Luke

1
Lukes Story of Jesus as Counter-Narrative
2
Reading Luke in Communion

• Luke story of Jesus was written not to describe
  what happened in the past so much as to motivate
  hearers to enact the new age in the present
• In antiquity are texts are rhetorical, that is,
  they were designed to change the attitudes
  (µeta???a) and actions of those who heard them

3
Living the Gospel of Luke

• Reading for transformation the Gospels envision
  a new future in an imperial world after the
  destruction of Jerusalem
• We read Luke as history and so are preoccupied
  with what really happened, but Luke depicts Jesus
  as a prophet who exemplifies the pattern of life
  for the new age

4
Transformation

• Reading Luke in communion should always lead to
  the question How should we then live?
• In the Gospel of Luke Jesus is depicted as
  exemplar of a pattern of life that befits the new
  age

5
The Priority of Practice

• The focus in Luke is not so much on Jesus
  identity (orthodoxy) as in shaping the identity
  and practice of Jesus followers (orthopraxis)
• The Gospel of Luke is designed to effect
  transformation by inviting the audience to align
  their convictions and actions with the
  narratives vision of life

6
Identity and Practice

• Questions about how we should then live or what
  we should do always raise questions about who we
  are, and vice versa.
• We know that in the everyday the sense of a self,
  and of a self identity is tied to mundane
  practices in which people locate themselves by
  reference to a routine of action and expectations
  about themselves and others that remain
  relatively stable in particular social settings.

7
Converging Competing Stories

• Lukes story of Jesus is interwoven with the
  story of Israel
• Luke interprets the life, death, resurrection
  of Jesus in terms of Israels Scriptures
• Luke depiction of the words and deeds of Jesus
  serve as a compass for Israel in a post-70 world
• Lukes story of Jesus is in competition with
  imperial propaganda

8
Narrative and Identity

• Personal identity is expressed and shaped by
  narratives
• Narrative identities are not stable entities
• An act of listening or reading is a possible
  provocation to be and act differently
• Biblical texts distance and disorient us by
  drawing us into an alternative narrative world
  and invite us to contemplate our sense of
  belonging and reorient our being in the world

9
Engaging Cultural Systems

• The tacit frame of reference of New Testament
  texts is an imperial system that kept most people
  beholden and downtrodden
• Biblical texts envision an alternative way of
  life predicated on counter-cultural and
  life-giving values and practices

10
Truth as Praxis

• Christian faith does not offer a set of true or
  false propositions about a non-textual reality,
  but a form of life which has its own language
• Gospel practices healing, feeding, forgiveness,
  hospitality, witness, discernment, Sabbath,
  grace, gratitude, etc. as practices

11
Intimations of Empire

• Luke sets the story of Jesus on the imperial
  stage by naming the power brokers in the first
  chapters Herod, Augustus, Tiberis Caesar,
  Pontius Pilate Annas Caiaphas, and the Devil
• Lukes story of Jesus reflects and challenges the
  way the imperial world works
• In the Magnificant and throughout Luke issues of
  power, status and social stratification are
  paramount

12
a decree went out from Caesar Augustus (Luke
21)

• Augustan inscription from Priene (9 BCE)
• Since the Providence which has ordered all
  things
• and is deeply interested in our life has set in
  most
• perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she
  filled
• with virtue divine power that he might benefit
• mankind, sending him as savior that he might
• end war and arrange all things, and since he,
• Caesar surpassing all previous benefactors
• and since the birthday of the god Augustus was
  the
• beginning for the world of the gospel that came
• by reason of him.

13
Jesus and the Restoration of Israel

• Luke tells the story of Jesus as a story of God
  fulfilling promises of salvation for Israel and
  the nations
• Covenant with Abraham (154-55, 72-75)
• Covenant with David (132-33)
• Isaiahs vision of the nations (225-35)
• Salvation is defined in terms of the
  consolation/restoration of Israel and
  deliverance from its enemies to usher in the time
  of peace

14
Luke 167-78

• Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and
  spoke this prophecy "Blessed be the Lord God of
  Israel, for God has looked favorably on his
  people and redeemed them. God has raised up a
  mighty savior for us in the house of his servant
  David, that we would be saved from our enemies
  and from the hand of all who hate us

15
Lukes Story of Jesus as a Story of Salvation

• Salvation in OED The saving of the soul
  deliverance from sin and its consequences and
  admission to eternal life, brought about by
  Christ.
• Luke uses terms for salvation more than any NT
  text (soteria, soter sozo)
• How do we understand salvation?

