An Orderly Account: Gospel of Luke

Leaving Luke . . . Meeting Matthew

This week is a pivot point in the year. Not in the calendar year—where attention is focussed on the drive towards the Great Commercial Festival of Christmas—but in the church year. This is the last week of the year, in the calendar which the church follows in its liturgical life. It is the week when the old year ends, leaving behind the Festival of the Reign of Christ, and the new year begins, moving into the Season of Advent, and then on into Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and beyond. And so, the cycle begins once more.

It is also the time of the year when the Gospel which is in focus in the writings heard each Sunday, shifts from one Gospel to another. The year past (identified as Year C in the Revised Common Lectionary) has maintained a steadfast focus on the book which describes itself as “an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us”—a work which know as the Gospel according to Luke.

The year now commencing (identified as Year A) provides us with a tour through another work, which introduces itself as “the book of the origins of Jesus the chosen one”—the work which we know as the Gospel according to Matthew. And so, this week, we are leaving Luke, and meeting Matthew.

Of course, both works tell the story of the man from Galilee, called to a prophetic role of inviting his people to renew their covenant relationship with their God and live faithfully within that renewed relationship; a man who gathered a group of committed followers whom he taught and told stories that offered a vision of God’s realm.

Both accounts relate how those followers travelled with their leader, from Galilee in to Jerusalem, where they witnessed the arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of their leader—who, they subsequently attested, had been raised from the dead and had appeared to them to commission them for their ongoing task. This much is found in both the “orderly account” and the “book of origins”.

So how do these stories differ? Each book came into being in a different context. The “orderly account”, it would seem, originated in a place where the vision of a renewed people, as proclaimed by Jesus, offered a sense of a broad, inclusive community—and people were being challenged to live as that community. The “book of origins”, it appears, came into being in a place where tensions and antagonisms between different groups within that one people had led each group to intensify their sense of who they were—and people were being instructed on the details of the way of righteousness that they were to follow.

What shades of interpretation and differences of perspective are there, when we move from “the orderly account of the things being fulfilled”, to “the book of origins of Jesus the chosen one”? How do these two stories, focussed on the same central person and reporting a largely quite similar set of events, differ from one another?

Luke’s “orderly account” offers a story in which Jesus functions as an eschatological prophet of hope, offering an attractive vision of the coming kingdom, pointing to the ways that God is calling the people of God on earth to work towards the realisation of that vision in the realities of the here and now: good news for the poor, sight for the blind, mobility for the lame, acceptance for shunned outsiders, as a sign of the Jubilee Year being enacted.

We leave that story and move towards a story, in the “book of origins”, that portrays Jesus as a frightening apocalyptic messenger, booming forth a shrill warning about the perils of what is to come, if people do not change their ways and live in accord with the strict demands of the kingdom of heaven: walk the second mile, turn the other cheek, give your coat to the needy, obey each element of every law and commandment, strive to be perfect as God is perfection itself.

We leave behind a story that affirms that salvation is offered to “all flesh”, that salvation has come “this very day”, that soldiers acting unjustly under forced orders will be forgiven, that even condemned political rebels will be welcomed into the realm of paradise in the company of the Saviour. It is a story in which Jesus offers a gracious invitation to the lost and forsaken, a promise that they will be found and restored, a vision of the restoration of the people of Israel, a glimpse of the heavenly realm breaking into the time of the here and now.

We move towards a story that insists that the hope of the future is withheld from those within the chosen people, in Israel, who fail to live in accordance with the strictest interpretations of the laws and commandments that Jesus teaches them, who do not put his stringent teachings into practice in their daily life. The focus of Jesus through much of this story is on the lost sheep within Israel; their response, however, means that only a few enter through the narrow door.

Jesus this insists that those amongst his people who fail to follow his way will be judged for their failure to produce good fruit; they will be cast into a fiery furnace, and condemned for eternity. He persistently calls for a deeper righteousness, a more perfect faithfulness.

Towards the end of this story, however, Jesus looks beyond the people of Israel, and envisages an offer of hope and an acceptance into God’s realm, of those who live with an openness to others at their point of need. He envisages, then, a judgement amongst the nations that does not require the same stringent response as is required within the chosen people.

We leave behind a story that indicates, time after time, that Jesus was the friend of all, that he entered the houses of tax collectors and shared at table with them, that he went to the homes of Pharisees and ate with them, such that they became his friends and followers. In this story, Jesus was able to gather committed followers of people from right across society, who were willing to follow him well into the future. This “orderly account” particularly emphasises the active presence of women alongside men in that inner group of followers.

We move towards a story that specifies the many ways by which Jesus engaged in robust and vigorous disputations about how the laws and commandments were to be understood, and recounts those occasions, both in public and in household gatherings, when the debating style of Jesus moved from debate into polemic, from disagreement into diatribe, from accusation into invective and condemnation of the scribes and the Pharisees, who are sternly portrayed as the enemies of Jesus.

We leave behind a story that values inclusive community, that takes pains to show how Jesus sat at table with the outcasts of the time: utterly impoverished beggars, morally destitute sinners, totally marginalised lepers, and patriarchally oppressed women. The story provides regular accounts of the practice of open table fellowship in the time of Jesus, and points to the fact that this practice came to lay a foundation for a richly inclusive community of insiders and outsiders, women and men, rich and poor, Gentiles as well as Jews.

