Proper 17 Year C

Proper 17

Ecclesiasticus 10.12–18
Hebrews 13.1–8, 15, 16
Luke 14.1, 7–14
In this central section of Luke’s Gospel it feels as though Jesus is in a kind of first-century Big Brother. Everything he does and says is being critically watched, sifted, grafted into other people’s fantasies and distorted.

So this is no innocent invitation to dinner. It has been set up to try and trap Jesus, and he knows it, all too well. What is striking is the cool, humorous authority with which he handles the trap. In somebody else’s home, surrounded by hostile or thrill-seeking eyes, he makes no attempt to curry favour or play to the crowd. He goes straight on the offensive, turning the spotlight on his watchers. They had expected to watch a spectacle, but now they become the spectacle...