Today’s meal with Jesus is the last he has with a Pharisee – so it’s fitting its a chief Pharisee. It doesn’t go well for the Pharisee, but it does for a man with dropsy. Dropsy is the old-fashioned name for oedema – water retention in the body often caused by kidney failure or heart problems
skin discolouration, aching, tender limbs, stiff joints, weight gain or weight loss, raised blood pressure and pulse rate. He’s going to get healed, we are going to see some cross-cultural stuff that Brits probably miss and we’re going to get encouraged to invite everyone to the party. So ready to dive in?

Luke 14:1-24

When is it right to heal the sick?

Well what do you think?
What a silly question! But it wasn’t to the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.
They had taken the OT law – that which the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 7:12 is holy, good and righteous. They had taken that and added to it, making it not just impossible, but burdensome and impossible. So that Jesus had to come to fulfil it, the first and only one ever. And the die on the cross, so that when we put our faith in Him, we too have died to the law and are not under it, but under grace.
So these leaders had taken the law that Jesus summed up as Love God and Love your neighbour and forgotten love and compassion and made it a bad thing to heal someone on the Sabbath because that’s work. They’ll lift their ox or child out of a well, but lay a hand on someone’s shoulder to heal them.

So when is it right to heal the sick? When you love God and your neighbour.
In Luke 9 Jesus gave the 12 authority to heal the sick and in Luke 11 he gave the 72 the same authority to heal the sick. His last words before ascending to the right hand of the Father were go and make disciples, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.
In John 14 Jesus told his followers that He must ascend to the right hand of the Father so that the Spirit could come and inhabit us so that we could do great works than He did – greater means more!
i) So we have Authority to heal the sick in Jesus name
ii) We have our identity as children of God, dearly loved by the Gather who fills us with love and compassion for others
iii) We have the power of the Spirit residing in us – the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.

When we read the red bits and the book of Acts, we find Jesus and his followers healing the sick whenever and wherever they find them and the challenge to go and do likewise.
I know that we haven’t always seen people healed and I don’t understand and there are passages I don’t understand too. Anyone that has glib answers like not enough faith is just plain wrong at best and profoundly damaging too.
There are some things I know – God is love, God is good and some things I don’t know – like why some don’t get healed, this side of glory anyway. But I tell you what – what I do know helps me to make sense of the things I don’t. The things I do know trump the things I don’t and I am happy to let God be God!
Sad story of vicar going to visit a dying child who ran over his toddler and killed her on the drive. Awful, just awful. Why? And he shouted at the funeral There are thing I do know – God is love and they trump the things I don’t.

God is love. God is good. God’s kingdom is spreading and ever increasing towards the time when Jesus wraps this present age and makes a new heaven and earth for us with no more crying or pain. And until he comes – filled with His love, knowing that we have authority and the power of the Spirit we will heal the sick and make sure every encounter we have with people leaves them in no doubt that there is a God who loves them.
For some of you that’s on the streets and for others it’ll be with friends and colleagues.

I’m hungry for a culture where we are doing the stuff, where everyone is a witness and healing is part of that.
There’s no one method or formula – otherwise we’d have the church of rubbing mud in people’s eyes (actually they probably do in the USA) or any of the other ways that we read of in Scripture. Go with what fits you.
You don’t need to work up your faith – it’s not dependent on you. It’s not faith in faith. It’s not the size of my faith, it’s the size of my God. a mustard seed size of faith, will be used by God.

A little bit of honour shame

Watching him carefully v1

* Pharisees wanting to look good
* Man who exclaimed “Blessed who eats bread in the kingdom of God” v15 – If you don’t get the bread reference that’s about a party and a feast. You either a) eat bad bread because you’re British! b) need to grasp teh bread metaphor in the meals with Jesus that is leading towards the breasking of bread ceremony of the last supper

Pharisees had no love for the poor sick man, for them it was about the Law and being seen to be studying it, practicing it and being better at it than everyone else.
Last week we saw they love the best seats in the synagogue.
They were well trained in the OT law and look down on those that aren’t or are too poor to be worried about such thing.

