Above: A Dining Room
Image in the Public Domain
If Jesus Were Your Dinner Guest
AUGUST 22, 2021
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,
that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,
which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 Samuel 2:1-10 or Jeremiah 15:15-21
Psalm 102:1-17
Romans 6:1-11
Luke 11:37-54
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
These five assigned readings merge neatly into a unified message: Turn to God. Do not turn away from God. Otherwise, suffer the consequences.
Jesus, speaking in Luke 11:37-54, establishes some standards, in a particular context. The list is hardly comprehensive, but it does not prove useful. Besides, if he were speaking to a different audience, he would offer a different list of sins. The list from Luke 11:37-54 is:
- Placing too much emphasis on the superficial and too little on the consequential,
- Overlooking justice/righteousness and the love of God,
- Feeding ego rather than glorifying God,
- Imposing and maintaining unendurable burdens on people,
- Being shameless hypocrites, and
- Teaching the Torah badly, thereby misleading people.
Contrast Jesus’s hosts in Luke 11:37-54 with the notorious sinners with whom our Lord and Savior dined. The latter groups were not respectable, but they did not understand themselves and acknowledge their need to repent. They accepted the opportunity to learn from and to follow Jesus.
“Justice” and “righteousness” are the same word in the Bible. Translators choose either “justice” or “righteousness” on a case-by-case basis. Standards of justice/righteousness are somewhat relative; they depend on contexts. How one lives the timeless principles properly depends on who, when, and where one is. Reread the list from a previous paragraph, O reader. Ponder the third sin: feeding ego rather than glorifying God. Two people may commit that sin yet do so differently. Likewise, two people may glorify God rather than feed ego, and do so differently.
If Jesus were your dinner guest, O reader, what would he tell you? And how would you react or respond to him?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 20, 2020 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF JOHANNES BUGENHAGEN, GERMAN LUTHERAN THEOLOGIAN, MINISTER, LITURGIST, AND “PASTOR OF THE REFORMATION”
THE FEAST OF SAINTS AMATOR OF AUXERRE AND GERMANUS OF AUXERRE, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS; SAINT MAMERTINUS OF AUXERRE, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT; AND SAINT MARCIAN OF AUXERRE, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK
THE FEAST OF CHRISTIAN X, KING OF DENMARK AND ICELAND; AND HIS BROTHER, HAAKON VII, KING OF NORWAY
THE FEAST OF MARION MACDONALD KELLARAN, EPISCOPAL SEMINARY PROFESSOR AND LAY LEADER
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2020/04/20/if-jesus-were-your-dinner-guest/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ORDINARY TIME DEVOTIONS 
Pingback: If Jesus Were Your Dinner Guest | BLOGA THEOLOGICA