moments like that who considers it his bounden duty to ease the atmosphere by making some inane comment or other. There was just such a fellow at Jesus' table. Determined to keep the conversation within everybody's comfort zone, he nods sanctimoniously at Jesus' allusion to the resurrection of the righteous and adds his own plaudit. 'Blessed is the man,' he says, 'who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God' (Luke 14:15).
This was merely a conventional platitude, the kind of empty cliche that you hear at funerals when people don't really know what to say, but feel they must say something religious. 'Ah, well, vicar, he's gone to a better place now. What is it that old hymn says? There is a happy land far, far away.' You know the kind of thing. In first-century Jewish society, the rabbis talked a great deal about the coming kingdom of God. Prophets like Isaiah had likened it to a huge free feast laid on by God himself that would make even the most lavish banquet at Buckingham Palace look meagre and parsimonious by comparison. So if you were a first-century party-goer, and short of something sufficiently pious to say in the company of clergymen, a useful standby was, 'Blessed is he who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.' This immediately marked you out as a respectable supporter of the ecclesiastical status quo. It was a coded way of saying, 'Oh, you don't have to worry about me, Jesus, I'm very religious.'
And, no doubt, the man expected an equally conventional reply as a result; the first-century Jewish equivalent of 'Amen, brother! Hallelujah!' perhaps, followed by a rapid change of subject to something a little more conducive to the digestion of Black Forest gateau. But if so, he gravely miscalculated. Jesus was far too shrewd to be deceived by his unctuous piety, and far too good a pastor to allow it to pass unchallenged.
You see, it was a classic case of familiarity breeding contempt. This fellow thought he was spiritually OK. He knew about and believed in heaven, and was quite sure