In the middle east then and now – honour/shame is a big thing
Honour is the worth or value that someone has both in their own eyes and in the eyes of the people around them.
There’s two types of honour
Achieved honour – because you have done something that means people honour you and
Ascribed honour – where your are given honour without having done something
Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing your are flawed and therefore not worthy of love or belonging

So the man with dropsy would have been living in shame – when Jesus healed him, he gave him ascribed honour. Not just the amazing miracle of health but dignity and value in the eyes of others. The religious leader who are living in achieved honour and hoping for ascribed honour would have hated that, looking down on him for their betterment as the people God has chosen, at the exclusion of others.

So Jesus tells the story of the wedding feast – where even in our culture there’s a top table for the family. And of course the nearer you are the top table the better your position or honour! Jan and I were once invited to her pen pals wedding – and we were the only people that were from out of town and when we sat down, it was pretty clear we were on the oddbods table – I couldn’t get away quick enough.

Tom Wright has a lovely story about preaching on this passage. He says ” Once, many years ago, I preached a sermon on this passage. I emphasized the extraordinary way in which Jesus tells his hearers to do something that must have been as puzzling to them as it is now. Don't invite friends, relatives and neighbours – invite the poor and the disabled. The sermon had a strange effect. In the course of the next week my wife and I had received dinner invitations from no fewer than three people who had been in church that day. Which category of guest we came into we were too polite – or anxious – to ask.”

You won’t be the only one, who like me have been in that all been in that scenario, or am I really an oddball? No, don’t answer!

In the story, people come to the wedding and jostle for the top places, looking for honour. But if you get it wrong, then there is some serious loosing face (that’s a huge honour/shame culture thing) and you undergo the shame of being placed on the oddballs table.

At first glance this seems like some self-help advice – be humble, sit at the lowly table and you may get invited up – receiving some ascribed honour. And in one sense it is good advice!

But Jesus is making the deeper point that this jostling for ascribed honour doesn’t work. Earning honour, earning God’s favour, or thinking you have it because you are religious, a respected member of society, a churchgoer doesn’t mean you are part of the kingdom of God. If you think you are in because of your position, or because you are a good person, you are going to get a rude awakening.

We can’t earn God’s favour. We can’t achieve honour in the kingdom by our efforts, doing our best under the law.
The ten commandments or indeed the whole law – aren’t a SAT’s paper or GCSEs where they adjust the passmark depending on how that year group is doing. If you go for the law its 100%. Christianity is finding grace. Finding that you can’t achieve honour, finding that we have lived in shame, dishonouring God by ignoring him. But fining that God loves you and made a way to take away your shame and give you ascribed honour – come be my adopted son or daughter. We get that not by working, being good, going to church. We get it by coming to Jesus and asking him to take away our guilt and shame because of what He did on the cross for us. Dying to take our shame and exchanging it for honour.

Who is invited?

The final story is about having a banquet
The first level of meaning is clear Jesus has been travelling around inviting people to God’s great supper. The Feast that is the kingdom of God. The moment Israel has been waiting for has finally arrived. Those who have been long invited must hurry up and come and enjoy the feast!

The invited honoured guests, turn out to be not interested. They are too busy looking at new property, new animals or their new trophy wife. The poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled are delighted to be included.

Right at the start of Jesus ministry in Luke 4 Jesus stood up in a synagogue to read Isaiah 61 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

What’s fascinating is what He missed out – judgement. Because his first coming and the season we are in now before He returns to judge the world is about good news to the poor, freedom for those in captivity to things that bind us, healing for the blind and favour. That’s Jesus mission and it is our too.

that’s the twist this story gives – if you are signing up to be part of God’s Kingdom to join the feast, the party, then you are signing up to be in it with all sorts of people.
In Luke’s time the initial wave of new Christians was entirely Jewish. Then the second wave of Gentiles came in starting with Cornelius and the book of Acts records the struggle for Jewish Christians to accept Gentile believers who never had the law and could see easier that we are not under the law. Their must have been a challenge for the first readers, the Jewish Christians who were expecting to be at top table in the previous story to find people they would have once called “dogs” are now brothers.

