This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

Jesus answers three questions in our
passage today: What is the kingdom of God like?

Who will enter that kingdom?

And what will it take to be a citizen of
God’s kingdom and Jesus’ disciple?

Jesus answers the first question by
healing two sick people on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath was meant to celebrate
God freeing Israel from its bondage.

So, Jesus frees a sick woman
and liberates a diseased man.

Like a mustard seed bursting out of the
ground, or a lump of dough slowly growing,

these healings are evidence that God’s
kingdom is unexpectedly and subtly arriving.

So, the crowds wonder who will enter
God’s kingdom of rest and freedom.

Jesus tells them that the kingdom’s citizens
won’t be the people who assume they’ve

already arrived or have a
privileged place in God’s history.

People who knock on the door once it’s
closed will find it locked from the inside.

Those who sit in the best seats at the banquet
tables will be asked to sit somewhere else.

Those who turn down wedding invitations will find
their seats given to the lame, blind, and crippled.

Each of these parables is a rebuke to the
Pharisees’ presumption that their lack of

compassion for sinners and the poor could
never take away their position as
“God’s chosen people.”

Jesus warns them that those who consider
themselves first will be last, and everyone they’ve

considered last will take their place as
the first citizens in the kingdom of God.

So, what is Jesus looking for
in citizens of this kingdom?

What will it take
to be his disciple?

Jesus says it will be hard.

It will be like squeezing through a narrow doorway,
carrying crosses, and renouncing everything you have.

It will mean humbling yourself
entirely in order to be exalted.

If you are sick, poor, disabled,
oppressed, or marginalized,

you already know what
it means to be the least.

Your life has already humbled you.

The good news is that Jesus’ invitation to
experience salvation, healing, liberation,
and honor comes to you—the last—first.

Normally, the religious, rich, and privileged
don’t understand and are unwilling to help.

But Jesus is different.

Jesus made friends with
sinners while never sinning.

Jesus’ wealth could not be measured, but
he left it behind to sympathize with the poor.

Jesus is the first over all creation, but
he became the least so he could save it.

Jesus the great renounced everything
to make us, the least, into his disciples.

Now Jesus invites all of us,
whether rich or poor, to follow him.

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see the
great God whose kingdom comes first to the least.

And may you see Jesus as the
one who humbled himself so that

the least might be the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven.