Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Wednesday, February 6, 2013 Read – Luke 7:1-50 Following the “Sermon on the Plain”, Luke relates five episodes, three that are unique to Luke and two that he shares with Matthew. Mark knows none of these stories. All of them have a common theme – they highlight ministry to outsiders and the underprivileged – the very people lifted up in the sermon. In a way they are exhibits of Jesus following the very ethic he calls for in the sermon. The first episode is of a centurion who has a slave who is sick to the point of death. This is one of the stories Luke shares with Matthew (Matthew 8:5-13) – and perhaps with John who tells a story that is at least reminiscent of this story of a royal official from Capernaum who begs of Jesus to heal his sick child (John 4:46-54). The point is that the centurion is an outsider – a gentile and most likely a Roman. He would have been the enemy. Yet, in this case he has befriended the Jewish people – even built their synagogue so perhaps his is an exception to the rule. At any rate Jesus loves this enemy and ends up praising his great faith – a faith greater than is to be found in all of Israel. The story highlights the authority of Jesus. The second episode is one that only Luke tells. It is a story of a woman, a widow, who has been deprived her only source of support. Her son who would have been responsible to provide for her has died. She is indeed now numbered among the poor. The funeral procession to the graveside has begun and Jesus interrupts the proceeding to raise the son back to life and give her to his mother. The story would have been shocking in that culture mostly because Jesus came and touched the coffin thus contaminating himself. Jesus would have become ritually unclean. Jesus does not let religious convention come in the way of helping those in need. Again the content of the sermon dictates action and Jesus acts – and apparently so are his followers to do. This story is also important because it links back to two previous stories in the OT – one of Elijah raising the widow of Zarephath’s son (1 Kings 17:17-24) and the other is of Elisha raising the Shunammite woman’s son (2 Kings 4:8-37). In both cases the significant words are that the healer took the child and “gave him to his mother” just as Jesus “gave the man he raised at Nain to his mother.” Luke’s story is meant to connect us to the previous stories about Elijah and Elisha. And once again it is the poor who are helped by Jesus. This story also connects back to the very first story of Jesus’ ministry told by Luke at Nazareth where again Elijah and Elisha are lifted up of examples of the ministry of OT prophets to “outsiders” and the rejection by “insiders” (Luke 4:25-27). The third episode is one that Luke again shares with Matthew (Matthew 11:2-9). The story revolves around an important and agonizing question raised by John, the Baptist, who sends his followers to ask Jesus whether Jesus is the “one to come” – the Messiah – or if they should look for another. Why did John pose the question? Of course we are unable to answer that question for certain but Jesus’ answer does give him a chance to both support the ethic of the sermon and also to highlight once again the connection between the messianic hope expressed by Isaiah and elsewhere in the OT and the actions of Jesus. “Go and tell John what you see!” The sermon had been about hearing and doing – seeing and doing makes the same point. Jesus does what the Messiah envisioned by Isaiah and the OT was to do – the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news proclaimed to them. This story also links back to the very first thing that Luke reported as he began to tell of the ministry of Jesus – Luke 4:18! The fourth episode – the last one we will look at today is unique to Luke – and more than most it highlights the contrast between insiders and outsiders. Jesus visits the home of a Pharisee for a meal. Incidentally, Luke does not picture all Pharisees in a negative light as Mark does. This Pharisee at least has the potential of being a friend – he does invite Jesus to a meal. At the meal a woman comes and begins to anoint Jesus’ feet with her tears. Simon, the Pharisee, sees the woman as the outsider she is and thinks to himself that if Jesus really was of God he would recognize that she was an outsider and thus unfit. Of course Jesus does recognize her as an outsider – but it is precisely to people like her that Jesus has come. The ethic of the “Sermon on the Plain” sees her as the one who is blessed. In a skillful exchange Jesus convicts Simon of his own error – though we are never told whether or not the experience made a lasting impression on Simon – it is the one who has been forgiven much that loves much. I mentioned that this story is unique to Luke; however, it does have another story that may well be connected to it – the story of the woman at the end of Mark’s story who anointed Jesus for his burial (Mark 14:3-9 = Matthew 26:6-13). There are significant differences between the two stories; however, it is also telling that Luke omits that story from Mark’s sequence which he is following at the time. It may well be that Luke took that story and significantly modified it to mold it into this story, once again moving material in Mark to an earlier time within Luke’s story. There is one further connection of a story of a woman anointing Jesus which connects to these stories. That story is found in John where Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anoints Jesus feet with pure nard and wipes them with her hair (John 12:1-8). There are enough similarities to suppose that one common story stands behind all of these versions.