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Introduction to Luke’s Gospel (2nd draft)

Luke’s Gospel – a different structure to Matthew’s, based not on genre but geography.

Although Luke’s gospel is considerably shorter than Matthew’s, you made find that it feels longer to read. This is because it does not have as clear a structure as Matthew. When looking at Matthew we noticed that the divisions in the material were marked by genre, or particular kinds of writing – specifically we noticed how the author moved from narrative or story telling to discourse, long passages of sayings, and back. In Luke’s gospel Jesus’ teaching is intertwined with his activity. With Luke it is geography that gives a sense of order and structure to the narrative. So we will discover that the gospel begins with a prologue containing similar material to Matthew but different content. Geographically the action begins in Jerusalem, at the Temple, not in Joseph’s home, which Matthew presumed was in Bethlehem. All the major stories associated with Jesus’s infancy will take place in the temple in Jerusalem, apart from his birth in Bethlehem. Then the action moves to the river Jordan and the Judaean desert, where Jesus is baptised and tempted by the devil. The public ministry of Jesus begins in Galilee, but then a significant part of the gospel is set around the journey of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, and it is in Jerusalem that Jesus suffers and dies. Whereas in Matthew the resurrection appearances are centred on Galilee, in Luke they all take place in Jerusalem.

Similarities and differences in the prologue (LK 1:4:13) – The genealogies in Matthew and Luke compared.

As in Matthew so Luke too has a genealogy, but Luke’s genealogy appears in ch 3, not at the very beginning, beween Jesus’ baptism and his temptations.. His genealogy works not forwards, from Abraham to Jesus, but backwards from Jesus to Adam. What is most interesting perhaps are the names. The kings of Judah, so prominent in Matthew, are missing and Abraham appears as just one of a line, rather than at the beginning. Taken together this would suggest that Luke is less interested in Jesus’ relation to Judaism than to his relationship with humanity as a whole. And the reason the genealogy appears here, not at the beginning, is so that Luke can emphasise Jesus’ baptism is the beginning of a story that will contrast Jesus, the son of God, with Adam, the flawed son of God who was seduced by Satan’s temptation, unlike Jesus. Jesus then is truly a new beginning to the story of humanity.

The geographical structure of Luke’s gospel contd.

After the temptation story at the beginning of ch. 4, the geographical markers continue to determine the structure of the story. The next part of the story begins in Galilee, specifically in Nazareth where Jesus had been brought up (in Luke’s story it was Roman administration and their requirement of a census that accounted for Jesus’ birth in

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Bethlehem). In Galilee he preaches in the synagogue at Capernaum before departing for a more wide ranging ministry where he recruits disciples, heals people who approach him or are brought to him, forgives a paralysed man, and even heals on the Sabbath, thus enraging the local Pharisees, though not to the extent that people want to kill Jesus, as happens early in the gospel of Mark. Why this should be I will explain later.

At 9:51 there is a change of gear. When the days of his being taken up were fulfilled, Jesus set his face to journey in the direction of Jerusalem. What that means is that we are entering into a new stage of Jesus ministry, which takes the form of a journey Jesus makes with his disciples. In the Greek ‘the setting of the face’ marks a firm resolution, not to be derailed by any obstacles. The journey is to end in Jerusalem, the home of the Temple and the most important symbol of the presence of God among His people, the place of pilgrimage ‘par excellence’, but for Jesus it is to be the place of his death and resurrection, the threshold for his departure from earth to heaven. A few verses before (19: 31) in the Transfiguration scene, Luke in his version had Moses and Elijah speak about Jesus’ Exodos, his going out, with its evocation of the story of the Exodus of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt in order that they might journey to the promised land.

The ‘Journey narrative’ or ‘Travel narrative’, as it is known, goes from 9:51 to 19:27. Luke was not the first to speak of a journey by Jesus to Jerusalem. Mark had already done so in ch. 10:1-52 but he did not give it as near the prominence as Luke did. Luke uses the setting of the journey not to repeat Mark’s material (in fact he only uses a few verses of Mark, but to bring together much of his own material that was not to be found in either Matthew or Mark and present it as sayings, teachings and examples of good practice that Jesus used to prepare his disciples for the time after his Exodus when they would have to go out from Jerusalem and be his witnesses.