16
Salvation in Biblical Judaism

• The Hebrew Bible and much post-biblical tradition
  employ the Hebrew root ysh and the Greek verb and
  noun sozo/soteria as well as a number of other
  terms and metaphors, to denote a range of divine
  activity that includes rescue from ones enemies,
  healing from illness, and deliverance from death,
  in addition to forgiveness of sin and release
  from its consequences. Much of that is defined as
  salvation does not involve God saving anyone
  from anything. Rather, God is bestowing on the
  covenant people the blessings they have been
  promised, without any sense that they have
  hitherto been deprived of these things
  (Dictionary of Judaism in the Biblical Period)

17
Salvation in Luke

• The Gospel of Luke begs the question of what
  salvation looks like on the ground as a present
  reality (109, 23-241720)
• The salvation word group also had currency in
  Greco-Roman society. The emperor was referred to
  as soter and imperial propaganda often depicted
  him and the empire as rescuing people from the
  same things Gods people are rescued from in the
  Bible, including sin.
• Salvation encompasses all nations/people and is
  construed as the restoration of society

18
Salvation in Luke as Restoration of Society

• For Lukes audience of Jews and Gentiles being
  saved from our enemies refers to deliverance
  from the dehumanizing effects of imperial society
• Luke graphically depicts how imperial society
  works and sets against it the mercy of God as it
  is embodied by Jesus

19
Performing the Gospel

• The Gospel of Luke is a counter-narrative that
  re-present the story of Jesus as a way of life
  his followers then and now are to emulate
• Jesus proclaims and enacts the kingdom of God as
  a vision of what it means to be human in a world
  in which people are oppressed and dehumanized.

20
Formation of Identity and Practice

• Luke serves to reshape the identity and practices
  of those who follow Jesus
• Identity is covenantal and communal
• Priority of practice over beliefevery action is
  the bearer and expression of more or less
  theory-laden beliefs and concepts every piece of
  theorizing and every expression of belief is a
  political and moral action (MacIntyre, After
  Virtue).

21
DiscussionRedefining Salvation

• As a counter-narrative of salvation Luke
  challenges the promises and patterns of imperial
  society that demean and deform peoples lives
• Any serious engagement with and appropriation of
  Luke must reckon with contemporary cultural
  promises and patterns
• What are our cultural myths of salvation?

22
Pattern of Resistance Release in Luke 3-4

• The Gospels were written to change the way people
  think and act
• The Gospel of Luke invites hearers to contemplate
  who they are and how they should then live in the
  light of the teaching, ministry, death
  resurrection of Jesus
• Jesus baptism, testing inaugural sermon
  provide a pattern for living in the power of the
  Spirit

23
Johns Baptism

• Johns baptism of repentance (33) the imperial
  system isnt working time for change!
• bear fruits worthy of repentance
  transformation through practice
• he will baptize with the Holy Spirit promise of
  leader who empowers others

24
Jesus Baptism

• Jesus followers submit to John baptism just as
  he did
• Just as Jesus is called Son of the Most High,
  those who love your enemies, do good, and lend,
  expecting nothing in return are called children
  of the Most High
• Jesus baptism invokes our own baptismal covenant

25
Testing in the Wilderness

• In 31-3 Luke introduces the brokers of the
  imperial system and in 43-11 the devil is
  depicted as the self-styled broker of the worlds
  kingdoms
• Like Israel, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the
  wilderness where is covenant fidelity is tested
• The devil challenges Jesus to live according to
  the values and practices of world that is not in
  tune with Gods purposes

