At Dinner With A Pharisee Jesus Befriends A Sick Man On The Sabbath
On one occasion, as Jesus was going, on a Sabbath, into the house of one of the leading Pharisees to dine, they were watching him closely. There he saw before him a man who was suffering from dropsy.
“Is it allowable,” said Jesus, addressing the Students of the Law and the Pharisees, “to work a cure on the Sabbath, or is it not?”
They remained silent. Jesus took hold of the man and cured him, and sent him away. And he said to them:
“Which of you, finding that his son or his ox has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”
And they could not make any answer to that.
Lessons On Humility And Hospitality
Observing that the guests were choosing the best places for themselves, Jesus told them this parable—
“When you are invited by any one to a wedding banquet, do not seat yourself in the best place, for fear that some one of higher rank should have been invited by your host; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Make room for this man,’ and then you will begin in confusion to take the lowest place. No, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place, so that, when he who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, come higher up’; and then you will be honored in the eyes of all your fellow-guests. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Then Jesus went on to say to the man who had invited him:
“When you give a breakfast or a dinner, do not ask your friends, or your brothers, or your relations, or rich neighbors, for fear that they should invite you in return, and so you should be repaid. No, when you entertain, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; and then you will be happy indeed, since they cannot recompense you; for you shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the good.”
—Luke.
The Elect Of Earth
He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, and whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords and kings of the earth—they, and they only.
—John Ruskin.