We move towards a story that emphasises the clarity of identity and passionate commitment that comes from knowing that the one who is followed is The Teacher supreme, arguing out the finer details of beliefs and practices, laying down the foundations for a community which exhibits certainty and confidence in their identity, differentiated from the dominant group of teachers (the scribes and Pharisees), utterly committed to a pathway of righteous living, firmly convinced of the validity of their understandings and interpretations.

We leave behind a story that has sought to prepare the way for a larger, more encompassing story, in which the small movement of immediate followers of Jesus blossoms out into a growing and impressive movement of committed people who become fervent and effective in their mission, welcoming newcomers in an inclusive manner and broadening the movement in waves of growth, such that it ultimately reaches “to the ends of the earth”.

We move into a story that mostly gives no indication of this wider impact of the message of Jesus (save only for a short final command to “go into all nations”), and which demonstrates far more concern for establishing a deeply committed community of practice of a small number of people within the heart of Israel, as people are renewed and rededicated to upholding the laws and commandments to the ultimate degree.

That’s the turn that we take, at this time, as we leave a year focussed on Luke’s “orderly account”, with a Jesus who proclaims and enacts a gracious invitation into a realm of inclusion and hope. We are moving into a year tracing the story provided in Matthew’s “book of the origins”, where Jesus is intent on teaching the essence of righteousness and demanding intense adherence to this way of life.

The challenge for us, then, is to be honest about the nature of the story in this “book of origins”, and to declare, faithfully and clearly, what this story tells us about what it means to follow Jesus, the chosen one, in our own time.

For more on Luke’s “orderly account”, see

https://johntsquires.com/2019/01/31/an-orderly-account-a-quick-guide-to-luke-and-acts/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/02/05/costly-discipleship-according-to-luke/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/22/jesus-and-his-followers-at-table-in-lukes-orderly-account/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/04/26/the-cross-cultural-nature-of-the-early-jesus-movement/

Ministry and Mission in the midst of change and transition (Luke 21:13)

When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

“But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. (Luke 21)

In the long and disturbing speech that Jesus gave to his earliest followers towards the end of his ministry with them, he outlines what lay ahead in time for the people of his time—a speech referring to wars and insurrections, earthquakes, famines and plagues; betrayals, arrests and imprisonments; and even hatred. And we might want to add, from our immediate context, in the midst of a changing climate, more aggressive heatwaves and out of control bushfires—with all the damage and grief that this brings, as we have so recently seen.

In the midst of this speech, Jesus offers these simple, potent words: [all of] this will give you an opportunity to testify (Luke 21:13). I hear this as a piercing call to be on mission in precisely the tumult and turmoil of life as it rolls along, amidst all the upheaval and distress that life throws at us. Testifying to the hope we have and the love we know because of Jesus, is fundamental to who we are as the church.

To be on mission means to have a sense that we are sent to the people of the world. Mission comes from the Latin missio, the verb “to send”. Towards the end of the Gospel of John, we read that the risen Jesus appeared to his followers and said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20). The first followers of Jesus were charged to be missionaries, sent, on mission, into the world.

In Greek, the corresponding term is apostello, the verb “to send”. The person who is sent for a specific purpose is known, in Greek, as an apostolos. We know how important it was, for the writers of the Synoptic Gospels, to depict the central role of a foundational group within the early church – those known as apostles, or “sent ones”.

We also know how important it was for Paul, who was not numbered among the first twelve, to be accepted as “an apostle of God, sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but [sent] through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Gal 1). The first followers of Jesus understood themselves to be apostles, sent ones, on mission, into the world.

All of these texts feed into the call to be a church of mission, with a clear focus on mission. So the move for a Mission Focus in the local church has emerged out of a growing international and ecumenical grasp of the missio dei … the mission of embracing love towards the world, which God offers through Jesus Christ.

I reflect on this now, in the context of my own denomination, the Uniting Church in Australia. In our Basis of Union, there is a clear articulation of the centrality of Mission in the life of the church. The Basis clearly affirms that, as a Uniting Church, we seek “to enter more deeply into the faith and mission of the Church in Australia, by working together and seeking union with other Churches” (para. 2). Being on mission forms a central and essential dimension of contemporary life for the church.

Mission is at the heart of who we are, as the people of God. Mission is the key feature that we are seeking to highlight, and develop, within the contemporary church.

The importance of mission has been articulated in the Five Marks of Mission, developed by the Anglican Church in the UK and adopted by numerous denominations in many nations around the world. The Five Marks of Mission are:

1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom TELL

2. To teach, baptize and nurture new believers TEACH

3. To respond to human need by loving service TEND

4. To seek to transform unjust structures of society TRANSFORM

5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation
and sustain and renew the life of the earth. TREASURE

They are often summarised in a succinct shorthand fashion, as:

Tell … Teach … Tend … Transform … Treasure

And those key terms help to focus the work of Congregations and people of faith in our current context.

Look up to the sky? Look down to your feet! (Luke 20)

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question…in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be? (from the Gospel set for this Sunday, Luke 20)

A hard question—a trick question, to be sure, crafted by a learned group who wanted to have Jesus floundering, grasping for a firm point, sinking in the quicksand of a belief that they did not share.

I Look up, to the sky

Debate about the afterlife was common in the time of Jesus. Some scoffed at the idea. Others yearned to experience that reality beyond our current reality. God rewarded or punished people in this lifetime. The Sadducees noted that their scripture did not actually refer to a time or place for life after this life; they asserted that there was no “life after death”, so the present was all there is for God to judge people.

