12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you host a dinner or a banquet, don’t invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors so you can be invited by them in return and get repaid. 13 But when you host an elaborate meal, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 Then you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

REFLECTIONS

Written by Yuan Vongsavanh

In yesterday’s devotion, we heard how Jesus rebuked the guests who would choose the seat of honour at a banquet (v7-11). His point was to highlight that those who put themselves first will be humbled, but the humble will be exalted. In today’s passage we hear how Jesus instructs his host – and maybe there’s a rebuke here too.

He speaks very directly to the man who had invited him. In v12-13, he basically says that a host should not always be just inviting their family and friends, or others who can return the favour of hosting. Instead, Jesus says to invite those who do not have the means or the ability to return the favour.

When someone says, “I invited my friends over and cooked them lunch this weekend”, we often reply with something like, “Oh that’s really nice of you.” But according to Jesus, there’s nothing especially impressive or admirable about that. He asks us for a much more radical kind of hospitality. Jesus asks us to share what we have and be hospitable to “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (v13) – to those who are in need, those who are society’s outcasts, those who have absolutely no means of returning the favour of hosting us. He’s calling us to share what we have out of love, with compassion for the downtrodden, and without any other expectation from our guests.

And it is because they cannot repay us that we will be blessed, says Jesus, as we will “be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (v14).

I always find it so challenging to hear directly from Jesus’s word in the Bible, especially here where Jesus teaches the counter-cultural way of living as a Christian. His challenge is as relevant now as it was in Jesus’s time. Pray now about these three simple verses. Ask God to remind us that we are spiritual beggars who have received every spiritual blessing from Him, without any expectation or requirement to pay him back. Pray that we will strive to be hospitable to those around us who are in need.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yuan is a member of our Bossley Park Morning congregation.