So the challenge comes in this story that the kingdom is for all who would receive Jesus’ teaching – who put their trust in Jesus death and resurrection to forgive us, make us brand new and wash away all shame.
The challenge that God has a whole load of muddy potatoes he wants to be part of the Kingdom. If you are wondering why I mentioned muddy potatoes – last uyear David Blacklock had a prophetic dream about a harvest of muddy potatoes, that needed washing off before they could be used. The sense that God wanted to bring in the very people Jesus is talking about into the kingdom – and that there was going to be muck to work on!

Jesus is challenging us to reach out not just to nice middle class people, but others who also need him just as much from every nation in this area, every tribe, every tongue, every estate, the rich, the poor, the messed up and the tattooed. To love all, share the gospel with all, to heal the sick, set free the demonised and to care for the poor and broken hearted to they are welcomed into the family and become part of the kingdom.

Application

Have a go – culture setting
I want to set culture that we can have a go. We love to hear testimonies of people going for it with friends, family, colleagues and on the streets. Some are great at it and tell great stories – I hope they don’t make you think I can’t be them and do that, so you don’t bother. I want to hear stories of the less confident having a go too, so that we can build a culture at every level of healing the sick and sharing our faith.
Be humble
The second challenge in the passage is that God loves humility not pride in making yourself look good. Trouble with pride is that it is like B.O. – everyone else can small it except the person with it. Glorify Jesus. But don’t tell us “It wasn’t me, it was God” because you’re not that good! and that’s false humility!!!
Compel them to come
The third challenge is v21 where Jesus sets the urgency “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes…” We need to see God’s urgency to go and do the stuff.
Come yourself!
We are all on a journey with faith.

1. Spectator- watching, keep watching. Sometimes people realise they aren’t just watching they are actively seeking.
2. Seeker – serious asker of questions. Great keep asking. Sometimes people realise their questions have been answered and they are following Jesus.
3. Follower – I’m ready to follow Jesus. Sometimes people realise they want to making a difference with Jesus and become a builder
4. Builders – I want to build the kingdom

How to live in an age of rage

Learning from King Saul and King David on how to handle your emotions and thrive in an age of rage.