26
Power and Self-Interest

• Life is more than bread Jesus resists using
  power to feed himself and instead feeds others
  (912-17)
• To you I give all this authority and their
  glory Jesus resists using divine power for self
  aggrandizement
• He will give his angels charge over you Jesus
  resists using power to save himself and instead
  empowers others (2335)

27
The Purpose of Spirit Power

• Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit he
  is strengthened by resisting the devil/world
• Nazareth sermon on Isaiah 61 discloses the
  purpose of Spirit power to proclaim good news to
  the poor, release to the captives to let the
  oppressed go free, to proclaim the acceptable
  year of the Lord 418-19

28
Ministry of Release

• Luke 416-30 is Jesus mission statement and
  describes his mission as one of releasing
  people who are oppressed
• One of the most frequently used word groups in
  Luke are words that mean set free and release

29
Resistance Release from the Imperial System

• Throughout Luke Jesus is empowered by the Spirit
  to disturb the equilibrium of the imperial system
  and release people who are held captive by it
• Middle class people are frequently reminded of
  their complicity in a system that oppresses
  others, but they are also themselves oppressed by
  it
• It is time for middle class people to have honest
  conversations about how they are impoverished
  and held captive by the system
• What would it look and feel like us to engage in
  Jesus ministry of resistance and release in our
  own contexts?

30
Reading for TransformationLuke 51-11

• How do you account for Peters transformation in
  this text?
• What happens to Peter that would cause him to
  leave everything and follow Jesus?
• How does following Jesus benefit him or improve
  the quality of his life?

31
How the World Works the Galilean Fishing Economy

• Looking at the story of Simon Peters call in
  the context of the Galilean fishing economy sheds
  some light on the encounter between him and Jesus
  and suggests a more practical explanation of the
  fact that they left everything and followed
  him. The parables and metaphors, anecdotes and
  social network of Jesus are heavily influenced by
  the Sea of Galilee and its fish, fishing,
  fishermen, and fishing villages. Fishers were
  part of a state-regulated elite-profiting
  enterprise. The Galilean fishing economy was an
  embedded economy (not a market economy)
  characteristic of aristocratic empires in which
  most surplus went to brokers and ruling elite.

32
Sin and Shame in Luke

• In Luke Jesus has a reputation for associate
  primarily with sinners and tax collectors, i.e.
  people who have no honor in Judaism and in
  society (529-32 731-50 151-2 197).
• Sinner is a label attributed by someone or some
  group that determines a persons status vis-à-vis
  God and the covenant community. Sin and
  Sinner are always a matter of interpretation
  and cultural conditioning, and labeling one a
  Sinner is a matter of power and control.

33
Contemplating Divine Beneficence

• What are the systems we are embedded in and how
  do they define and shape our lives?
• What is not life-giving about our way of life
  and what changes might we make that would allow
  us to live more in harmony with the Spirit?
• What would it mean for us to put out into the
  deep? What are our fears and anxieties?
• What would abundance look like for us?
• What would we need to let go of or relinquish to
  embrace new life?

34
Honor Patronage as the Foundation of Imperial
Society

• Honor was the desideratum of antiquity and was
  embedded in a system of reciprocal relationships
  of mutual benefit between unequals known as
  patronage.
• The patron obtained honor by means of the gift
  (charis), which came with a variety of strings
  attached.
• Patron-client relationships in which one
  individual is dominant and the other subordinate
  and dependent predominated in Greco-Roman
  society.

35
Social Impact of Patronage

• The dominance of the elite also required the
  ritualized performance of others submission on a
  day-to-day basis.
• The inculcation of negative shame, the social
  inverse of honor, was one result of the repeated
  experience of social inferiority among the large
  underclass.
• The social elevation of the elite came at the
  expense of the non-elite, who were socialized
  into roles that took on the zero-sum burdens of
  various grades of poverty, shame, impurity. The
  resultant physical weakness of the poor was
  often read as evidence of their sinfulness
  before God and human patrons alike.

