The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity AD 2024

Today’s Gospel begins with a description of how Jesus healed a man with dropsy. Dropsy is actually not a disease, but a medical condition caused by some serious illness. For example, it can be caused by cardiac failure, lung problems, liver disease or pancreatitis. Dropsy can vary in severity, but it is uncomfortable and can be extremely painful. By healing this man, Jesus not only relieved him of his pain, but He did much more: He healed this man of the disease that had caused the dropsy.

The Pharisees and lawyers with whom Jesus ate the Sabbath meal were not happy with this. We are not told that they publicly criticized Jesus, but in their hearts they certainly did. That is why the Gospel notes that Jesus spoke “answering them”. In answering them, Jesus showed that it is not only permissible but obligatory to do good on the Sabbath, if there is a need and an opportunity to do so.

But Jesus didn't stop there. He told a parable about how, when going to a wedding feast, it is wise to choose not the highest but the lowest seat at the banquet table, in order to avoid being humiliated in the eyes of the other guests. This was also an answer to the lawyers and Pharisees, who had assumed in their hearts the right to judge Jesus, that is, exalted themselves above Him – let’s think about it now: above the Son of God!

By this they disgraced themselves – first, because Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath as well as their Lord, and secondly, because they demonstrated their inhuman attitude toward the suffering neighbor whom Jesus helped. For what truly abases or exalts a man is not whether he sits in the lowest or the highest seat, but whether he lives in love or not.