The Pharisees disagreed, drawing on a particular interpretation of just a small number of prophetic verses to argue that it was, indeed, in the afterlife that God bestowed his blessings or curses on people, in accordance with their faithfulness.

So, the Pharisees—and the followers of Jesus—taught about the resurrection of the dead, the life after this life, the heavenly realm, the promise that God offers to people of faith, to snatch them out of this life of misery, to take them up in the air to the heavenly realm, where God resides, where true believers are found, where hope is assured.

At least, that is where a traditional understanding of this passage in Luke 20 and the issues takes us. And the same attitudes persist today. What will life be like in the “afterlife”? What will we be doing when we are in the mysterious presence of God into eternity? People still wonder. The hypothetical question of the Sadducees was intended to trip Jesus up. Jesus avoids the trap, jumps over the snare, and focusses attention elsewhere.

The traditional understanding of the world was driven by the ancient Hebrew belief that the world was flat, resting on a set of pillars, there was an abyss of waters, a huge mass of waters under the earth. (See picture)

And in the sky, above the sun, moon and stars, there was a firmament, a dome stretching right across the sky, and above that firmament there was another huge body of water—water which made its way down to the earth when that dome was punctured, water which fell down on people and creatures through the windows in the firmament, and came onto the earth as rain.

Of course, that all made sense to the ancients, who didn’t have the capacity that we have, to see our world from afar, or to measure things off in the distance. A flat earth with a huge domed sky just made perfect sense. That’s precisely what it looked like.

And watching over all this, above the dome, above the waters in the sky, was the heavenly being, God, sovereign lord over the whole creation, safe and secure in his heavenly realm. And that was where faithful believers would end up, after moving beyond this earthly life, into the heavenly realm, to spend eternity with God. Death, for believers, meant ascending into heaven.

Well, that picture of the world, that way of envisaging the reality of our place in the grand scheme of things, does not stand up in the modern world. Driven by the understandings of science, astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry, and biology, we have a very different appreciation of the physical realities of this world.

We are not at the centre of the whole creation, as the ancients once thought. We are on just one planet, orbiting around just one sun—one of many planets, orbiting one of many suns. And our planetary system is but one such system in the galaxy we inhabit—one of many, many galaxies, stretching out, not just as far as the eye can see, but as far as we can conceptualise time, and space—light years, that distance which is covered by light travelling in a vacuum in one calendar year, 365.25 days as we measure them.

And we know that we are able to look through our telescopes far off, into the distance, back in time, across hundreds and hundreds of light years, into this magnificently wonderful, complex, inspiring creation, of which we are but a tiny, tiny part.

And in that context, then, the stereotyped image of the stern white-haired bearded ancient of days, seated on a throne amidst the clouds in heaven, surrounded by angels, serenaded by hymns of praise, watching over the saints in heaven who have been saved and the people still labouring on earth—this caricature, this conceptualisation of God and heaven, no longer makes sense.

So I have some questions about what really was meant, when Jesus refers, in the debate, to angels and children of God, being children of the resurrection. Did he have this heavenly realm of angelic creatures firmly in view?

And for us, today: Does this bear any relationship to the way that we visualise the scene, of seven brothers, deceased, but raised to life, in heaven? And does it disturb us, that our current understanding of the world, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe—the whole cosmos—this understanding really has no place? That God in the clouds up there in heaven does not actually make sense? That the Bible, at this point, doesn’t speak to our reality?

II Look down, to your feet

So now, hear this poem, There Are Stones That Sing, which was written by Lisa Jacobson, a contemporary Australian poet and novelist. This was one of the poems offered during the recent Annual Retreat for Ministers and Pastors in the Canberra Region Presbytery. It offers a different perspective, a different understanding, of God and the world.

There Are Stones That Sing

The churches are almost empty or sold,

as if they’ve reached their tipping point,

and from the pulpits, god slid out.

And all that fanciful gold leaf

on heaven’s floor was incinerated

by our telescopes, whose lenses caught it in their scope.

And bits of tattered god fell down.

I’ve heard that âme (‘soul’ in French)

is the name of a wooden chip,

very exposed and vulnerable,

that violin makers insert into

the bodies of their instruments to further enhance the sound.

So maybe that’s where god lives now.

If you ask a priest, he’ll point up.

If you ask black fellas, they’ll point down

to stones that sing

and rivers vibrating underground.

In this poem, Lisa Jacobson reflects, firstly, on the way that science appears to have punctured the traditional Christian view of reality; the fanciful gold leaf on heaven’s floor is incinerated by the piercing gaze of astronomers looking out into distant space through their intensely powerful telescopes. No matter how far they looked, no matter how many millions of light years away, they can see no trace of God sitting on the clouds up in heaven.

So the poet reflects the modernist view that God is an ancient idea which has had its day. God slid out from the churches; bits of tattered god fell down from the floor of heaven, she writes.

It’s a confronting image of the place of religious faith in the contemporary world.

But the part of the poem that really took hold of my imagination, from the first time I heard the poem, through my multiple re-readings of it during the retreat, was the closing section. If you ask where God lives now, she writes;

If you ask a priest, he’ll point up.

If you ask black fellas, they’ll point down

to stones that sing

and rivers vibrating underground.