At 19:28 Jesus reaches the villages of Bethany and Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, which are just outside of Jerusalem, on the final stage of his earthly journey. Entering the city, His first act is to cleanse the Temple, and in response to this prophetic gesture a new group come on the scene, the chief priests, scribes and leaders of the people, who unlike the Pharisees are not content to debate with Jesus, but wish to kill him. Jesus’ speeches become more and more provocative until eventually the leaders conspire with Judas to find an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them so that he can be put to death. His arrest, trial and execution quickly follow. After his death the women come to the tomb and find it empty, as in the other gospels, but in the stories that follow, the resurrection narratives, what distinguishes Luke from Matthew, is that all the stories take place in Jerusalem or in the vicinity of Jerusalem. There is no mention of going to Galilee. Peter also is mentioned as running to the tomb, a tradition that will be developed in John.

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So there we have the bare outline of the gospel. The first question we might ask could be, ‘Why the emphasis on geography, and the journey to Jerusalem’? To begin to understand this we have to be aware is that the final words of the risen Jesus in this gospel leave us with a feeling of expectation. The resurrection of Jesus is only the end of the beginning, there is more to come. And Luke gives us more, in the form of the Acts of the Apostles. The gospel might be called the first volume of a two volume work. Acts is the story of how the gospel of Jesus, which at one point seemed confined to the tomb for ever, broke forth and made its way from Jerusalem, out through Samaria to the very ends of the earth, or at least the edge of the Roman empire, carried by the preaching of Peter and his fellow Apostles, and Paul. When Acts ends Paul is in prison in Rome, but he is still preaching. Through the Holy Spirit who came upon Jesus at his baptism the word of God continues to go forth and spread throughout the world. This is a story, in other words, which will keep on running.

So Why did Luke write this gospel?

In the opening 4 verses of the gospel Luke gives us his explanation.. Luke makes it clear in v2 that he was neither an eyewitness of Jesus during his earthly life nor was he one of the original witnesses of the resurrection. He received what had been handed down to him. Nor was he the first to compose a narrative – many others, he said, had done that already. We must presume that at least Mark was among that number. But note too that he does not speak only about the life of Jesus, but rather about the events that have been fulfilled among us. In other words, he is writing a life of Jesus but in the light of the experience of the Christian community he is writing for, and his own experience too, as the writer of Acts. Implied in that statement is the idea that all of the Old Testament pointed towards the fulfilment of God’s plan for the salvation of the world through Jesus, and that fulfilment has now been experienced by Luke and his community. Just as the temple in Jerusalem turned out to be the final goal of the great journey of the people of God to the promised land, so now Jerusalem becomes the starting place for the great journey of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

So what Luke is doing, essentially, is to continue the Biblical story, and show how the emergence of the Church was an essential aspect of that story - the Church which had emerged from a faithful Israel. By shaping the story the way he did (cf the reference to an orderly sequence in v 3), readers like Theophilus (the name = lover of God) could be sure that the story lay on good foundations.

Why might he have had to stress that need for certainty of teaching? The clue is to be found in the gospel and in the story that lies behind the book of Acts. When the story of Acts begins Christianity in Jerusalem is indistinguishable from Judaism. The earliest followers of Christ are faithful to Jewish prayers and traditions, and they visited the temple as they always did. What changed the situation radically, and caused great

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trauma for the young church, was the success of the mission beyond Judaism to the gentiles, in particular as a result of the preaching of Paul. For centuries the Jews, living among the pagans of the Greco-Roman world, had kept their identity through symbols such as circumcision and the food laws, indeed by a comprehensive keeping of the commands of the Law. These symbols and rituals served to keep them apart from their pagan neighbours, and pure for the service of God.

