatological kingdom of God, the last will be first and the first last (Luke 13:30); therefore, those who are Jesus’ followers should begin already to assume roles of lowliness (cf. Luke 22:24-27).
And Alistair Roberts reflects on this:
It is no accident that meals and shocking departures from the prevailing manners at them are such a central aspect of Jesus’ prophetic practice and teaching in the book of Luke. Jesus’ meals were a symbolic means by which he was reforming Israel around himself. Those who rejected Jesus would find themselves outside of the eschatological feast, while the poor and the outcasts celebrated within. They were also a means of inculcating a radical new habitus in his followers, training them in new manners, values, and community, conforming them to the order of the kingdom of God.
A communal meal remains a central feature of the Church’s ongoing worship in the Eucharist. Politics and the manners and social relations that correspond to them are first learnt at the table. It is at the Eucharist that we begin to learn the manners and politics of the kingdom, where we are trained to act as cultivated members of the court of its King. It is at the Eucharist that we can learn to put others before ourselves, to extend God’s goodness to those without the power to repay, to live as a thankful people, and to release people from their debts to us. As these new manners and politics become second nature to us, they should extend out to and be confirmed in all areas of our lives and practice.
Together, then, this section of teaching offers us three challenges—or perhaps opportunities. As we reflect on issues of social status, treatment of others, and inclusion and exclusion in our own cultures, we note that:
- the coming of the kingdom of God challenges all such values, since status is a gift conferred by God as ultimate giver and arbiter of status;
- this inversion of human social order is something that God has always been doing—there is no possible contrast between law and grace, since Jesus and his bringing in of the kingdom makes real what God has always been calling his people to;
- these patterns of social status are driven by our insatiable desire for security and status, and Jesus alone is the one who can heal our wayward desires and enable us to live in these new patterns of community.
Join Ian and James as they discuss this passage:
An interesting interpretation of the events in Question.
Not to sure of your first quotation Mikeal Parsons, Paideia
How does he make the jump to see the events in terms of greed?
Of which you say In the healing, then, Jesus is not only established as the authoritative teacher (as before), but also as the one who can cure the condition of the greed and desire for gain and status.
It is not clear how Jesus does that seeing that this is a maxim from ancient times.
Alistair Roberts reflections on the Eucharist would, I feel, not be on many minds of communicants.
Jesus had requested to observe Passover
Passover was commanded by God to always be in remembrance as commemoration and thanksgiving Jesus merely repurposed it
The week before Passover required communicants to “spring clean”their houses to eliminate any Leven [it is quite illuminating as to where and in what leven is present] Leven which puffs-up.
It was a thanksgiving for deliverance from the bondage of servitude
A deliverance from their enemies and their own powerlessness.
The Passover meal included
The annual observance of Passover, which occurs in the early spring, is both a remembrance of the ancient Jewish experience of slavery and suffering, as well as a celebration of their liberation and hope for a better future. [God is seen as a Messiah]
The Meaning of Passover and the Seder Plate
If you’ve found yourself asking: What is the meaning of the observance of Passover? What’s the significance of a seder plate? What food is served at Passover?
The Story of Passover
Passover, known as Pesach in Hebrew, literally “passing over,” commemorates the liberation of the Jewish people from their enslavement in ancient Egypt and their subsequent journey into the wilderness, as documented in the Book of Exodus in the Bible. According to Exodus, to persuade the Egyptian Pharaoh to release his people from bondage, the Jewish God visited upon Egypt ten plagues. The tenth, and most sinister, of these involved the death of every firstborn male. The Angel of Death, however, “passed over” Jewish households, identified by a mark of sacrificial lamb’s blood on their doorposts. Upon the Pharaoh’s decision to free his captives, the fleeing Jews ate a celebratory meal of the roasted sacrificial lamb, unleavened bread (they didn’t have time to wait for the dough to rise) and bitter herbs, before they returned to their homeland. The annual observance of Passover, which occurs in the early spring, is both a remembrance of the ancient Jewish experience of slavery and suffering, as well as a celebration of their liberation and hope for a better future.
Passover is observed by participating in ceremonial meals, called seders, that are rich in symbolism and ritual. Ancient Jews took young lambs to be sacrificed from the Temple in Jerusalem in an annual pilgrimage to celebrate their emancipation from slavery. Their seders would have been similar to the meals eaten on the night preceding the flight from Egypt; roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70CE, Jews were banished from Jerusalem, forbidden from practicing their religion, and compelled to flee to North Africa, Europe and the Middle East in what is known as the Jewish Diaspora. Seders from then on took the form of family rituals held in private households. Over time the foods and customs of the various lands that Jews migrated to were incorporated into the dishes served during the meal. A constant throughout the Jewish world is the prohibition of leavening or ferment, called hametz, from one’s home during the holiday, a practice rooted in the inability of their ancestors fleeing Egypt to wait for their bread to rise before escaping slavery.