And that is a stanza that offers a different perspective, a variant understanding, a refreshed imagining of how we encounter God, and where we encounter God. Not, look up, to the heavens; but rather, look down, look at your feet, look past your feet, to the stones—hear them singing? and the rivers—feel them vibrating?

Stones singing and rivers vibrating; that twofold expression of the inner life of the earth is also the key that unlocks a different understanding of God—as a being not remote and removed from humans on earth, but as a being beside us, around us, underneath us, in the earth, in the stones, in the rivers, in our very being.

And this, of course, is rightly acknowledged in this poem, as the insight of black fellas—the centre of spirituality for the First Peoples of this ancient continent. God is in the land, God is in amongst us.

This understanding of where we find God, how we enter the depths of spirituality, is set forth very clearly in the Statement from the Heart, which was made by a representative gathering of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, meeting at Uluru in the heart of the continent, in May 2017.

That Statement refers to a deeply spiritual notion for the First Peoples:

the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors.

This idea is set forth as the basis for the claim that the First Peoples have sovereignty of the land; this link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

But as well as this political claim—sovereignty—there is a spiritual claim. This ancestral tie to the land is what nurtures and grows and sustains the people. Take the people away from their land, and their spirits shrivel, their lives are diminished. Enable the connection between people and land to be maintained, and the people and the land flourish.

III God, not of the dead; God of the living

And so, now, we go back, and read the story told in Luke 20 again—a story of Jesus, debating with the Sadducees, about marriage, relationships, resurrection and the future, a story of debate and discussion.

Yes, there are elements that point very clearly to the ancient Hebraic worldview that saw God as remote, removed, above the clouds, above the sun and moon, beyond the firmament, far away in heaven, where resurrected beings danced as angels.

But alongside that, let us hear the way that Jesus ends the debate, moving away from the future orientation of resurrection life in the time beyond this life, placing the emphasis right back on the present moment: the Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.

Jesus focusses on what is most important. Worry not about God in relation to the dead; focus on the now, on what we do in our lives, on how God is the God of the living. That is the punchline that he provides. That is consistent with what he instructs us to pray: your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. That is consistent with what he teaches about the kingdom of God: the kingdom of God is among you.

This is consistent with what the psalmist affirms about the earth: the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. And again, what the psalmist sings: Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures … When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground. Yes, God is here, in the midst of our lives on this earth, in this time and place.

Our God is God of the living. We do not need to wonder where God is, far away from us, high up in the heavens, distant and remote. God is among us. Look down. See the stones. Listen to the rivers. Care for the creation. Nurture life in this world. God is God of the living.

Zacchæus: patron saint of change and transition (Luke 19)

The Gospel passage for this coming Sunday offers us a familiar story—yet another one of the stories from the life of Jesus which is recorded in only one place, the “orderly account” that we have been following this year, which we know by custom and tradition as The Gospel according to Luke. (See https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/an-orderly-account-a-quick-guide-to-luke-and-acts/)

For Luke alone tells us about Zacchæus of Jericho—a man short of stature, but undoubtedly rich in money and possessions, if I read the text accurately. And an agile character, too—how many of us would be able to shimmy up the nearest syacamore tree so that we could see easily over the heads of the taller people standing in front of us?

At any rate, it is not the appearance, or wealth, or agility of Zacchæus that draws my attention as I hear again this story. It is, rather, in the words that he speaks, after he has seen, and interacted with, Jesus of Nazareth. Not only does Jesus stop and talk to Zacchæus, clinging bravely to the tree trunk, but he invites himself and his retinue to the house of Zacchæus, where they share a meal together.

And the words which Zacchæus speaks are words which should be ringing in our ears, today. “ I am a man of possessions”, he declares; and yet, “half of my possessions I will give to the poor”. He takes seriously what Jesus has just told the rich man a few verses back: sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven (18:22)—and, indeed, what he had instructed all who would follow him, in an earlier chapter: sell your possessions, and give alms; make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys (12:33).

In this regard, Jesus and Zacchæus are being utterly faithful to their Jewish tradition, following the command of the lawgiver Moses, in Deut 15:7, if there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbour; and the words attributed to prophet Isaiah, in Isa 58:6-8, is this not the fast that I have chosen: … to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh? ; and again, in words attributed to King Lemuel, in Proverbs 31:7, speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor.

Zacchaeus commits to acting with integrity. He will give to the poor.

But then, Zacchaeus commits to still more: “I am a man of means, wealth gained through my profession as a collector of taxes”, he affirms; and yet, “to those I have defrauded, I will repay fourfold”—going far beyond what had been commanded in the Law, according to Leviticus 6:2-5, when any of you sin and commit a trespass against the Lord by deceiving a neighbor in a matter of a deposit or a pledge, or by robbery, or if you have defrauded a neighbour … you shall repay the principal amount and shall add one-fifth to it. Zacchaeus goes way beyond paying back 120%; he pledges to pay 400% to those he has defrauded. That is the radical economics of Jesus, and of Zacchaeus!

I will give my possessions to the poor; I will repay those I have defrauded. Serious words, signalling serious intent. And what are we to make of the fact that the story of Zacchæus was told and retold, remembered and written down, passed on through the early communities who followed Jesus, and retained in one of the key books of sacred scripture in the Christian church?

For myself, this surely indicates that Zacchæus was a man of his word, that Zacchæus carried out the intentions that he had signalled around that table in Jericho, with the man of Nazareth and his rag tag collection of Galilee fishermen and farmers, along with the women of means and capacity that Luke especially tells us were accompanying Jesus on this journey from Galilee to Jerusalem.

