Today is Day 5 of Bishop Earl Boyea’s reflections on seven meals in people’s homes where Jesus Christ is present. Each encounter is recorded in the Gospel of Saint Luke.
In this fifth reflection, Jesus is near Jerusalem and has lamented the future of the city and now is invited to dinner by a leading Pharisee (Luke 14:1-24). As the American scripture scholar, Luke Timothy Johnson, writes in his book The Gospel of Luke: “If Jesus eats a meal with a Pharisee on the Sabbath, there surely will be conflict!”
And what’s the significance of these meals? Well, they foreshadow the heavenly banquet, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9), to which each of us is personally invited by Christ. And, thus, they help inform our response to that divine invitation as we each work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).