Reading the Gospels Together The Storyline of Luke’s Gospel – Part 5 Luke now introduces his readers to an activity Jesus will engage in more and more as Luke’s gospel unfolds – Jesus attends a meal. This meal is in the house of a Pharisee named Simon. And in the process of the meal a sinful woman comes in and anoints the feet of Jesus with perfume and tears and dries them with her hair. How will Jesus react to this? Simon expects that Jesus will reject her because she is a sinner. Instead Jesus uses her as a prime witness of the joy of forgiveness. Simon is ultimately convicted by his own words. The one who is forgiven much loves much. Jesus sides with the sinners. Where did Luke find this story? Likely he found it at the end of Mark’s gospel where Mark tells of a woman at Bethany who comes and anoints Jesus for his burial. Luke will omit that story when he comes to that part of his storyline. Likely he has moved the story here and changed its meaning to demonstrated Jesus love for sinners – and sinner’s recognition of Jesus who comes to set free those who are bound and to release those who are captive. She is an example of how Jesus fulfills the vision of Isaiah. Luke follows up this story of the anointing of a sinful woman to tell his readers that there were many women who followed Jesus from Galilee and provided for him in his ministry. More than any other gospel writer Luke highlights women in his story. Here he names several, some of whom will appear at the tomb and witness the resurrection. At this point in his storyline Luke is going to return to his use of Mark’s gospel. When Luke was last using Mark it was to provide his readers with the choosing of the twelve Apostles. Following that story Mark moves on to tell his readers about how the religious leaders reject Jesus and accuse him of acting by the power of Satan. And in the middle of that story Mark interjects his surprising story of how Jesus’ own family think he is crazy and come to take him home. That was a shocking and confusing story for readers of Mark’s gospel. Mark’s episode ends with Jesus’ mother and brothers on the outside while Jesus identifies his true family as those who do his will. Once Mark has dropped this bombshell on his readers he moves on to tell of the parables of Jesus. Luke omits the story of the accusation of the religious leaders that Jesus operates under the direction of Satan – a story he will pick up later. And Luke omits completely Mark’s contention that the family of Jesus thinks he is crazy and come to take him home. Like Matthew, Luke will never tell that story. He moves on directly to the parable of the sower and the rest of Mark’s parables. Luke follows Mark very closely at this point. He tells the same parables and the same interpretation of parables as tools of Jesus to conceal rather than reveal. This is very interesting since later on his gospel Luke will tell a number of parables only he tells and all of them will reveal. But the point here is that Luke is following Mark quite closely. At the conclusion of the parable section Luke inserts the story of Jesus’ family coming to see him; but, like Matthew, Luke uses the story more to expand the family of Jesus than to serve as a sign of rejection by Jesus’ family. Still following Mark, Luke now tells the story of Jesus and his disciples on a boat on the sea when a storm arises. Luke follows this story with the healing of the demoniac on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. Still following Mark the story moves back across the sea where Jesus heals the woman with the flow of blood and raises Jairus’ daughter. Since Luke had moved the story of Jesus returning to Nazareth to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he omits that story here and continues with Mark’s next story of Jesus sending his disciples on a mission. And, again following Mark, Luke tells of the Herod’s notice of Jesus and his confusion that Jesus must be John the baptist raised from the dead since Herod had killed John. Luke does not tell the story of John being beheaded by Herod. And, once more Luke follows Mark’s story by telling his readers the story of the feeding of the 5000. Luke has been following Mark quite closely for some time now. Readers of Luke’s gospel need to be aware that at this point Luke will omit a significant section of Mark’s gospel – from Mark 6:45 – 8:26. None of these stories will be told by Luke. This is a significant part of Mark’s gospel. Gone are Mark’s stories of Jesus walking on the water, the healing of the sick at Gennesaret, Jesus’ debate with the religious leaders about the traditions of the elders regarding what is ritually clean (although Luke will tell a version of this story later in his gospel), the healing of the Syrophoenecian woman’s daughter, the healing of the deaf and mute man, the feeding of the 4000, the asking of a sign by the Pharisees, Jesus and his disciples out in the boat where Jesus berates his disciples for their hardness of heart, and the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida where Jesus had to heal him for a second time. Interpreters of Luke have come to no consensus about why Luke has done this. Was it because he didn’t like the stories he found in Luke? Not likely since the story of the Syrophoenecian woman would have been an ideal story for Luke to tell. Was it because he simply lost his place in Mark’s document and accidentally omitted the material? Again, that seems unlikely since Luke is a careful writer. Was it because Luke had a version of Mark that did not contain these stories – in other words, an early edition of Mark’s gospel? This possibility seems more likely than others, but there is no way to be certain that this was the case. And a case can be made that omitting this material from Mark does damage to Mark’s story. It seems unlikely that Mark would have told his story without this material since much of it leads to the section of Mark’s gospel where Jesus is seeking to give sight to his blind disciples. It is difficult to think of Mark without these stories. We will likely need to simply leave this “great omission” remain a mystery. At any rate, Luke omits this significant part of Mark’s gospel and continues with Mark’s story of Jesus asking his disciples who they think he is and Peter’s great confession that Jesus is the Messiah. We need to remember that Mark had created a tightly constructed story beginning with the double healing of a blind man followed by a three part pattern of Jesus telling his disciples that he must suffer, die, and be raised from the dead, only to be misunderstood by the disciples and ended with the healing of another blind man, Bartimeaus. Luke will maintain most of the material that Mark had given his readers; but, like Matthew he will have inserted so much material that Mark’s point evaporates. Luke has something else in mind in telling these stories and he adds much to Mark’s story. At first Luke follows Mark quite closely. However, he does make a major change to Mark’s story by omitting Peter’s rebuke of Jesus after the first passion prediction and therefore also Jesus’ rebuke of Peter, calling him Satan. Luke portrays the disciples in a far more favorable light.