Zacchæus is worth remembering for various reasons, no doubt; a rather colourful character, in the midst of a whole host of followers of Jesus who blur together into a homogenous whole, who fade into obscurity as anonymous figures in the background as Jesus and his disciples, make and female, make their way to Jerusalem. Zacchæus, this colourful character, is remembered, his story is retold, his encounter with Jesus is remembered, and inscribed in scripture, because: he was willing to change his mind.

In Christian tradition, Zacchaeus is sometimes remembered as the patron saint of stewardship, teaching us how to look after our money, or the patron saint of humility, because he was prepared to come down from his vantage point up the tree. For myself, I want to follow the lead that the evangelist who wrote this Gospel offers us, and claim that Zacchæus is the patron saint of change and transition; or if you are not really into saints, then think of Zacchaeus as the role model supreme for being willing to change his mind.

Zacchaeus reminds us that an encounter with Jesus, an engagement with the Gospel, invites us—indeed, presses hard upon us—to change our minds, and our behaviour. Just think about what Zacchaeus does, in this story:

He comes down from his tree. He reaches out to a person passing by, whom he has just encountered. He was willing to be challenged, and accepted the invitation to deeper fellowship with the stranger from Nazareth.

He held his mind open to new possibilities and looked for the ways that he could transition into the kind of person God wanted him to be. He was willing to help those in desperate, destitute situations, and prepared to repay what he had falsely taken and to set forth in a new way of being.

So he looked to the road ahead, where the man of Nazareth was walking onwards, and stepped out in faith on the journey ahead. That’s what it took for Zacchaeus, the patron saint of change and transition!

In defence of the Pharisees: on humility and righteousness (Luke 18)

The Gospel parable set for this coming Sunday is a parable which Jesus told about a Pharisee and a tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). This is one of the texts that is regularly used, in a most negative way, to berate the Pharisees for their self-righteousness and legalism. This feeds into an understanding of Jesus as a hardline critic of the Pharisees, regularly berating them for these deficiencies. That is a most unfortunate line of interpretation to take.

First, it is noteworthy that the Pharisees in Luke’s Gospel are regularly portrayed in ways that demonstrate a positive relationship with Jesus. Most strikingly, Jesus is found at table with Pharisees on a number of occasions: in the house of Simon, a Pharisee (7:36–50); by invitation of another Pharisee, in his house along with a lawyer, and scribes (11:37–54); again, in the house of a prominent Pharisee, with lawyers also present (14:1–24).

There is another occasion, when Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners (15:1–32), where the opening verses (15:1–2) infer the additional presence of Pharisees and scribes at the meal. Eating a meal together was a clear sign that positive and mutually respectful relationships existed between Jesus and some Pharisees, at least.

Pharisees also acts in friendly ways to Jesus when they come to him to warn him about Herod (13:31) or ask him to explain his understanding of the kingdom of God (14:20-21) or seek to quell the uproar being caused by the disciples of Jesus (19:39-40). Not all of the encounters that Jesus had with Pharisees were negative or confrontational.

The early movement of followers of Jesus included Pharisees (Acts 15:5 — and even, quite strikingly, some priests, in 6:7 !). Paul was one such Pharisee, as he declares that he had been raised as a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), and there is an interesting scene later in Acts where some Pharisees (in dispute with some Sadducees) actually stand in support of Paul (Acts 23:7-9).

So the relationship is not thoroughly antagonistic. Both Jesus and, later, Paul, did have robust discussions and disagreements with Pharisees, but neither of them wrote the Pharisees off as lost causes or doomed to perdition. We should not use Pharisee as a cipher for a self-righteous or hypocritical person who has no humility — accusations that could well have been made in the heat of an argument.

Second, this unfortunate negative line of interpretation concerning Pharisees is based on a gross misunderstanding of the Pharisees, their faith, and their activities. All too often, Pharisees are misrepresented and scapegoated by Christians (especially since the rise of anti Semitic theologies in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), using them as a foil for their own views of a more positive Christian faith.

So: what do we really know about the Pharisees?

The scribal Pharisees specialised in the interpretation of Torah and in the application of Torah to ensure that holiness was observed in daily living. In contrast to the Sadducees, the Pharisees were very popular amongst the ordinary Jewish folk. This may well have been because they undertook the highly significant task of showing how the Torah was relevant to the daily life of Jewish people.

The story of Ezra, told in Nehemiah 8, gives an example of this in practice, referring especially those who “helped the people to understand the law” (Neh 8:7). Whilst the priests upheld the Torah as the ultimate set of rules for operating the Temple, the Pharisees showed how the Torah could be applied to every aspect of daily life as a Jew.

Most Jews went to the Temple only rarely—and found it to be an expensive enterprise when they got there! But in seeking guidance for daily life, the people were greatly helped by those skilled interpreters of Torah, the scribes and the Pharisees. Josephus comments that the Pharisees were usually held in high regard by the ordinary people of the day.

Since nine out of every ten persons could not read, the importance of scribes—literate, educated, and sympathetic—could not be underestimated. Whilst the Pharisees clustered around towns in Judea, the scribes were to be found in the synagogues of villages throughout greater Israel, and indeed in any place where Jews were settled. Their task was to educate the people as to the ways of holiness that were commanded in the Torah. It was possible, they argued, to live as God’s holy people at every point of one’s life, quite apart from any pilgrimages made to the Temple in Jerusalem.