The Passover table, analogous to an altar at the Temple, is of great significance, and is set with the finest quality cloths, china, glassware, silver and candles a family can offer. Participants in the seder take turns reading of the Haggadah (literally “the telling of the story of Exodus”), which gives an account of God’s miraculous delivery of his people from slavery, and the birth of the ancient Jewish nation. Four cups of wine, each one symbolic of the promises God made during their liberation from Egypt (“I will bring you out…,” “I will deliver you…,” “I will redeem you…,” and “I will take you to me…,”) are consumed throughout the ceremony, signifying that the seder night is protected from evil. A fifth glass is poured for the prophet Elijah and is symbolic of the fifth divine promise, “I will bring you to the promised land,” signifying continued safety within their community. The Passover table is graced with the ceremonial seder plate, which includes the six symbolic foods of Jewish liberation:
The seder plate was no doubt the dish which Jesus and Judas dipped their bread into [the bitter herbs] Perhaps Judas did not see Jesus as a messiah in terms of the then current perception that Messiah would be a conquering Davidic figure or see the significance of Passover.
The Seder Plate
Zeroa
The “forearm” is symbolic of both the outstretched arm of God delivering the Jews from Egypt, as well as of the sacrificial lamb’s blood smeared on Jewish households to identify their inhabitants so that the Angel of Death would pass them by. In most households the zeroa comes in the form of a lamb shank
Bitter herbs, often horseradish, romaine hearts or chicory, conjures memories of the bitterness of slavery. Bitter herbs were also part of the original Passover meal, eaten the night before the Jews were set free. Traditionally, ancient Jewry would have collected herbs that only grew in the early springtime, thus continuing the dichotomous theme of remembering a tragic past, coupled with renewal and a hopeful future.
Matzah
This represents the bread the Jews ate during their last night of bondage in Egypt. In their haste to flee they didn’t have time to wait for their dough to rise before baking so the bread they ate was flat and hard, called matzah. Eating matzah, “the bread of affliction,” reminds Jews of their past enslavement, the urgency of their liberation, and the importance of being humble in light of their redemption from suffering. .zingermansdeli.com/2023/03/the-meaning-of-passover-and-the-seder-plate/
After Judas left the company [being an unbeliever]
Jesus gave thanks [? Part of the Passover ceremony]
After giving thanks Jesus broke the bread
He repurposed the Passover remembrance to “Remember Me”
This bread is my body……He announced His Messiahship
The meal was now symbolic of his Salvation
The application of the blood, the bitter herbs of remembered enslavement to sin, the Lamb to be feasted on for nourishment and sustenance and strength.
At the heart of the word Eucharist is the word CHARIS meaning grace and beauty it is a time for great thanksgiving as we behold the Beauty of the Lord
All grace, all of grace we feed on Christ when we give thanks for everything that we have in Christ and all that He is to us and for us.
THOMAS A KEMPIS in his Imitation of Christ has a wonderful meditation on the Eucharist
Of the Fervent Desire of Certain Devout Persons to Receive the Body and Blood of Christ. @ Biblehub
Luke 14
As a retired GP I was interested to explore the healing of the man with dropsy or oedema (in British English) and the reference to the Greek cultural ideas that Luke might have been familiar with.
Thanks to AI…..
“Polybius, Hist, 13.2.2
In Polybius, Histories, 13.2.2, the historian compares the insatiable greed of the Aetolian people to the symptoms of a person suffering from dropsy.
Dropsy is a condition where water accumulates in the body, causing swelling, and a characteristic feature is an unquenchable thirst. The patient craves and drinks more and more water, but it only aggravates their condition and increases the swelling.
Polybius applies this dropsy analogy to the Aetolians to illustrate how their constant plundering and annexation of territories only intensified their desire for more, without ever truly satisfying them. This moralizing view of events was typical of Polybius’s writing, as he often sought to provide political and moral lessons through his historical accounts.”
Of course Greek doctors in 150BC would have had no idea that the symptom of oedema might have multiple pathological causes but is true to say that persistent and unquenchable thirst (“greed”?) can go along with oedema in those with premorbid heart and renal disease, (both likely caused in the ancient world by streptococcal infections earlier in life).
If the consensus amongst biblical scholars is that the Travel Narrative is not fixed in time or place but rather Luke’s own understanding and presentation of Jesus and his teaching, it seems unwarranted to create further analogies about starvation etc amongst believers.
My sense is that Jesus himself would not have made the connection between His healing of the man with oedema and an unquenchable thirst for status. It was Luke who did this from his own cultural background and for the purpose of his narrative.
It is also interesting to note that many of the healing miracles that Luke recounts are of men and women who have longstanding debilitating illness, some of whom were near the end of their “natural” lives.
I wonder if Putin and Trump have dropsy?
Welcome Dr.Chris.
We nead more doctors in the Church especially those
gifted in curing souls.
Many of us are gifted in identifying sickness in others, looking for signs and symptoms of [spiritual] maladies. The difficulty comes
in seeking to effect a cure and the patients complience therewith.