Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning again.

Today we are starting our new fall series called eating with Jesus.

What we're going to be doing is we're going to be going through the Gospel of Luke, and we're going to be looking at every time Jesus eats with someone.

Now, this is not because I was hungry.

When I came up with a next sermon series, okay, this is a legitimate way to read the Gospel of Luke because eating it has been argued by some Scholars is the unifying theme of The Gospel of Luke What if you were with us during the summer, we talked about each of the things that we do during our worship service, we talked about communion.

And for me, that was a really, I learned a lot in that study and I really enjoyed the practice that we did.

If you weren't here, we actually sat around tables and we we made it a bit more of a meal.

And one of the things that came up as I was studying for, that is the importance of meals in the Gospel of Luke.

And so we're going to be doing this study it.

So the question is, why why talk about eating why, why are we talking about eating white and blue care?

So much about eating and there's three reasons.

Number one, meals, play an essential role in human relationships.

Eating is an essential part of so many things that we did.

What is the number one thing that you do?

If you suggest you want to spend time with someone?

What do you suggest that you do?

Let's go to lunch.

Let's get dinner.

Let's get coffee and donuts are bagels or what do you do?

If you want to ask someone out on a date.

Hey, let's go get dinner.

What do we do?

After we get married, we have a banquet.

What do we do?

After a funeral, we have a meal or Refreshments what we we involve food in so much of what we do is we build relationships and, and there is something very, very intimate about eating together.

Do you remember in school when were the Clicks in your school, the most pronounced? in the cafeteria in who you chose to spend that time, eating and talking with And that principle was especially powerful during the New Testament end and in previous ages of humanity, eating took on a very powerful role.

It sent a very powerful signal, it was an essential part of hospitality is what it meant to be a good person in many ways, socially was being willing to have people over for meals.

Food is an essential part of how we build human relationships and it always has been.

It's also an essential part of Church Fellowship and I don't just mean potlucks but that's also not a joke.

That's a really important and what it means to be a church potluck sand getting together for food and things like that.

Those can be really powerful experience of some of my best memories of being in the church are from potlucks But also, I would argue that the the highest moment the most important moment in our gathering each week is the meal that we eat together.

If we gather to do one thing, each Sunday, if you have to narrow down to one thing, we gather to eat at the Lord's Supper, so, eating together is an essential part of our Church Fellowship.

Here's the interesting things that I found as I was studying for the sermon on communion is that the book I was reading that you said, you know, that he was arguing that we always we talked about the Last Supper whenever you communion, but actually, especially in Luke communion doesn't just point back towards the Last Supper.

Why do we call it the Last Supper?

Because there were suffers before that.

Right.

And actually, Jesus spent his entire Ministry.

Preparing his disciples and involving them in table Fellowship.

The last supper was simply one of those, is it?

If I wasn't even the last one, there's two more in the Gospel of Luke after the Last Supper.

So what we find is in the Gospel of Luke, that eating meals, played an essential role in Jesus's Ministry.

In fact, it was his who you ate with more than what he preached.

That was controversial.

And so eating is actually at the computer all that eating signifies can be a really important way for us to understand who Jesus is and what he did and what he's doing.

Now through us and what we do as a community what it means to follow, Jesus can in very much pain, can very much be described and how we eat

So what we're going to do is each week, we are going to look at a different instance, when Jesus ate with people in his ministry, in the Gospel of Luke, I want to look at what that teaches us about how Jesus did his ministry and how that shapes the way we carry on his ministry in the church.

So today we're going to start with Luke Chapter 5, I'm going to read the whole story and then we're just going to go through and I'm going to pull out some things.

Some significant points that come from this story that we should learn and will be in chapter 57 verse 27.

This is early in Jesus Ministry in Luke, Jesus went out and proclaimed that he would come to bring good news to the poor and then he goes out and he starts preaching.

But he's also calling people to follow him.

He's called Peter.

And any other fishermen to follow him?

He heals a paralyzed man.

He heals a leper and there's all this controversy swirling around him.

All this talks one on this is movement is Catching Fire.

He's a very he's a he's a very controversial kind of cutting-edge personality in the region and everybody is wanting to find out who he is and what he stands for especially the Pharisees.

so, This is right after he heals a paralyzed, man.

This after this Jesus went out and saw tax collector by the name of Levi sitting in his taxes.

Follow Me.

Jesus said to him and leave, I got up left everything and followed him.

Then leave.

I held the great banquet for Jesus at his house and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belong to their sect, complain to his disciples.

Why do you eat with you?

And drink with tax collectors and sinners?

Jesus answered them.

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick I have not come to call the righteous but Sinners to repentance.

They said to him John's disciples often fast and pray and so do the Disciples of the Pharisees, the yours go on eating and drinking.

Jesus answered.

Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he was with them?

But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them.

In those days, they will fast.

He told him this Parable, no one tears, a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one.

Otherwise they would have torn, the new garment in the patch for the new will not match the old and no one for his new wine into Old wineskins.

Otherwise they will burst the Skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.

No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins and no one after drinking old wine once the new but I say the old is better.

We're the Lord.

This is a, if, if you know the Bible very well, there's a well-known story.

There's one we talked about a lot.

Jesus says, something very important here about who he is and what his ministry is meant to be, but there is more going on in this story than I think we sometimes unpack partly because they, we stopped reading at the wrong point, then we're going to go through or going to look at this story.

I'm going to highlight some of the things that this story teaches us about who Jesus was, and how he ate at his table and who he is today through what we do, in his name, The first thing that comes out very clearly in this story is that Jesus wanted to be close to sinners.

This is the clearest thing that comes out of the story.

Jesus wanted to be close to sinners.

And you can see this jump out in three points at least.

Number one is how the story starts after this.

Jesus went out and saw tax collector by the name of Levi sitting in his taxes.

Follow Me, Jesus said him and leave.

I got up left, everything and followed him.

Now, if you haven't heard a sermon about a tax collector before, then you may not know the context for this.

If you have, you probably heard this a million times.

Tax Collectors were not popular taxes are never popular.

But in this case, it was especially bad because Levi would have been working for Herod who was a Lackey for the Romans.

So he was considered a collaborator with the oppressors of the Jews.

His job would have involved handling money.

That was ritually unclean.

So, he was breaking the law of Moses.

And his profits would have directly been related to how much he could cheat the people out of And so he was predatory in the, in his profession, he cheated people out of money.

He broke the law of Moses and he helped the oppressors, they were not popular with anybody.

Everybody could find a reason to hate a tax collector except other tax collectors and other people.

So, it's surprising that Jesus, as he's going sees, Levi goes to Levi and says to him, follow me.