Over time, the Pharisees and scribes developed particular methods for interpreting the Torah; many of these methods are reflected within the New Testament, as it seems that Paul, each of the Gospel writers, and even Jesus himself, were familiar with such methods of interpretation. They were certainly people of faith, devoted to serving God in humility, and focussed on fostering a sense of righteousness (obedience to the way that God had instructed them) amongst their people.

Associated with this, the Pharisees and scribes devoted much time to verbal discussion of the written texts of Torah, probing the meaning of every law that was recorded in their scripture. These debates were remembered and passed on by word of mouth. Over time, the accumulated body of these oral discussions and debates was accorded a certain authority in its own right. Eventually, the claim was made that the oral teachings were of similar importance to the written text; the Pharisees were said to have had an “oral Torah” alongside the written Torah. Debate over this matter is reflected in texts such as Mark 7 and Matt 15.

So, just as Pharisees debated amongst themselves about how best to interpret the laws given in scripture, so too Jesus engaged in such debates and disputations with them as to how the laws should be interpreted and applied. He used precisely the methods and techniques that the Pharisees themselves employed, with questions, counter-argument, scripture citations, and analogies, for instance.

This form of engagement wasn’t an antagonistic dispute; it was just the vigorous style of such debates. Jesus wasn’t looking to dismiss the Pharisees, but to reach into the heart of each law that they were debating together. The debate was taking place to clarify how people were to be faithful to God, living according to the righteousness (or holiness) that God required.

Later, accounts of these oral debates between Jesus and Pharisees were written down in the Gospels that we have in Christian scripture. However, these debates were remembered and recorded in ways that seem to reflect the intensity of fervent debate that was apparently taking place, at that later time, between followers of Jesus, and authorities in the synagogues. They retained the vigorous manner of debates about Jewish Torah, but were set into a polemical context that highlighted the differences and sharpened the sense of argumentative antagonism.

Accordingly, it is reasonable to regard many of the accounts of Jesus in debate with the scribes and Pharisees (such as Luke 11:37-54 and Matt 23:1-36) as more reflective of the antagonism, conflict, and even hatred that had grown between these two groups.

That wasn’t the historical reality. But it came to be the way that the followers of Jesus after his lifetime (and after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE) most often remembered the Pharisees. And so the trajectory of the stereotype of the Pharisee began.

Both older academic Christian scholarship and popular Christian tradition today perpetuate the stereotype that the Judaism of the time of Jesus was a harsh, legalistic, rigid religion—precisely because of the claimed “hardness of heart” of the Pharisees in their debates with Jesus.

This stereotype was heightened by an unquestioning acceptance of the New Testament caricature of the Pharisees as hypocritical legalists who made heavy demands but had no soul commitment to their faith. It was claimed that they were the leaders of a static, dying religion.

This stereotype has been completely demolished in recent decades—both through the growing interaction between Christian and Jewish scholarship, and also through a more critical reading of the relevant primary texts. It has no place in our contemporary preaching.

In 2009, the Twelfth Assembly of my church (the Uniting Church in Australia) adopted a Statement on Jews and Judaism in which we resolved to:

acknowledge that many of the early Christian writings collected in the New Testament were written in a context of controversy and polemic between the Church and Synagogue;

not accept Christian teaching that is derogatory towards Jews and Judaism;

and encourage its members and councils to be vigilant in resisting antisemitism and anti-Judaism in church and society.

The full statement can be read at https://assembly.uca.org.au/resources/key-papers-reports/item/download/1022_7d707d6a8cd8a2fe2188af65d6f04548

I hope that those who are preaching on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18, bear in mind these things as they prepare and deliver sermons this coming Sunday. Yes, Jesus criticises the particular Pharisee in this parable. No, this was not how Jesus viewed each and every Pharisee that he knew. Yes, Jesus was a friend of Pharisees and entered enthusiastically into robust debate with them. No, he was not intending to write off all Pharisees as pious, hypocritical, self-righteous legalists.

You can read about how the Uniting Church has sought to engage the Jewish Community in constructive dialogue for many years, now, at https://uniting.church/an-introduction-to-the-uca-jewish-dialogue/

and learn about an excellent resource it has produced entitled Light Eternal at https://assembly.uca.org.au/rof/rof-news/item/1986-light-eternal

On the UCA commitment to interfaith relations, see https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/04/friendship-in-the-presence-of-difference-a-gospel-call-in-a-world-of-intolerance-and-hatred/

Unjust judge, shameless widow (Luke 18)

Jesus told many parables. The kingdom of God was the primary theme of many of these parables. Quite a number of his parables are found only in the “orderly account of the things that have been fulfilled among us”— the document which we know as the Gospel according to Luke. We have been hearing a number of these this year, as the lectionary has taken us through this Gospel: the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost (prodigal) son and the lost (elder) son; the Good Samaritan, the rich man who built barns, the man planning to build a tower and the king planning to go to war.

In the parables of Jesus which are found only in Luke’s Gospel, we meet a variety of upper-class people: a rich man who built larger barns for his produce, a tower builder and a king at war, a rich father of two sons, a steward of a wealthy man, a rich man who dressed in purple and feasted daily, a farmer with slaves and a prestigious and powerful judge. In a number of these parables, the way that Jesus tells the story raises challenges for such people: they are called to account for the benefits and blessing s that they enjoy in their lives.

