The meal in the house of one of the Pharisees, because of its rich symbolic meaning--a feast as the Messianic Kingdom--immediately gives Jesus material for new parables about the Kingdom He came to proclaim to people.

Fish, as the saying goes, look for deeper water, and people look for a better place. None of the invited guests wants to sit with a man disfigured by dropsy; let him come another day, since seeking healing on the Sabbath is a sin. Feasting is best with friends and neighbors whom you know, who smell pleasant, and who will not let your rich dishes disappear without return; they too will invite you to a "return dinner." And if you are a guest, it would also be good to sit at the head of the table, closer to the generous host.

This is ordinary human life, but for every situation Jesus finds the apt word, without moralizing or angry denunciations. He simply, as if joking, shows us, sitting with Him at table in the Pharisee's house, the whole absurdity of our normal life when one looks at it "from the point of view" of God's Kingdom.

Usually people taking their first steps in knowing Scripture rejoice at the apparent clarity of this text. How good it is, they think, that "the one who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted." And they try with all their strength to learn the science of humility. But soon they discover that humility is not such a simple thing. That there is inward humility and outward humility. That there is humility as the antithesis of insolence, and there is humility as the antithesis of boldness.

It would seem that the ideal of humility is the Mother of God: "...let it be to me according to Your word (Luke 1:38)". But we address her with the words: "Rejoice, boldness of mortals before God" (Akathist to the Mother of God, Ikos 3). In other words, we must understand what true humility is, which at the proper time gives way to true boldness, and what is the desire to exalt oneself, whether before people or before God, for the sake of elevating one's own person. Here everything is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Let us reflect on this prayerfully.

It is striking that the Pharisees are silent in response to Christ's question whether it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. In fact, deep down they thought that doing this was not lawful. Whether healing is work, "doing one's own work," forbidden on the Sabbath, is a big question. The Pharisees thought that it was work, but their opinion was far from obvious. More importantly, the Pharisees believed that a person who had been sick for a long time could wait until the next day, so that no troubling situation would arise. After all, perhaps the Almighty would still consider healing to be work and, consequently, a violation of the commandment.

The Lord does not agree with this point of view. He compares the sick man who at last, at the cost of tremendous effort, has reached Him with an ox fallen into a pit, which must be pulled out immediately so that it does not die. Theological doubts and ritual recede into the background before the suffering of a person who has finally come before the face of God. This is exactly what makes Christian faith for us an answer to the question of life and death, not to the question of more or less sinful behavior.