Episode 43 - A Common Table.

In the culture of the ancient Near East, to sit at a table and share a meal with someone means you are at one with that person. It is with this understanding, which is still prevalent in middle eastern culture today, that we hear the Pharisee’s complaints against Jesus in the Gospel: why would he accept “unclean” tax collectors and sinners at his table? And yet when Jesus said to Levi, “Follow me,” it says that he left all, rose up and followed him. It is Jesus’ word of teaching, which Levi accepts, that cleanses him and allows him a place at the table. The corollary to “all are one” at the table is that all are under the house rule of the host, the one master at whose table they are seated. In their inability see their own need to be fed, the scribes and Pharisees separate themselves from the one table to which the Lord has invited all; and through whose teaching, all are made clean. 

Join me in a discussion of Luke 5:27-31.

Notes:
Leviticus 19:34
Deuteronomy 8:3
Matthew 22:36-40
Luke 9:11
Romans 1:5-6; 11:29-32;14:15
Galatians 2:11-12

Original music composed and performed by Raphael Shaheen.
Photo by Askar Abayev.