Guests at the Table

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

August 31, 2025

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Click to read in Swahili

Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

Luke 14:1, 7-14 (ESV)

¹ One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.

⁷ Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ⁸ “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. ¹¹ For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” ¹² He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

Do you make diligent effort to acquaint yourselves and those under your care with the spiritual and material needs of the world? Do you support by prayer and systematic giving those who are laboring to extend Christ’s kingdom, and do you make evident your loving sympathy with them and their service? “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth.” (1 John 3:17-18 NIV)

I begin today with the eighth query from our Faith and Practice. And I want us each to consider it deeply. Do you make diligent effort to acquaint yourselves and those under your care with the spiritual and material needs of the world?

There are many things happening all around us every day. We can sometimes lose ourselves in the news cycles, or on the other hand we can become so annoyed by the news that we completely disengage from society and withdraw into our own cultural bubble. As people of faith there is a danger on either side. As humans there is a danger.

I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I love my hometown and I often get anxious living in the city. I get claustrophobic when I cannot see the horizon, and I long to see the sunset over the hills of the prairie. I noticed something in my home town, we did everything right. I would watch the news and scoff because to me it seemed so simple, and the world would be better off if they would just do things like we did it. Then I went to Ukraine and my entire worldview was turned upside down.

I spent my entire life up to that point with a certain understanding of who everyone was. I knew right and wrong. And I still remember just a few weeks before I had to send in all the money to finalize the travel. My grandpa Craven sent me a letter with a check for fifty dollars. In that letter he wrote that he was so sorry that he could not give more. He expressed how proud he was of me and how he would be praying for our work on that mission field. He did not write much but I could tell from the way it was written that he was struggling to get the words right. I knew that he had spent his entire life moving around the country as a pastor, and even served in this Area of the Yearly Meeting at Hesper Friends Church just outside of Eudora. He closed that letter with a verse that has often been my life verse. “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”

This was not the only word of encouragement I received. The other that is burned into my ministry was from my Grandpa Bales. Grandpa was the rock in my life. I always wanted to be with grandpa when I was a kid, if he was in the field anywhere within walking distance I would walk out to ride in the tractor with him. And at times he would save me the trip and stop at our house to pick me up because he knew I would find my way out there anyways. Grandpa taught me almost everything, and if he did not teach me, I filtered almost everything I learned through what I thought grandpa might think. He was a quiet, quick witted, and steady. Grandpa did not offer a great deal of advice even though I have said he taught me everything I know. He would ask questions, or make sly comments that would make me think and reconsider things.

I once tried to start a fire to burn trash out on the farm, and it had been raining so the fire would not start. I so I in my wisdom decided to throw some fuel on the fire. I tried diesel because I was not dumb, but it was not having the effect I wanted, so I considered gasoline. I knew enough to know that gas would explode so I put it on the trash, and I walked a long way off and threw the match. Flames shot out of the top of the silo and out the door toward me and I felt the heat engulf me for a few seconds, and when I opened my eyes, grandpa pulled up in the pickup. I got in and as he had his little smirk and he said, “Welp, that was pretty dumb wasn’t it.” That was all that needed to be said. In that simple statement he expressed how concerned he was, how overjoyed he was that I was safe, and how I should probably come up with a better plan next time. And then he put the truck in gear and gave me a ride to the next thing that needed to be done.

My grandpa did not say much, yet he was a steady source of wisdom and encouragement. And when he handed me a check for that trip to Ukraine, he said something I had never heard him say to me before. He said, “You are going into the land of the enemy, I will be praying for you.” I knew my grandpa’s faith. I listened to him sing every Sunday as we worshiped. I watched as he silently listened, or nodded at what was being said. He was usually quick to help where ever he was needed, but rarely did he speak in such a serious tone. Most of his testimony was some random song or obscure verse within a hymn that was never sung. His quiet faith, his encouragement, and his concern was very clear to me. And that he wanted to make sure I knew that beyond a witty song spoke volumes to me.

