Luke: Chapters 7 to 12

Click here for the first part of Luke.

CHAPTER 7

Here’s a story we saw in Matthew: Christ heals the servant of a Roman centurion, and along the way Christ praises the centurion for having more faith than anyone he’s seen in Judah.  It’s not surprising that this story would make it into Luke, given that this is generally seen as being the most negative gospel towards Jews. 

There was one part I found especially striking here.  The Roman tells Christ, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you under my roof.”  Did people openly call Christ “Lord” like that in the previous gospels?  Not that I recall.  (Checks back to Chapter 8 of Matthew).  Oh, the centurion said the exact same thing then.  So never mind me.  Still, with Luke beginning with multiple angelic visits, it has me primed to see more lordly involvement all around here.

Next up, Jesus raises a widow’s son from the dead.  Previous gospels gave us a story of Jesus raising someone thought to be dead, but he said was only sleeping.  There is no grayness here – he raises a dead son; just like Elijah and Elisha back in the day.  Luke reports that news of Christ’s doing spread across Judah.  Yeah – then why did Matthew and Mark forget this story?  My answer: the story wasn’t around then, but was around later when Luke wrote this.  It’s tall tales getting taller over the passage of time.  It’s likely the story of the dead/sleeping person being retold, only this time made to be fully dead.

John the Baptist – still not dead apparently – has his messengers ask Jesus if he’s the real deal.  We’ve seen this before in the previous gospels, but it has a different feel here.  In the previous gospels, Christ was just a follower of the Baptist, but in Luke he’s a cousin.  In this chapter, both of their births were foretold by angels.  In other words, it’s a little stranger that John would be in the dark on Christ’s divine nature here.  Shouldn’t he know?  He’s the man’s cousin, after all.

Luke ends with a new story; one not found in previous gospels.  Jesus had dinner at the home of a Pharisee.  This is unexpected.  He’s still their opponent, but at least on somewhat cordial relations with them here.  This isn’t the last time we’ll see Christ eat with a Pharisee. 

While there, a woman – name not given – sits at Christ’s feet, and bathes his feet with her tears, and then wipes it up with her hair.  The Pharisees are put off, because she’s a woman of ill repute.  But Christ chastises them for chastising her.  The people who sin the most are the most in need of forgiveness and the happiest when they receive it, Christ tells them.  So of course she’s the happiest to see Jesus and have him forgive her.  And since he’s done so, she’s shown great love for him by her actions.  He tells the woman to go in peace.

It’s a really nice story.  The details of wiping his feet with her air makes the girl sound kind of pathetic.  One concern: while Jesus comes off nice at the end of the story, what was he doing while it was going on?  Was he just letting her cry all over him without saying anything to her?  There is a definite awkwardness in that part of the story.  Also, though the Bible never gives a name, I think it’s associated with Mary Magdalene.  I’ll just point out that she’s known as a prostitute, but so far in the Bible she’s never been so identified. 

CHAPTER 8

Well what do you know – as soon as I mention Mary Magdalene, she shows up!  This is the earliest she’s ever appeared in a gospel.  Until now, she just appeared at the very end.  Here we’re told that she’d been cured by Christ of seven demons and gone out. So, still not a prostitute.  But maybe the proximity of her mentioning here and the story in late Chapter 7 gives her that reputation.  I guess – I’m not sure.  (The end of Mark also said she has seven demons driven out of her – but that was the part not in the original ending of Mark, and likely inspired by this tidbit here). 

Other woman also follow Christ – Joanna, wife of Herod’s steward, and Susanna.  Also, we’re told “many others who provided for them out of their resources.” (“them” being Christ and his apostles).  But we only remember the one, Mary Magdalene.

Next come a bunch of parables, but we’ve seen them already.  The story of Legion comes up again.  This time, we’re given this new detail about him: “For a long time he had not worn clothes, he did not live in a house, but lived among the tombs.”  Weird. 

There are a few more miracles we’ve seen already to end the chapter – the swine, a woman whose daughter keeps hemorrhaging.  Christ saves the day, as is his nature.

CHAPTER 9

It’s another collection of things we’ve already seen and read in previous gospels. 

Christ sends his dozen apostles out to spread the word and heal the sick.  They do so and come back. In the meantime, we learn that Herod wants Jesus dead (oh, and he apparently had the Baptist beheaded off-stage sometime last chapter).   But nothing comes of that for now.  When the gang comes back, they feed 5,000 on the Jesus Christ Discount Dining Plan. 

Peter figures out that Christ is the Messiah, but the scene isn’t the same as Matthew or Mark.  In Matthew, he’s profusely rewarded with the keys to heaven for what he learned.  That doesn’t happen here.  Instead, Christ rebukes his apostles and tells them not to tell anyone.  In both Mark and Matthew, in the very next scene Christ calls Peter Satan for trying to talk him out of his sacrifice, but that doesn’t happen here.  Sure, as soon as Christ acknowledges who his dad is, he tells them how the gospel will end – but this time no one tries to talk him out of it.  In all, it’s a much more sparsely told story or two here in Luke.

The introduction said that Luke was a shift in focus.  Whereas previous gospels focused on the imminent coming of the Lord, Luke doesn’t. That’s what the introduction said.  But in Luke 9:27, Christ says this: “Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”  It sure sounds like it’s coming soon.

It’s more of the same.  Elijah and Moses show up on the mountain.  Christ heals people.  He again predicts how the story ends.  He tells everyone that loving God is the most important commandment. 