When the gentiles came to hear the gospel and were baptised, it was assumed that these new converts would adopt all the traditions and customs of Judaism, but that was not the case, and Paul in particular was concerned that that should not be so. To see Paul in action in the full heat of conflict one needs to read Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and for Paul’s more nuanced position, the letter to the Romans. Now this would not have been a problem everywhere in the beginning. Paul’s communities were largely composed of Gentile converts, and the communities in Jerusalem were by and large those who came from a Jewish heritage. As long as they stayed apart there would have been no problem. But what happened if some Gentiles wished to join a formerly Jewish community?. Jews did not normally eat with gentiles for fear they would break their kosher laws. So how could they share the eucharist together. And it wasn’t long before gentile communities began to appear near Jewish ones – One can imagine both sides saying, ‘Are the others the same as us?

Something very important was at stake here. The Law had been given by God, so could it be abrogated? If those who had been brought up as Jews continued to observe the food laws absolutely there was no way they could celebrate the eucharist, the foundation of their unity, together with gentiles. By the time Luke came to write Acts somehow the problem had become resolved, at least in principle (see Acts 15 and the Council of Jerusalem), but for many of those who had been brought up in Judaism it would have felt as if they had abandoned God or God had abandoned them, and likewise many Gentiles would have felt uncomfortable too. All needed some form of assurance, and it was the life of Jesus that was to be the foundation for that assurance. That is why the Infancy story in Luke’s gospel begins with characters like Mary, Elizabeth, Zechariah and John the Baptist. In terms of their conception John’s is deliberately portrayed as like Jesus in many ways, but Jesus’s is portrayed as even greater. So Elizabeth, John’s mother is barren, but she becomes pregnant, though advanced in years, through her husband Zechariah. Mary is more than young enough to have a child, but she is a virgin, and she bears Jesus without the co-operation of Joseph. Notice how Joseph barely features in Luke’s narrative whereas he had a very important role in Matthew’s. Mary stands for the believing people of Israel par excellence, those who trusted in God to keep his promises and were prompt to do his will. So does Elizabeth. Zechariah is somewhere in the middle. Initially he cannot

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believe in the words of the angel Gabriel, but eventually he does. He is a symbol of those who repent, who change their mind and outlook in the face of the word of God.

Now way back in the tradition there was a story telling how Jesus was rejected by the people of his home town of Nazareth. Mark (6:1ff) recounts how they took offence at him because he was one of their own, and recalls the saying of Jesus about prophets being without honour in their own country.

Luke takes this story and expands it.by specifying the content of Jesus’ teaching and the negative reaction to it. He begins with a reading from the Prophet Isaiah, and then declares that the Scripture had been fulfilled that day in their hearing. What has being implied here is that Jesus himself is the fulfilment of Scripture. What God had promised in the past had now been delivered in Jesus. Here Jesus is being subtly associated with the greatest prophets of Israel, Elijah and Elisha, who fought to retain the purity and zeal of Israel’s faith against the kings who wanted to compromise it with the ways of their pagan Canaanite neighbours. The quote also functions as a kind of manifesto for Jesus’ mission. First he declares that he has been sent by God, impelled by the Spirit of God. Then he declared that his mission is directed towards the poor, those in prison, the blind and the oppressed, and in the story that follows it is to these kinds of groups of emarginated people that Jesus offers his friendship and his powers of healing.

When the people first hear the message, they are full of applause and approval. But then Jesus reminds them of some home truths. He reminds them how their heroes Elijah and Elisha did not target all their miraculous resources on their own people, but helped outsiders, and pagan outsiders at that – the enemy. This immediately changes the atmosphere from joyful approval to furious opposition and some of the people try to throw Jesus off a cliff. Thus the expanded story becomes a story for those who remembered or took part in that traumatic period when the Jewish and gentile traditions were trying to come to terms with one another. Luke implies that people should not be surprised that such things happen in the church, because they happened in Jesus’ own home town, and they will happen wherever people are confronted with the full word of God.

The Portrait of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel.

In a previous session I suggested to you that we can see four different portraits of Jesus in each of the gospels. These portraits are not in conflict with one another, but rather complement one another. Now that Jesus is risen from the dead in his glorified body, he is not subject to the same constraints that he was subject to on earth so he can be many different things to the Christian community while remaining essentially himself. I suggested that the particular portrait we see of Jesus in Luke is of Jesus as one who walks beside his friends, preparing them to go out on the mission to which they will be

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sent. As Jesus was sent by the spirit of the Lord to give good news to the poor, so will his disciples, past and present, be sent.