The parable set as the Gospel passage for this coming Sunday (Luke 18:1-8) is a case in point: the prestigious and powerful judge is called to account for the way he does (and does not) dispense justice. Alongside the judge, the widow is held up as a positive role model, because of the way she continues to raise the difficult questions with the judge.

This is regularly understood to be a parable about persistence, with the widow as the key figure. Don’t give up! Keep on pressing the point! Knock on the door of that judge, and keep knocking, until he rises from his sleep and opens the door to you. Don’t let the authorities ignore you or marginalise you. Make a noise! Rouse the sleepers! Agitate! Work to see your demands brought to fruition!

Now, a standard way of interpreting parables is to allegorise them. That means, drawing clear lines of connection between the characters in the story, and people in real life. Classically, the judge who was being disturbed by the persistent widow, knocking on his door, perhaps crying out in the dead of night, this judge is usually equated with God. The persistent widow, by contrast, is equated with faithful people, praying to God.

If that is done, then we are provided a most disturbing picture of God. Do we really see God as unjust, oblivious to the cries of need around him, asleep in bed as the needs of the world grow larger and more pressing? It is not, I would suggest, how people of faith really conceive of God.

What about turning this interpretation on its head? Even though the text suggests that we interpret the judge as a symbol,for God, that isn’t the end of the matter. If the text is about prayer, then it is about the two-way interaction that happens when we pray. Prayer is as much about what we say to God, as it is about what God says to us, what we hear when we pray, what is pressed upon us from our close and intimate engagement with our Creator.

So, if we flip things in the parable—what about if we see the judge as a symbol of systems in our human society? Like our systems often become, the judge was inflexible, aloof, resistant to interference, opposed to alteration. And why not see the woman as a picture of God? Persistent, incessant, calling out the injustices of our society, raising a ruckus when things are unfair or inequitable.

Read like this, the parable is about the way that God continues to press on us, challenging us, confronting us, pushing us to grow in our discipleship and deepen in our faith.

Finally, there is one more aspect of this parable that I want to raise. If we explore the word used to describe the widow in the original Greek of this Gospel, the word that is usually translated as “persistent”, we will find that the original Greek is more accurately rendered as “shameless”. How about that picture of God—the one who is utterly shameless–shamelessly persistent in making demands of us?

In this way of reading the parable, the widow acts in precisely the way that Lady Wisdom is portrayed in Proverbs 8:1-4. She, a female, is on the public arena of ancient Israel: On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out. These locations were where men were expected to be active, and the gates to the town were the places where men gathered to discuss Torah and determine cases brought to them as judges.

For a woman to be there, and to be vocally active in such a public way, was a breach of the honour-shame code. Women speaking out in public were acting in a way that challenged the honour of the men who alone “rightly” belonged there. They did not adhere to the posture and action of shame that they were required to demonstrate, as the flip side of honour. They were acting in a way that demonstrated they were shameless.

The widow, pressing the point with the judge, is not only persistent, but—like Lady Wisdom, like God as we listen to and engage with God—utterly shameless.

Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? (Luke 17)

This year, we have been following the story of Jesus as it is offered to us by the author of the orderly account of the things that have been fulfilled among us–the document which we know as the Gospel according to Luke. (see https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/an-orderly-account-a-quick-guide-to-luke-and-acts/)

This account of the ministry of Jesus gives a prominent place to the journey that Jesus undertook, along with his disciples, from his home region in Galilee, to the capital city of Jerusalem. The journey, in Mark’s Gospel, is all over in just a few verses. You can read about it in Mark 10—and look carefully, it is over pretty quickly!

In Luke’s account, this journey, from Galilee in the north to Jerusalem in the south, starts on chapter 9 and continues right through until chapter 19: that’s 40% of the whole story! The journey gets underway when Luke notes that, at a crucial point during his ministry in Galilee, Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem (9:51). This turn of phrase is prophetic term (found often in Ezekiel; see 4:3,7, 6:2, 14:8, 15:7, 21:2, 25:2, 28:21) which indicates his firm commitment to this pathway, but also indicates the judgement that will take place through this visit.

But significantly, the first thing that Jesus does on this journey is gather a larger group of his followers, seventy such disciples (or in some versions, seventy–two), to begin in the role that will later consume their lives. He sends them out to proclaim the central message that the kingdom of God has come near (10:1–12; cf. 9:2).

Quite significantly, when the seventy are sent out, they are in the region of Samaria (9:51-62). The Samaritans were difficult customers; James and John actually wanted Jesus to invoke the wrath of God and consume them (9:54). Jesus, by contrast, refuses to do this (9:55) and charges the seventy to preach a message peace to the Samaritans (10:5) and to declare the good news, that God’s kingdom is right there, in midst of them (10:9,11; cf. 9:2).

It is noteworthy, then, that after chapter 10, the next time that Luke reports an actual location for Jesus and his disciples, is in the passage set for our reading this week, in chapter 17. And that location, strangely enough, is no different from the starting point of the journey. Yes, after seven long chapters of travelling, Jesus and his disciples are still up north: On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee, Luke reports (17:11).

In this story, Jesus heals a group of ten lepers. They, of course, are jubilant at being healed, no longer outcasts, but restored to health and reconnected with family and friends. However, as Luke reports, only one of these ten lepers had the grace, and the gratitude, to return to Jesus and thank him for what he had done to them all.

