They Cannot Repay You
"Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 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.”"
— Luke 14:12-14
Jesus was a guest that day, not the man in charge of the table. A leading Pharisee had him over for the Sabbath meal, and the room watched him closely. Minutes earlier he had seen the other men drift toward the best couches. Where a man reclined told everyone what his family was worth. Hospitality there ran on credit: feed an equal, and the debt came back as a favor or a good word in public. The four kinds of people named here could clear no debt at all. Old temple law kept a man with a damaged body away from the altar. One strict community of that era shut such men out of its gathering for the age to come. Some of them lived on coins dropped in the street, because no trade would hire them. Minutes later he described a feast where every important name sends an excuse, and the servants bring in exactly those four. God's own table fills with the people who can settle nothing.