When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invited your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.
Luke 14:12b
Scripture: Luke 14:12-14

It happens more often than we might care to admit. We have been guests in someone’s home and the hosts served us a delicious fish and seafood feast. As we are enjoying the meal, our minds are racing as to what we will serve them when they are guests in our home. Since we were served surf, that can be rather pricey, we need to prepare something of comparable value and we deem that to be turf … perhaps a show-stopping standing rib roast. We get so caught up with reciprocating that we sacrifice the enjoyment of the moment because we are so obsessed by what our guests may expect when we are hosting a dinner for them in our home.

Jesus’ solution to this problem of one-upmanship is to radically change the guest list. Don’t invite those whom you anticipate will then make dinner for you. Invite someone or some people who are not likely to be able to reciprocate.

Jesus suggests that when you host a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. They cannot repay your kindness. You will be blessed and you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. This is a fine example of not being able to take our treasures with us to heaven, but our ability to send the treasured good deeds on ahead.

While we may not totally revamp our dinner guest list, Jesus has gotten His point across. Instead of looking forward to being repaid for kindnesses we have shown; let us do good deeds to those who cannot repay us. Let us make a difference in their lives and trust that when we have ministered to them it is as if we ministered to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer

O Lord, You were often the guest at many tables and enjoyed the hospitality of those who ministered to you. We thank You for those occasions when we have been guests and when we have been hosts. We especially thank You for inviting us to Your Table, where we find people who are like us as well as those who are different from us … all guests of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.