According to Luke, ‘one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? (17:15-18).

Only one; and that one, a Samaritan—a member of the despised northern tribe, the people who had long been at loggerheads with their southern neighbours in Judea, as well as with the people in Galilee, from where Jesus and a number of his first followers came.

These two stories, both set in and around Samaria, the enemy territory (as it were), set out some significant aspects of the ministry of Jesus.

On the way, Luke reports on the teachings and healings of Jesus and his encounters and debates with various people. Many of these reports are drawn from a special source that only Luke seemed to know, as well as another source known as ‘Q’, which provides material for both Luke and Matthew. So the journey, over ten chapters in Luke, provides the context for a rich selection of teaching and instruction at depth.

When Jesus sets his face towards the city to bring God’s judgement upon it (Luke 9:51), he knows what the cost will be for himself, personally. He is clear that he must travel with that end in view (13:33). When he enters the city, he comes as the messenger of divine judgement (19:44); the visitation of God is a biblical phrase for executing diving judgement. Along the way, he encounters opposition and criticism.

That started with the Samaritans, at the end of chapter 9, reflected in the antagonistic words of James and John, who wanted Jesus to pronounce judgement on them. At the start of the journey, the relationship is one of opponents. Jews and Samaritans do not get on.

But here, in chapter 17, as the journey has been underway for quite some time, the relationship between Jesus and his followers, and the Samaritans, has been transformed. Indeed, from amongst all ten of those keepers who were healed, only one returned to give thanks—and that one was a Samaritan! And perhaps this one solitary Samaritan might well signal the turnaround in understanding about Jesus.

No longer an opponent. No longer an enemy. Now, a friend. Now, a companion along the way. The turnaround is remarkable.

And yet—let us also remember that, back there are the start of the journey, in the early days, Jesus was already signalling this message. Immediately after the seventy had returned from their mission of proclaiming the kingdom, Jesus engaged in a debate with a scribe, a teacher of the Law. What must I do to inherit eternal life? was the scribe’s question. Love God, and love Neighbour, was the reply from Jesus, drawing directly from the very Law that the scribe knew and taught.

Who is my neighbour? the scribe then asked. And Jesus, typically, replied by telling a story. It’s a story reported only in Luke’s Gospel. Thank goodness for Luke, and for his special sources! It is the story that reveals who the neighbour actually is—yes, the neighbour is a Samaritan. The story is the parable of the Good Samaritan.

So, for Jesus, it is clear, from early in the journey, through until towards the ends of the journey. He reaches out, offering a hand of friendship, inviting a relationship of acceptance, to the traditional enemies—the Samaritans.

And even more strikingly, if we attend to the geography that Luke provides us, all of the journey thus far has been in or around or near to Samaria. Not in Galilee, the home territory of Jesus. Not in Judea, in the area around Jerusalem, the religious centre and economic capital of that region, he has been teaching and healing, preaching and telling parables, amongst the Samaritans—those very outsiders, in the traditional way of viewing things.

This returning, healed leper, was a Samaritan—an outsider, a foreigner, in the traditional understanding of the time. And yet, Jesus not only heals him, but commends him: your faith has made you well, he says to the Samaritan—as he had earlier said to the sinful woman who anointed his feet (7:50), and the haemmhoraging woman who touched the fringe of his clothes (8:48), and as he will subsequently say to the persistent widow (18:8) and the blind beggar outside Jericho (18:48), just before he finally enters Jerusalem.

And these figures, all outcasts because of their circumstances, were welcomed and affirmed by Jesus. They are the great examples of faith, in this Gospel! They are the ones whom he praises! Jesus demonstrates a gracious openness to those whom society regarded as unclean, despised, outcast.

Indeed, as Luke tells the story of Jesus, and then stretches it out to tell the story of the early church, in the book of Acts, we encounter, not only this foreigner, the healed Samaritan leper, but a number of other foreigners, whom Jesus accepts, and affirms. For instance, early in his ministry, he tells the old story of Naaman the Syrian, another foreigner, another leper, who was healed, and served as an example of faith (Luke 4; and at a key point in the second volume, Acts, we encounter the story of yet another foreigner, the centurion Cornelius, who becomes the first Gentile to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10).

So Naaman and Cornelius stand, with the anonymous Samaritan leper, as key signals for this central truth in the message and the practice of Jesus: Grace is offered openly, abundantly, to those who would be regarded by tradition as being beyond the pale. The Gospel, the good news, the message of the kingdom of God, is a message that opens out, that stretches out to reach beyond the traditional limitations of understanding, with an invitation shaped by gracious openness.

https://johntsquires.com/2019/08/26/disreputable-outsiders-invited-inside-parables-in-luke-14/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/02/05/costly-discipleship-according-to-luke/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/an-orderly-account-a-quick-guide-to-luke-and-acts/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/the-beloved-physician-the-lover-of-god-and-loving-our-enemies-luke-6/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/04/17/the-death-resurrection-and-ascension-of-jesus-in-lukes-orderly-account/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/the-cross-cultural-nature-of-the-early-jesus-movement/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/the-calling-of-saul-and-the-turn-to-the-gentiles-modelling-the-missional-imperative-acts-8-12/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/22/jesus-and-his-followers-at-table-in-lukes-orderly-account/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/07/02/from-learners-to-leaders-deepening-discipleship-in-lukes-orderly-account/

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