I carried those words with me when I flew to Ukraine. I felt as if I was going behind enemy lines. I felt as if I was sneaking Bibles over the Iron Curtain. But when I actually got there and began talking to people, things changed. They were people, just like me. They liked similar music, I could not understand their music but they had similar rhythms, with some folksy differences. They had the same hopes and dreams. They wanted to go to college and get a good job. They wanted to get married and have a family. They wanted to go to the club to dance like all the friends I had in school, although I never went with them since I was always working. As long as they spoke English around me I never would have thought I left Kansas. I even had some conversations with some of the Ukrainian teachers, and they would talk about when they were in college during the Cold War, and I would tell them stories that my family had told me. The stories were similar, yet it was like hearing it from the other side of the looking glass. But they were watching us.

One of my friends, who had just graduated from the university and had taken a job in the ministry of Agriculture spent many hours talking with me because we had a lot in common. He eventually asked me, “Why are you all here, why do you care about Ukraine, weren’t we your enemies.” After hours of laughing together this was the moment things became serious. I told him that in my faith we are taught to love our enemies and do good for them. That we are to make every effort we can to make peace and to become friends.

I felt like a failure at that moment, I was supposed to have presented the 4 Spiritual Laws and draw a little picture of the cross bridging the gap between humanity and heaven. But instead all I could say was its better to have friends than enemies. He did go to church with me that next Sunday but I cannot tell you if anything changed in his life, because after that we continued to talk about grain markets, fertilizers and what we would do if we had land in each other’s countries.

One Sabbath, Jesus was invited to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. They had just emerged from worship and now it was that time of the day where the community would celebrate together around the table. He went and ate with the people that were challenging everything about him. And we are told that they were watching him carefully.

They were watching him carefully. This is an interesting phrase that “watching” just does not really cover. It means direct perception, inquisitive attention, or to keep under supervision. The Pharisees were watching, they were studying Jesus like he was some mysterious phenomenon, which he was and is. But they were investigating every action. They would call him out on certain things, and sometimes Jesus would respond, and at other times he would just quietly continue doing what he was doing.

They were watching but why? People both inside and outside the church are observing us. They are studying us, seeing if we are living the lifestyle we are claiming. And this is what they were doing with Jesus. This is why the teaching, “Do not take the name of God in vain,” is so important. In that commandment or word of wisdom, the word take, we regard as misusing the name of God in our language. And I can still taste the lava soap for speaking the name of God in vain. But the word we often translate as take, means to take up or bear, it means to carry the name of God. This teaching is so much deeper than the words that we speak. It is everything we do and say. It is everything we do not do or say. It is us as people that claim faith bearing witness to our understanding of God to the people around us. Are we making diligent effort to acquaint yourselves and those under your care with the spiritual and material needs of the world?

When we are consumed by the news, drawn into the never ending cycle of rage inducing commentary, we can be distracted from something important. That there are real people involved and that the presentation of the story is trying to emotionally tilt us one direction or another. We must be careful, because those around us are watching us. They are wanting to see if our response will reflect the faith we claim to have.

For those that are not overly concerned with temporal affairs, we also have a danger. We may not know what is going on around us, we can be going along blissfully thinking that everything is fine , while the world is burning. They are watching us. They are wanting to know that even now in this moment God cares. Are we living the love of God with them?

The Pharisees wanted to prove that they were right and Jesus was wrong, but the problem was Jesus acted and spoke into the moment with authority. And even when his actions may not have agreed with their traditional understanding, they were silenced because as he taught he would often reveal the inner light at the heart of the Torah. Should we work on the Sabbath? The quick answer is no, but are their exceptions the reality is yes. The exceptions are when we are acting as image bearers of God, and stepping in to preserve life, because when we honor the life that God has given we honor God.

This is what going to Ukraine revealed to me. They were not my enemies, they were people. People with similar hopes and dreams, and similar struggles. The difference between us was very narrow, and largely revolved around the privilege of opportunity.