Speaker:	Andy Moyle
Series:	Hall of Mirrors
Date:	8th Jun, 2026
Download:	How to live in an age of rage
Plays:	0
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Sermon notes:	PDF How to live in an age of rage How to Handle Living in an Age of Rage Series: The Hall of Mirrors  |  Scripture: 1 Samuel 20:30–34; Galatians 6:8; Matthew 12:34; Ephesians 4:31 (AI generated from spoken recording transcript) Introduction: The Age of Rage We live in a mad age of unrestrained emotion. Political leaders speak incoherently out of anger. Politicians stoke rage and riots follow. Social media algorithms are engineered to provoke fury. The media profits from keeping us angry. This is the world we inhabit. The chapter we have reached in Steph's book is titled 'Unrestrained Emotions' — and it asks how we navigate the traps the enemy sets for us through our relationships and emotional responses. A Masterclass in What Not to Do: King Saul 1 Samuel 20:30–34 gives us a vivid picture of what happens when emotions go unchecked. Saul had nursed jealousy — the girls sang that Saul killed his hundreds but David his tens of thousands — and he caressed that jealousy until it festered into rage. The result? He vented at his own son Jonathan, cursed his wife, demanded David's death, and hurled a spear at his own child. Venting, cursing, violence. Saul is the masterclass in how not to handle emotions. His unrestrained feelings ultimately led to his undoing — and, in the end, to his suicide. Many relationships break down because we simply believe whatever we are thinking and feeling in the moment — without pausing to ask whether our hearts might be getting it wrong. Three Patterns of Handling Emotions (and Why None of the Defaults Work) 1. The Stiff Upper Lip — Bottling It In The traditional British approach was to suppress emotion entirely — to be reserved and unexpressive. The Falklands War story says it all: 'I've lost my leg.' 'No, you haven't — it's over here.' While this avoided emotional explosions, repression is not the same as health. Pushed-down feelings do not disappear; they fester underground. 2. Numbness — When Trauma Shuts Feelings Down In deeply difficult or traumatic seasons, emotions can become inaccessible altogether — a protective numbness sets in and we cannot name what we are feeling. Sometimes we need a friend, a counsellor, or even a simple 'feelings chart' to help us identify and put language to our inner state. 3. Venting — The Age of Rage Default The modern reaction to emotional suppression is the opposite extreme: just let it all out. 'It's good for my mental health to vent.' But spewing emotions at others is not healthy - not for us, and certainly not for the people on the receiving end. We live in an age that profits from our anger, but that does not make unbridled venting good. What Emotions Actually Are: An Engine Warning Light Feelings come - that is simply a fact of being human. But they do not come first, and they should not rule. Emotions are a God-given means of discerning what is going on around us. They reveal our goals and motivations. They are like an engine warning light: the answer is not to ignore the light, nor to panic - it is to open the bonnet and check what is actually going on. The trouble is that our hearts, as Jeremiah reminds us, can be deceitful. We process things wrongly. We feel things inaccurately. That is why feelings cannot be allowed to rule - we must think and work things through. As Galatians 6:8 puts it: whoever sows to the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life. If we allow feelings to come first, we will give up just before the breakthrough. Many people quit five minutes before the blessing arrives. A Better Way: King David and the Psalms of Lament David was far from perfect, but he learned to process his emotions well. Read the Psalms — about half of them are laments. He told God exactly how bad things were, processing honestly what he was going through. And then, at the end of those psalms, he would arrive at praise. He processed his way through to a revelation of God's goodness. When everyone wanted to kill him, 'David encouraged himself in the Lord' (1 Samuel 30:6). A lament, perhaps — and then: but God, you are good. David used good friends too; Jonathan was one of his closest. The pattern: express the pain honestly to God ? process it through ? arrive at praise and breakthrough. Practical Steps for Processing Emotions Well 1. Name what you are feeling It can be genuinely hard to identify our emotions — especially in difficult seasons. Seek out a trusted friend or counsellor who can help you put words to what is going on inside. Do not go through it alone; isolation makes processing harder and distortion more likely. 2. Bring it to God — go for a walk, lament, pray Prayer walks, time outdoors, the Psalms — these are practical ways of processing with the Lord. Even when it does not feel like it is working ('I feel just as bad as when I left'), God is still working: 'Even when I don't feel it, you're working.' He may speak through the next day's Bible reading. Stay in the habit of daily Scripture. 3. Wait before you respond Before hitting reply, posting, or firing back — pause. Someone texts you to moan? Ring them. Someone sends a voice note? Go and see them in person. Go up a level relationally instead of down. Write the reply, then delete it. Sleep on it. The response you give the next day will almost always be better. Matthew 12:34 is a good filter: 'The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.' If that verse sat at the top of every social media feed, most posts would never be written. 4. Remember who is standing in front of you When someone vents at you, it is painful — words have power because people are made in the image of God. But that also means the person doing the venting is an image-bearer too: a precious, loved person, whether or not they love the Lord. Watch your heart in response. The Counter-Cultural Response: Ephesians 4:31–32 'Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.' When there is rage and bitterness around us, Paul's instruction is radical: be kind. Be compassionate. Show the opposite of what has just been done to you. And the engine of that kindness is forgiveness — because God has forgiven us so much, we are able to forgive others. We have well-rehearsed excuses for holding on to anger. Paul does not let us stop at 'be kind' — he adds 'just as in Christ God forgave you.' That redefines everything. Conclusion God is not calling us to the old British default of bottling everything up, nor to the modern default of letting it all out. He is calling us to a third way: process well, lament honestly, think before you respond, and treat others with the kindness that flows from knowing how much we ourselves have been forgiven. Do not give up just before the breakthrough. Lament your way through to the place where God breaks in. Closing Prayer Father God, thank you that we can live well in this age of rage. When algorithms around us are designed to increase anger, you have given us something radically different — the power of forgiveness, bought at the cross. Help us to be kind and compassionate, to lament well, and to reach the place of your breakthrough. In Jesus' name, Amen.

   

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