The clearest example of this portrait is to be found in the Resurrection narrative, specifically in Luke 24. It is a story most of us know well. Two disciples are walking in the direction of Emmaus after the crucifixion of Jesus. They have heard the story of the tomb being found empty, but it has made no impact on them. A stranger joins them – he has no distinguishing marks to help them recognise his identity – and he walks with them as they discuss their sorrow and disillusionment at the crucifixion of Jesus, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word. – We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel. The stranger then opens up the Scriptures for them to show them how all the things that happened to Jesus were a necessary part of God’s plan.

Specifically in the gospel itself at 22:37, just after the last Supper, Jesus quotes from the prophet Isaiah 53:11 Through his suffering my servant shall justify many and their guilt he shall bear. Therefore I will give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the might, Because he surrendered himself to death and was counted with the wicked; and he shall take away the sins of many and win pardon for their offenses. What Jesus was teaching the disciples to do was to read the whole of the Old Testament as a prophecy that would be fulfilled in the light of the coming of the Messiah. We already saw, how in the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus identified himself with the one of whom Isaiah said, The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me. The prophets, like the great kings of Judah, were the anointed of the Lord. (Messiah is Hebrew for ‘anointed’). Jesus not only carried out a ministry like the prophets, but was greater even than the prophets, and at the Transfiguration it was the two greatest prophets of Israel, Moses and Elijah, who had pointed towards Jesus’ death, his Exodus. In the Book of Acts (ch7) there is a speech by Stephen that will develop this further when he goes through the Old Testament story and shows how throughout the history of Israel there is a consistent pattern of rejecting those whom God had sent, culminating in the rejection of Jesus.

When the three reach Emmaus, they share a meal together, and it is at that moment that they recognise the stranger to be Jesus himself. Then they immediately return to Jerusalem, the place Jesus brought them to, to share the gospel message with the other disciples. Jesus has made himself known to us in the breaking of the bread. Meals are also an important feature of this gospel, but we will come back to this later. For now I want to continue to focus on the theme of Jesus walking along with the disciples.

Now part of the function of this resurrection narrative is to guide us back into the heart of the gospel. Sometimes the endings of the gospels can be read as a kind of ‘contents section’, but on the back page instead of the first. Not a list of contents as we know

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them, but as providing significant pointers to the important message. So where do we see this theme of Jesus walking with his disciples, preparing them for mission?

We have already noted that one of the longest sections of the gospel is the Journey narrative, where we see Jesus walking in the direction of Jerusalem in the company of his disciples. This section begins with Jesus sending 72 disciples out on their own mini mission, instructing them in what they are to do and say, the attitude of mind with which they must go. As will happen with himself, Jesus warns them about the strong possibility of rejection, and when they meet with success he reminds them that this can only happen because their names are written in heaven, because they are under the care of God, and not because of any power of their own.

In this section, Jesus will tell his disciples about the kind of people who will be open to his message, unexpected people like the Good Samaritan, the outside, despised by the establishment and indeed the ordinary people, who by his compassion for the victim of a mugging will prove to be a much better neighbour than the leaders and important functionaries of their own people who simply passed the victim by. Jesus will point to Mary, who risked the wrath of her sister by sitting down and listening to Jesus while she was too busy offering hospitality to take advantage of his presence. Martha, you are so busy about many things, it is Mary who has chosen the better part. Jesus follows this up by teaching the disciples how he prays, and in the course of the journey tells them several stories about the need not only for prayer but for persistent and humble prayer – the Friend at Midnight,, the widow who keeps bothering the unjust judge, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

Luke has more to say about prayer than all the other gospels, and it is not confined to the Journey section. In the Galilee section more than once we hear of Jesus going to a deserted place, explicitly, though sometimes, implicitly, to pray. In his early mission the crowds want him to stay with him. His withdrawal into deserted places seems to give him the strength to move on, to preach the gospel of the Kingdom over a wide area which is the purpose of his having been sent by God. (eg 4:43, 5:15). Indeed it is in prayer that the essential purpose of his mission is kept in sight. He also prays before important occasions in his ministry. So he spends the night before he chooses the Twelve in the mountain on his own, praying. Later his Transfiguration will occur when he has taken his three leading disciples up the mountain to pray, and of course in the final section, after the last Supper, he goes out with his disciples to the mount of Olives to pray. It is Luke who gives us the famous phrase, ‘The Agony in the Garden’. ‘Agony’ here is not about suffering, at least not directly. The Greek word agonia means a contest, a struggle. Jesus has to struggle for victory against the forces that want to bend his mind and will to their own agenda. This is the great moment when Jesus must

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bring his will in line with that of his Father, even if that means he must go to his death, or will his desire to live and not to suffer prove the stronger.