By the way – this is a long grab bag of a chapter; over 60 verses.  He starts getting ready to leave for Jerusalem near the end, which sure is early. 

CHAPTER 10

Christ has already sent out a mission of his 12 apostles.  Now he sends out a mission for 72 followers.  Or 70 followers – the texts vary.  (70 would make more sense, as it was 70 who followed Jacob into Egypt way back in Genesis.  It’s more symbolically fitting; just as 12 apostles stand for the 12 tribes of yore). 

Christ tells the, “I am sending you like lambs among wolves.”  Not exactly a cheery pep talk, now is it?  You get some hints here that Luke was written after the 66-70 zealot uprising, as Christ foretells doom and gloom – worse than Sodom’s demise he says at one point.  A few towns in particular are cursed for their hostility to the Jesus movement. 

Once everyone returns from their missions, Jesus gives some new prayers (that aren’t that new if you’re read the previous gospels).  At one point he says, “No one knows how the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” Yeah – nice catch there at the end. Until then I was thinking, “No one knows except the Father – and Peter, who you’ve already told.” 

We also get one of the most famous stories in the Bible: the Good Samaritan.  A man is beaten and robbed.  A priest walks by and sees the victim lying there, and goes along.  Then a scribe does likewise.  Then a Samaritan sees him and helps.

The point is as simple as the story.  Just because someone has stature and position and a role that says he’s a moral leader – none of those things really make him a moral leader.  Throughout the gospels Christ has been more concerned with those who follow edicts and rules instead of getting to the core of things – which is love for God and one’s fellow man.  As Pope Francis has publicly said, the core of Christianity is love.  Popes John Paul II and especially Benedict are like the officials who bypass the needy person.  They don’t really help, they just take care of their own rules. 

Samaritans were an outcast sect in Judah.  I don’t know much about them.  I’ve read about them, but forgotten it.  The key part is that they didn’t follow all the same customs and laws.  In fact, they are mentioned at the end of the last chapter.  Christ approached a Samaritan town, but they wouldn’t let him in when the found out he was on his way to Jerusalem.  They didn’t cotton to that.  Two of the apostles asked Christ if he wanted to Sodom/Gomorrah them for that – but he declined.  That story helps make this one that much stronger, because we’re already accustomed to thinking of the Samaritans as jerks (though not as bad as Gomorrah), but here Christ holds up one as an example of how to live and be moral.  Judge someone by their actions, not on their social role.  That’s a good lesson to have.

CHAPTER 11

It’s mostly more stuff we’ve seen already.  Christ gives us the Lord’s Prayer.  He teaches on what prayer is for and that prayers will be answers – “ask and you will receive; seek and you will find.”  That’s still a nice line, just as it was in previous gospels.  (I don’t think it’s fully true, but no matter).

His enemies claim Jesus is in league with Satan, and he makes the same reply he did in other gospels.  People demand a sign, and he says that ain’t how things go.  It’s a lot of the same elements as before, but there seems to be less of a flow.  Maybe it’s because I’ve already read this stuff before, but Matthew felt like it had more of an advancing plot.  Luke just seems like a haphazard miscellany of stuff.  (For example, he throws in the advancement to Jerusalem way, way too early). 

The chapter ends with an extended denouncing of the Pharisees and scholars by Jesus.

CHAPTER 12

Jesus continues denouncing the Pharisees, and then denounces greed while he’s at it.

That anti-greed them leads to a new story – one I haven’t read in Matthew and Mark.  It’s the parable of the rich fool.  A guy has lots of money and wealth, and decides to build a new barn with it.  Christ thinks the man is a fool, because he’s spending money on himself instead of others.  You never know when your day will come or your name will be called.  So – apparently, Christ doesn’t like McMansions.  Good for Jesus Christ.

That said, as Jesus goes on about his life philosophy, it sounds a bit too passive.  People shouldn’t worry about their clothing or their body or the physical.  Don’t worry about that – and worrying doesn’t add to your lifespan anyway.  Even the smallest things are beyond your control, so just let go and accept the Lord’s way.  Why, Jesus Christ is practically flirting with Daoism right here. 

Instead, he suggests people sell their belongings and give alms.  When you really get into Christ’s philosophy and theology, it can get uncomfortable.  Earlier I took a cheap shot swipe at people living in McMansions, but this stuff just as easily applies to me – and everyone else out there.  By the standards he sets here, everyone spends too much money on themselves.  We don’t really let go.  It’s worth remembering that Jesus Christ was ministering to down-and-out-ers in a captured province in the Roman Empire.  Their experience is as far away from modern affluent suburban American experience as you can get.  And even there, Christ was pushing the envelope with what he wanted his supporters to do. 

Jesus then has an entire section on how a servant should act.  Short version: be good to your master.  It’s stuff like this that southern slave owners could point to in order to justify their Peculiar Institution.  We all might be equal under God with his kingdom comes, but in the meantime you act morally by acting properly in your role. 

Well, maybe.  While he might be a religious reformer first and foremost, that doesn’t mean he’s looking to avoid rocking the boat.  The next passage makes that abundantly clear.  Christ tells his followers: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing.” Holy smokes!  (No pun intended).  This is “burn, baby burn!” stuff.  We’ve seen things like this in previous gospels, but never before has Christ ever so openly called for violent social discord.  No wonder the Romans will have him crucified.  Words like that can be taken to mean different things – and if you’re Rome, why take any chances?  

In fact, he goes on, proclaiming: “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.  From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against thee; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father” – and son on from there.  Man, he’s out to fuck some shit up.  This is not the Jesus quote people typically think of first.

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