Pros
update
17 April 08
There’s no ‘I’ in Team
‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour’ Luke 14:8
We said last week that Jesus tells parables to diagnose our problems and to prescribe the treatment that we need to take. So parables both expose what’s wrong with us and also what we need to do about it. In this way it’s not so much that Jesus teaches parables but more that he teaches through parables. In this part of Luke Jesus has seen some pretty unsavoury behaviour by the religious big-wigs of the day and he tells them a parable of a wedding feast to put it under the spot-light.
What were they doing wrong?
Verses 1-6 describe a pretty startling scene; Jesus is invited to the house of one of the really important Pharisees for lunch, but it’s more hostility than hospitality, because the meal is a trap. It’s a Sunday and so they want to catch Jesus out and see if they can get him to heal someone and then they’ll accuse them of breaking the Old Testament commandment to rest on the Sabbath. So amongst the guests there’s one man that stands out – he stands out because of his grotesque physical appearance; he’s got dropsy a condition where fluid swells the skin up causing it to blister and break. However, the thing that is much uglier than how the man looks is the way the Pharisees are acting; they are completely abusing their position of responsibility. They should be the ones who would care for this man and look after him, they have the position and resources to do so, but instead of looking after him they’re using him as a pawn in their religious chess game; they are parading him like a side-show attraction in their attempt to trap Jesus. Have you ever seen a more obvious image of complete social dysfunction than this? Have you ever seen behaviour that’s guaranteed to ruin a team quicker than this – using the weakness of the weakest member of the team to serve their own warped interests?
Why do they do it?
The parable is Jesus’ teaching about this incident, and first it exposes why the Pharisees are acting in this way; ‘when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour’. Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are acting this way because they want the place of honour; they want to be number one, the big noise in the room. Because of this they are happy to do anything to ensure that they get one up on Jesus even if it means using and abusing someone who is weak and marginalised. We know this in sport don’t we – nothing destroys a team quicker than ‘the big ‘I’’. A person who’s only concern is to be ‘in the place of honour’ will use and abuse team mates for their own selfish ends, and in so doing the team gets torn apart. Isn’t it true that a team who will play for each other is much stronger than a team of individuals, and isn’t it true that even just one player who’s only concern is to be in the top-seat can quickly cause the team to fall apart?
As Christians we follow a God who deserves the seat of honour in the universe and yet humbly gave it up to die on a cross for the sake of others – for the sake of the team. This is Jesus’ way, and so in your sport follow his example and be a force for good in your club – because as we all know ‘there’s no I in team’.
Pete
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