Just to return to this theme of Jesus walking with his disciples and preparing them to preach the gospel, we can notice that it is not absent in the first section either, the ministry in Galilee. One of the highlights of this section is a passage normally referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. In some respects it looks to be the equivalent of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount but it is much shorter than Matthew’s, and much of Matthew’s material is distributed in other places in the course of the gospel narrative. What I would like to highlight is the context in which it takes place. Immediately before Jesus summons the disciples up the mountain where he has been praying and chooses Twelve whom he calls Apostles (=the sent ones). The text goes on to say that he came down with them and they all stand on some level ground. Then he speaks to all the disciples in the presence of the crowd. So they are doing a kind of apprenticeship in preaching, beginning by following the example of the Master. Jesus then goes on to address the poor directly, Blessed are you poor, blessed are you who are hungry etc. Why, because with the presence of the Messiah, their situation changes – it moves from a situation of curse to blessing, from emptiness to being filled. This is an example of the great reversal God brings about which was already anticipated in Mary’s song in Luke 2. The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich he has sent empty away. The second half of that line anticipates what comes next when Jesus pronounces a series of woes – which are like a funeral dirge – Woe to you who are filled now, you will be hungry. This great reversal will also occur in one of the parables, the rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man is in hell and Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham.

But notice the difference in the context of Matthew’s sermon on the Mount. Jesus goes up the mountain, he sits down, the disciples come to him, and he teaches them. Jesus is presented here as the rabbi sought by potential disciples. And he goes on to speak not directly to the different groups of people as in Luke but about them. Matthew’s Jesus here is not doing direct evangelisation as in Luke, but further teaching after the initial evangelisation.

We noticed in the story of the journey to Emmaus how the journey culminated in a meal. Meals involving Jesus are an important feature of Luke’s gospel. Someone once remarked that Jesus always seems to be either going to meals or eating them in Luke. Interestingly enough in the Infancy Narrative it is only Luke who tells us that Jesus is laid in a manger. The manger of course is the feeding trough for the animals. There is some symbolism here – in the manger the Saviour is offered to the world as food for God’s needy creation.

This is what one commentator wrote about Luke’s preoccupation with food. Luke shows a special sensitivity for table fellowship, not just for its own sake but because it is

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a sign of a deeper kind of hospitality that entertains the strange and alien elements of life and looks for good everywhere. This large and generous spirit derives from his faith-understanding of the profound goodness hidden in the mystery of God. Demetrius Dunn, quoted R. Karris, Luke, artist and theologian, Paulist 1985.

It is worth your while looking through the gospel and finding the different places where Jesus is at meals, who he eats with, what is said and what he says. For example, after Levi is called by Jesus to leave his custom post, leave everything behind and follow him, he is still able to provide Jesus with a great banquet in his house. This provides the setting in which the Pharisees complain because Jesus is eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, prompting Jesus to reply that he came not to heal the healthy, but the sick. In the eyes of the Pharisees tax collectors and sinners were outcasts (as would have been Levi), so this is a very strange gathering. Jesus by his presence and his eating with outcasts is acting out a kind of parable of God who as king wishes to share the food of creation with all, even with the non-elect. These people are not to be deprived of the life of God..

Later, during the journey narrative Jesus says to the host at one of the meals, When you hold a dinner, do not invite your friends or relatives or wealthy neighbours in case they may invite you back and you have repayment (which was the whole social purpose). Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to pay you… (14:12ff). The poor, the crippled etc are mentioned because in the prophets they are the particular beneficiaries of the new state of affairs that is brought about when God establishes his Kingdom, but so biased were certain groups against them that it was believed that they would not even be allowed to share in the great banquet of God at the end of time. Outside the pale of society’s concern, they are thought to be outside God’s concern as well.