36
Luke 632-36 But love your enemies, and do
good, expecting nothing in return and your
reward will be great, and you will be children of
the Most High for God is kind to the ungrateful
and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father
is merciful.
37
Challenging the Way the World Works Luke 627-36

• Jesus challenges foundational model of
  reciprocity and power in Greco-Roman society that
  keep people beholden and submissive
• Jesus ministry of release (Lk 4) needs to be
  understood in terms of the patronage system that
  keeps people in a continual state of debt and
  dispossession

38
Divine Generosity

• In Luke the new age is experienced as Gods
  lavish self-expression, and Jesus is proof of
  that generosity
• Imitatio Dei From Lukes perspective those who
  enjoy the benefits conferred by the Divine parent
  of Jesus are obligated to reflect the character
  of the Supreme Benefactor

39
Divine Generosity as the Basis of the New Age

• In the Nazareth sermon, sermon on the plain (Lk
  6) and throughout Luke Jesus challenges the way
  imperial society works and outlines the new
  values, commitments and practices of a new age
  that reflects Gods character and purposes
• Jesus releases people from their captivity to the
  system
• The Divine generosity he models is the basis for
  new patterns of relationships

40
Reading Luke in Communion

• What does the text disclose about the way the
  world works?
• How does Jesus challenge the system?
• What response or practice does the text call for?
• How is Divine Generosity experienced and embodied?

41
The Lords Prayer (Lk 112-4)He said to them,
"When you pray, say Father, hallowed be your
name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our
daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we
ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do
not bring us to the time of trial."
42
The Practice of Divine Generosity

• Even as followers are encouraged to trust Gods
  goodness and generosity for daily needs they are
  expected to practice that same generosity by
  releasing everyone indebted to them
• In Luke almsgiving is another type of exchange
  predicated on Divine generosity that the basis of
  his vision of a new society
• In Luke the practice of hospitality modeled by
  Jesus is how the new age is actualized

43
Politics begins not when you organize to defend
an individual or particular or local interest,
but when you organize to further the general
interest within which your particular interest
may be represented politics does not happen
when you act on behalf of your own damaged good,
but when you act, without awareness, for the good
of all this is to take the risk of the
universal interest (Gillian Rose)
44
Christian ethics is relentlessly political,
because it cannot be adequately expressed in
terms of atomized rights invested in individuals
or groups, but looks beyond to the kind of
community in which free interaction for the sake
of each other is made possible (Rowan Williams)
45
Children of the Market or Wisdom?
To what then will I compare the people of this
generation, and what are they like? They are like
children sitting in the marketplace and calling
to one another, We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance we wailed, and you did
not weep. For John the Baptist has come eating
no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, He
has a demon the Son of Man has come eating and
drinking, and you say, Look, a glutton and a
drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and
sinners! Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by
all her children. (Luke 731-35)
46
The Market System
The All-Seeing Eye of Providence God has
favored our undertaking
New Order of the Ages
47
Market as Totalizing System that Determines Value

• The sacred order which structures individual
  action is primarily represented in the economic
  realm. Capitalism in not only a system of
  production exchange but also of value creation.
  In this sacred order the individual is sacred,
  and the monetarized economy is the indicator of
  social worth (Boli, The Economic Absorption of
  the Sacred).

48
How the World Works

• The market system is a societywide coordination
  of human activities not by central command but by
  mutual interactions in the form of transactions.
  Like the state, the market system is a method of
  controlling and coordinating peoples behavior.
  That market participants see themselves as making
  free and voluntary choices does not deny that
  they are controlled by purchase and sales
  (Lindblom, The Market System)
• The meaning of life is full participation in the
  exchange economy, as both producer of value and
  consumer of goods. The purpose of life is full
  development of the individual, both through value
  production and voluntary consumption (Boli, The
  Economic Absorption of the Sacred)

49
The Persistence of Patronage

• Patron-client relations, with one person
  dependent and behoven to another, are one of the
  most diffuse in the modern world. In most modern
  forms, in contrast to patronage in antiquity, the
  client rarely has rights or powers, agreements
  are most often personal and informal. Powerful
  patrons are mostly middle-aged or elderly men, to
  whom other men and women are often locked in
  hopeless dependency. Patron-client relations
  may inspire a devotion which knows neither
  limits, nor scruples nor remorse. They are not,
  though, the stuff of which citizenship is made.
  The dominant social values they foster are those
  of submissiveness and gratitude, not of equality
  and mutual respect (Paul Ginsborg, The Politics
  of Everyday Life)

