For Sunday September 2 - Luke 14 - "Mind Your Manners"

Humble obedience. Knowing our place in the world.
Do what you do for God - be constantly aware of his presence. He’s the ultimate host of every table at which you sit. He’s the only one from whom you need to seek approval. Freeing advice.
This passage is, among other things, simply about living everyday life for God. Attitude, the power of a quiet life in God’s presence.
Rambling thoughts...
* "he was being carefully watched" - not sure all the reasons they were watching him. Curiosity, wondering if he was really the messiah, good reasons and bad reasons. Some felt threatened and wanted to catch him in a sin or mistake.
* Jesus' felt the temptation to do what others want or expect him to. We feel that too, but to often give into it. He never does give in.
* At first the next part (vs 6ff) of the passage seems like a huge change. But it was still at the dinner table. Jesus just got to thinking about their preoccupation with his attention to the suffering man. He felt how the man was unwelcome. He knows the thoughts of those around the table.

• Jesus is so puzzling. His lesson to the dinner party guests seems to be “How to be the most honored guest at the party.” The way to get there is through humility and taking the lesser place, but the goal is still to be the most honored! Strange. Is it that, in the process of lowering ourselves, even with ulterior motives in mind, we are changed a bit? Is it simply a matter of being changed through simple obedience?
• Then he turns to the party-giver. Vs 12ff- This lesson: Don’t invite the people you really want to come. What a drag. The goal in giving a party, according to Jesus, is the reward you get later from the Big Host. Not how we think of parties, dinners.
• So he really messes with our motivations and reasons for living the way we do each day. Every action, every needs to be considered. He’s the one who gives us the honor we need; the reward we need. Do we settle for much less than what the Big Host wants to give? - Our rewards and goals are cheap compared to God’s.

What Happens in Exile

How does God use times of exile? Check out the book of Daniel, especially chapters 1-3. Daniel was one of the people taken away from Jerusalem and held in Babylon. Daniel stayed there for all 70 years. God spreads his Kingdom through such times.

Jeremiah 29

At long last Jeremiah's predictions of doom for Jerusalem and Judah have come to be. Yet amazingly, there are still prophets who claim the terrible crisis will last on 2 years and then everything will be fine. Jeremiah delivers news that no one believes, no one wants to hear -- this exile will last generations. He gives the word of the Lord that must have seemed so impossible to comprehend, "Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." - vs 7.
They've been so used to praying for the destruction of their enemies and for their own relief that they can't even imagine looking or hoping or praying for something different. Those who have been sent away in exile are the people those back home in Jerusalem thought were cursed. Now Jeremiah reveals they are the ones God has smiled upon and will bless. How upside down the whole plan of God is!
Jeremiah's Letter
How tempting it would have been to write an “I told you so” letter after so many years of people not listening to his warnings! But he must have remembered himself that God said, “I told you – they wouldn’t listen.” So now the time for warning of God’s judgment is over.
This is a story about the grace and unending patience of God.

Periods of Exile
There are phases of life where we’ve been corrected, punished, or simply when things don’t go as we want them to. Likely that some of the people hauled off to Babylon were faithful people who had done well in following God. Others had listened to the prophet, and knew he was right, but had not made the changes to life they knew they need to make. Maybe they just put them off. Still others were part of the problem that brought the judgment of God upon his people. All of them are now in the same boat, living through the desert experience once again.
Exiled. Exiled from the best that life has to offer, from the brightest path of God’s plans.