I would like to go back to one text we have visited before, Martha and Mary. What is interesting about this text is not just the attitudes of the two women, but the fact that the women are there at all. In Jesus’ society women would not have been considered suitable candidates for studying the law but Jesus, contrary to the Rabbis, calls women as well as men to follow him and be ministers of God’s creation. In a world where women were normally marginalised, Luke’s Jesus brings them into the centre.

The final text I would draw to your attention is Luke’s Last Supper. Normally we think about this text in terms of the Eucharist and its institution, but Luke gives it a specific perspective by inserting a passage which in the other gospels is found in the course of Jesus’ public ministry. It is the passage about which of the disciples is the greatest. Luke puts it here to teach the disciples, and us, some Christian ‘table manners’, in other words what is to be, or not to be, the attitude of those who are called to sit at Christ’s

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table. Christ is there as one who serves, and all his disciples then are primarily waiters, not there to be waited upon.

Luke’s is a very rich gospel, and we cannot do it justice in one session. But there is one more important theme that I would like to draw to your attention, and that is the question of rich and poor in the gospel. This has relevance for Jesus’ disciples who are going on the mission, because riches of one kind or another can be an encumbrance to those who wish to give their all to Jesus. Hence when he sends out the seventy-two he bids them carry no moneybag, sack or even sandals. On the surface there appears in Luke to be an antipathy between rich and poor, but the reality is more nuanced. So on the one hand Jesus meets a man who has obeyed the commandments comprehensively but refuses the invitation to sell all he has, distribute it to the poor and follow him, because, says Luke, he was very rich.

But on the other hand we see the character of Levi, who is a customs official and therefore well off. He works, ultimately for Rome and he has access to money. The influx of money that the Roman empire brought was what was responsible for so much poverty and debt in the land at that time. But he would also have been quite marginalised in his Jewish community. To be a tax collector was to be a sinner. Luke’s gospel is not just about a rich/poor ideology.

Though Levi follows Jesus, he still seems to have some cash to spare, and a good house, because he is able to throw a banquet for Jesus. He invites his fellow tax collectors, which would be a natural thing to do, but he also invites the Pharisees and scribes who are happy, it would appear to eat his food but are unhappy with the company. Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners? Notice though that the question is not put to Jesus himself, but to the disciples. The story would have been an encouragement to Luke’s church to do likewise. Levi here is already doing the work of the evangelist. The silent host, nevertheless he has created the possibility of a different kind of community being created through the social phenomenon of a meal. Though Levi has invited his own (which Jesus suggests the good host should not do), nevertheless he also invites those with whom he is not comfortable too, but in so doing he creates a reversal of roles. The Pharisee insiders of their religious society, who are called to be ‘inside’ with the tax collector outsiders, find their role reversed because they are not willing to take the step God’s justice requires.

Another example of Luke’s more nuanced position is the story of Zachaeus, once again a chief tax collector and a wealthy man. But Zacchaeus, like many characters in the gospel, is on a quest, and his journey takes him in the direction of Jesus. Jesus takes the initiative in going out to him and welcoming himself into his house (in normal practice one did not eat with sinners, those who were not ritually pure) – a move which clearly announces to Zacchaeus the end of his quest, and Zacchaeus responds by

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giving half his possessions to the poor, as well as giving retributive justice to those from whom he has extorted money. .But the response to this, says Luke, is that all began to grumble (19;7), because Jesus had gone to stay at the house of a sinner. Peter will have a similar dilemma in Acts about visiting the house of the Roman centurion Cornelius.

Unlike the other Synoptic Gospels, Luke sees Jesus as saviour not only on the cross but during his life. He forgives sins and reconciles people to the community, and does so right up to his death on the cross. Stephen will do the same in Acts and forgive his persecutors who are stoning him. And just as Zacchaeus was converted by the great heart of Jesus, so would one of those who witnessed Stephen’s death, Saul, who as Paul became the greatest evangelist for the Church for all time..