Jesus moved among the poor with attractive accessibility. He met with the rich and powerful with ease and unintimidated authority. The force of his personality influenced all who mingled with him. Some enjoyed his friendship, others envied the strength and charm of his character that threatened their hold on the populace.

It is no surprise that Jesus should be entertained in the house of a prominent Pharisee. Some were favourably but covertly impressed by him and others wished to sound out possibilities of embarrassing and eliminating him. Friend and foe would summon him for different reasons.

Whatever the motive of his host Jesus was being carefully watched by his enemies. He was the subject of scrutiny by eager opponents. Ironically Jesus was observing them with acute and accurate penetration. The leadership of the Jews judged by appearances and prejudice. Jesus examined them with divine insight. He read their hearts with ease. He apprehended their attitudes not their formal courtesies.

Anticipating their malicious methods of attack in accusing him of being a lawbreaker he tested their understanding of the essence of the law, prescriptions of godliness and mercy. His question "Is it lawful" to show mercy to a victim of dropsy on the Sabbath or not, positioned them in a stance of passive defensiveness. However they answered Jesus would catch them out as either heartless legalists or outrageous hypocrites. They maintained simmering resentment as Jesus healed the sufferer. They were galled at his goodness.

Jesus had exposed their callousness and shown that self-righteous religion can stultify humaneness. The Pharisees failed to recognise that the Sabbath was not an awkward imposition but a compassionate provision for concentrated love of God and neighbour without worldly distraction and weekday business and duty.

"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these."

The Pharisees were too legally minded to make allowances for love as the essence of God's requirements made known through Moses. We are recipients of grace in order to keep these laws of love to God and compassion towards man. Moses showed us the way of prevention of lovelessness. Jesus showed us the way of promotion of love. The Mosaic negatives reveal our depravity. The positives of Jesus show us the effects of redemptive deliverance.

The fundamental spiritual affliction of the Pharisees was hubris. "Prominence" is an apt description of their aspirations and ambition. They wanted always to be to the fore. They craved popular favour. To gain pre-eminence they paraded their piety. Privilege of place was their prime desire.

Jesus marvelled at their shuffling for priority of position at the table of their host. Its a rather childish scene for mature men in national leadership. But so often childishness is a prominent characteristic of those deemed to be great. They prove the truth of Jonathan Swift's dictum that adults are really children of a larger sort. Pettiness is pretty prevalent among important people and sometimes their grudges misguide whole communities and nations into destructive paths. Jesus doesn't hesitate to chastise these Pharisaic children of a larger sort with a conscience probing parable. Assuming the lower places in certain circumstances avoids humiliation and sometimes leads to honour (unsought but bestowed).

God is repelled by pride and has numerous ways to bring the arrogant down to earth. Self-exaltation is a perilous pursuit: "He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble." (Luke 1: 51-52).

Jesus is the great leveller of the haughty and those who entertain a high estimate of themselves. Before the incarnate Prince of Heaven all human pretensions are distinctly paltry and utterly foolish. Pomposity is ridiculous. The feted suffer flatulence as much as everybody else and experience all other embarrassing physical emissions. These basic things are intended to keep us humble as Paul (bowdlerised) and Luther (horrifyingly alluding to the privy) would remind us (Philippians 3:8). There is nothing more farcical than peacockish poses. Divinely caused slips sometimes intervene to end all pretentious performances of superiority and reduce the lofty to mortification.

Jesus indicates that the humble believer will be disposed to offer disinterested and genuine hospitality. They will sacrifice all self-interest for the cause of the kingdom. They will live in denial of prestige and worldly reward. Their lives will be marked by the repudiation of grandiosity. In practical relationships they will tend to renounce and remove the barriers and boundaries set up by society.

The social Jesus sees through the external things that differentiate we humans into castes and classes, the hereditary claims and other honours, the possessions and privileges that are fondly touted before the world for self-glorifying show. Dress and distinction pale before his observation of the wicked human heart that indwells us all.

He opposes all religious and social bigotry and the judging of our fellows by mere externals. To the guests on his planet, our earth, he commends the graces of humility and mutual respect. To those who by his providence he has enabled to play hosts from his borrowed bounty he recommends the avoidance of niggardly and narrow discrimination, and that rather than adopt the policy of marginalization magnanimity should be the rule. "But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous" (vv13-14). Jesus notices all these things (v7).

The Rev. Roger Salter is an ordained Church of England minister where he had parishes in the dioceses of Bristol and Portsmouth before coming to Birmingham, Alabama to serve as Rector of St. Matthew's Anglican Church.