50
The Challenge of Grace

• The moment the gift is infected with the
  slightest hint of calculation, the moment it
  takes account of knowledge or recognition, it
  falls within the ambit of an economy it
  exchanges, in short it gives counterfeit money,
  since it gives in exchange for payment. To want
  to be noticed means wanting recognition and
  payment in terms of calculable salary, in terms
  of thanks or recompense (Derrida, The Gift of
  Death)

51
Loving without Reciprocity

• reciprocity governs all commerce, even the
  carnal sort. When, then, does the lover appear?
  Precisely when, during the encounter, I suspend
  reciprocity, and no longer economize, engaging
  myself without any guarantee of assurance. The
  lover appears when one of the actors in the
  exchange no longer poses prior conditions, and
  loves without requiring to be loved, and thus, in
  the figure of the gift, abolishes economy
  (Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon)

52
Luke 736-50 Woman Pharisee

• A certain creditor had two debtors one owed
  five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When
  they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now
  which of them will love him more?

53
From Self to Communal Solidarity

• Then he said to them all, If any want to become
  my followers, let them deny themselves and take
  up their cross daily and follow me. For those who
  want to save their life will lose it, and those
  who lose their life for my sake will save it.
  What does it profit them if they gain the whole
  world, but lose or forfeit themselves? (Luke
  923-25)
• Profit and forfeit stem from the world of
  commerce. Radical self-denial leads to an
  emphasis on the practice of
• generosity in the context of community.

54
Relinquishing Attachments

• As they were going along the road, someone said
  to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And
  Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes, and birds
  of the air have nests but the Son of Man has
  nowhere to lay his head. To another he said,
  Follow me. But he said, Lord, first let me go
  and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Let
  the dead bury their own dead but as for you, go
  and proclaim the kingdom of God. Another said,
  I will follow you, Lord but let me first say
  farewell to those at my home. Jesus said to him,
  No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks
  back is fit for the kingdom of God.(Luke 957-61)

55
Luke 1137-44 The Practice of Generosity

• But give for alms those things which are within
  and behold, everything is clean for you. (see
  1232-34)

56
Luke 1213-21 The Rich Fool

• Take heed and beware of all covetousness for a
  persons life does not consist in the abundance
  of possessions. So is the one who lays up
  treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

57
Luke 1415-24 The Great Banquet

• And the master said to the servant, Go out to
  the highways and hedges, and compel people to
  come in, that my house may be filled.

58
Luke 161-13 The Dishonest Steward

• The master commended the dishonest steward for
  his shrewdness for the sons of this age are more
  shrewd in dealing with their own generation than
  the sons of light.

59
Luke 1619-31 Rich Man Lazarus

• But Abraham said, Son, remember that you in
  your lifetime received your good things, and
  Lazarus in like manner evil things but now he is
  comforted here, and you are in anguish.

60
Luke 1818-30 The Rich Ruler

• Jesus said to him, One thing you still lack.
  Sell all that you have and distribute to the
  poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and
  come follow me.

61
Luke 191-10 Zachaeus

• Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the
  poor and if I have defrauded any one of
  anything, I restore it fourfold.

62
Jesus in Jerusalem

• Triumphal Entry - ruler in parable (1911-27)
  vs. the king who comes in the name of the Lord
  (1938)
• Parable of the Vineyard (209-18)
• On paying taxes to Caesar (2020-26)
• The destruction of Jerusalem (2120-38)

63
A Different Kind of Leader

• A dispute also arose among them as to which one
  of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But
  he said to them, The kings of the Gentiles lord
  it over them and those in authority over them
  are called benefactors. But not so with you
  rather the greatest among you must become like
  the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.
  For who is greater, the one who is at the table
  or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the
  table? But I am among you as one who serves.
  (Luke 2224-27)