banquets

172:1.2Six days be­fore the Pass­over, on the evening af­ter the Sab­bath, all Beth­any and Beth­page joined in cel­e­brat­ing the ar­rival of Je­sus by a pub­lic ban­quet at the home of Si­mon. This sup­per was in honor of both Je­sus and Laz­a­rus; it was ten­dered in de­fi­ance of the San­hedrin. Martha di­rected the serv­ing of the food; her sis­ter Mary was among the women on­look­ers as it was against the cus­tom of the Jews for a woman to sit at a pub­lic ban­quet. The agents of the San­hedrin were pres­ent, but they feared to ap­pre­hend Je­sus in the midst of his friends.

138:3.5In those days, when a re­cep­tion-ban­quet of this sort was ten­dered a promi­nent in­di­vid­ual, it was the cus­tom for all in­ter­ested per­sons to linger about the ban­quet room to ob­serve the guests at meat and to lis­ten to the con­ver­sa­tion and speeches of the men of honor. Ac­cord­ingly, most of the Ca­per­naum Phar­isees were pres­ent on this oc­ca­sion to ob­serve Je­sus’ con­duct at this un­usual so­cial gath­er­ing.

147:5.2The wealthy Phar­isees were de­voted to alms­giv­ing, and they did not shun pub­lic­ity re­gard­ing their phi­lan­thropy. Some­times they would even blow a trum­pet as they were about to be­stow char­ity upon some beg­gar. It was the cus­tom of these Phar­isees, when they pro­vided a ban­quet for dis­tin­guished guests, to leave the doors of the house open so that even the street beg­gars might come in and, stand­ing around the walls of the room be­hind the couches of the din­ers, be in po­si­tion to re­ceive por­tions of food which might be tossed to them by the ban­queters.

69:5.12As civ­i­liza­tion de­vel­oped, men ac­quired new in­cen­tives for sav­ing; new wants were rapidly added to the orig­i­nal food hunger. Pov­erty be­came so ab­horred that only the rich were sup­posed to go di­rect to heaven when they died. Prop­erty be­came so highly val­ued that to give a pre­ten­tious feast would wipe a dis­honor from one’s name.

140:8.12The Mas­ter did not say that men should never en­ter­tain their friends at meat, but he did say that his fol­low­ers should make feasts for the poor and the un­for­tu­nate. Je­sus had a firm sense of jus­tice, but it was al­ways tem­pered with mercy. He did not teach his apos­tles that they were to be im­posed upon by so­cial par­a­sites or pro­fes­sional alms-seek­ers. The near­est he came to mak­ing so­ci­o­log­i­cal pro­nounce­ments was to say, “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

167:1.5Then went Je­sus over to where the sick man sat and, tak­ing him by the hand, said: “Arise and go your way. You have not asked to be healed, but I know the de­sire of your heart and the faith of your soul.” Be­fore the man left the room, Je­sus re­turned to his seat and, ad­dress­ing those at the ta­ble, said: “Such works my Fa­ther does, not to tempt you into the king­dom, but to re­veal him­self to those who are al­ready in the king­dom. You can per­ceive that it would be like the Fa­ther to do just such things be­cause which one of you, hav­ing a fa­vorite an­i­mal that fell in the well on the Sab­bath day, would not go right out and draw him up?” And since no one would an­swer him, and inas­much as his host ev­i­dently ap­proved of what was go­ing on, Je­sus stood up and spoke to all pres­ent: “My breth­ren, when you are bid­den to a mar­riage feast, sit not down in the chief seat, lest, per­chance, a more hon­ored man than you has been in­vited, and the host will have to come to you and re­quest that you give your place to this other and hon­ored guest. In this event, with shame you will be re­quired to take a lower place at the ta­ble. When you are bid­den to a feast, it would be the part of wis­dom, on ar­riv­ing at the fes­tive ta­ble, to seek for the low­est place and take your seat therein, so that, when the host looks over the guests, he may say to you: ‘My friend, why sit in the seat of the least? come up higher’; and thus will such a one have glory in the pres­ence of his fel­low guests. For­get not, ev­ery one who ex­alts him­self shall be hum­bled, while he who truly hum­bles him­self shall be ex­alted. There­fore, when you en­ter­tain at din­ner or give a sup­per, in­vite not al­ways your friends, your breth­ren, your kins­men, or your rich neigh­bors that they in re­turn may bid you to their feasts, and thus will you be rec­om­pensed. When you give a ban­quet, some­times bid the poor, the maimed, and the blind. In this way you shall be blessed in your heart, for you well know that the lame and the halt can­not re­pay you for your lov­ing min­istry.”