This is what Jesus is highlighting in today’s parable. Each of them had been invited to eat with the ruler of the Pharisees. This is an honor to eat at a ruler of the Pharisees’ house. We often look at these things as being more like our own community, but this is big. A rulers of the Synagogue would be like eating with the local pastor. You all can do that after worship if you would like. But to at with the ruler of the synagogue would like eating at the Vatican or even the White House to them. These were the people that had power an influence not only in their community, but their entire culture. And they were watching Jesus carefully.

A disabled man came in and Jesus healed that man, on the Sabbath, and as Jesus healed the man he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” Life is more important than law.

But which life is most important? “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you bother will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.” He then concludes, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus then continues, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

I want us to consider this in light of our query.

Jesus is telling these rich and influential people that their attention has been diverted. They have isolated themselves in their own echo chamber. They were blissfully unaware of the conditions of the world around them. In their minds everyone in the world was well fed and in perfect health. And when they did have the occasion to see something different they looked upon the undesirable state in disgusted because this would only happen to the lazy or the sinful within their circle. They judge the less fortunate but do not recognize that the poor, crippled, lame, or blind person in front of them is also an image bearer of God. Their response to this less fortunate individual bears witness, it tells a story.

Are we aquatinted with the spiritual and material needs of the world? Do we understand what they really need? Or are we filling the void with stories built on fantasy? Have we taken the time to listen to them? Have we listened to the testimonies of those that have spent time with people living in a less privileged aspect of life?

My understanding of Ukraine prior to boarding a plane to fly over an ocean was based on stories like Hunt for Red October or Red Dawn. Well actually it was probably more informed by James Bond and Austin Powers but it was limited, skewed, and fictional. The reality was very different.

We had not invited them to the table. We had not really listened to their voices. In many cases we were not allowed because the truth was purposefully withheld by people living in ideological isolation. We were told lies, they were told lies, both cultures were hiding under their desks and tables because the enemy was at the gate. Yet all the while we were going to school and work. Encouraging our families. And trying to make our lives just a bit better for the next generation as best as we could. The difference is the privilege of opportunity.

What story or what witness are we giving to those within the world through our lives today? Are we telling a story that there is a different way? That there is a life where opportunities are available?

I came home from Ukraine. I came home realizing that people are people. Of course I knew this, but I had not experienced it. That experience inspired my future, it was in that short two month stay in a land so different and yet the same as my own hometown, God place within my life a different path, a different passion. I left the study of crops and soil. I left the things that I once knew and began to move into the unknown. I listened to the voices of people not like myself and my heart broke. I realized that in Kansas my own home state there were children that did not believe that graduating from High School was an opportunity that was available to them. We have free public school available to all children, yet they did not know it was an option for them. Why was this unknown to them. They were bright intelligent students. It was not available because the cost to their family was too high. They needed to go to work as soon as legally possible so that they could survive.

I was privileged. I could say that I had to work, and I did I worked hard all through school. I cannot hardly remember a time in my life I did not work. But my labor at that age was not a necessity for survival. God humbled me. We will never know unless someone lets us know, and what we think is available may not really be available unless someone steps in and shows them that a different path can be taken.

Jesus went to the ruler of the Pharisees’ house to eat the Sabbath meal. He knew they were watching. He knew that they were looking for a reason to love or hate him. They hated him because his love for the people revealed to them just how far from God they were. They hated him because they knew that they had the means to help but refused. They hated him because they had a privilege of opportunity, and in so many ways they were restricting others that opportunity because they would rather stay isolated in their blissful ignorance.

Do you make diligent effort to acquaint yourselves and those under your care with the spiritual and material needs of the world? Do you support by prayer and systematic giving those who are laboring to extend Christ’s kingdom, and do you make evident your loving sympathy with them and their service? “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth.” (1 John 3:17-18 NIV)

We are all guests at the table, by the grace of God. While we were still enemies Christ died for us. We do not deserve to be where we are. We did not earn it. They are watching us, they are observing our words and our actions, what gospel are we preaching? We have the privilege of opportunity, let us make that opportunity available to others and live the love of Christ with them.

Previous Messages:

Broken Dreams Restored

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Walk as Children of Light

By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church March 15, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Ephesians 5:8–14 (ESV) 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit…

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