LUKE
– THE GENTILE GOSPEL
Martin
Camroux
So we have a first gospel Mark, then a very
Jewish gospel, Matthew. Now the focus is going to change again.
Luke is the gospel as it moves out into the Gentle. Its author,
Luke is quite probably a gentile himself, if not he’s a Jew
who moves naturally in the Gentile world. Take some little
examples. Matthew is chock a bloc with Old Testament quotations.
Luke only rarely quotes from the Old Testament and then usually
because it’s in his source. Unlikely Matthew he never uses
the word rabbi of Jesus. Instead he prefers the word teacher.
Mark and Matthew both talk about the Sea of Galilee. In Luke
the Sea of Galilee becomes Lake of Gennesaret. Luke is the
only person in the whole New Testament to call it a lake?
He’s moved in a wider world.
Luke sits down to write with Mark in front of
him. About half of Mark is incorporated into Luke. But Mark
is no longer adequate for the needs of the Church. We are
15 to 25 years later. The break with the synagogue has now
happened. Christianity is becoming more and more a gentle
movement. For this gentile world a gospel nuanced to their
lives and concerns was increasingly needed. It was to meet
that special and peculiar need that Luke felt called to take
up the task of being a Gospel writing evangelist.
Helpfully alone of the Gospel writers Luke begins
with an introduction which tells us something about how he
did it.
“Since many have untaken to set down an
orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among
us, just as they were handed on to us by those who were
eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided after
investigating everything carefully from the very first,
to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus”
This tells us quite a lot. Luke is not an eyewitness.
Clearly he's writing a considerable time after the events
in question. He's looking back on the old story to tell it
again more powerfully. He certainly has Mark in front of him.
Perhaps he has Matthew. Probably other sources we don't know
about. But now he sets out to tell the story again in a new
orderly way.
And he writes for Theophilus? Who was this?
We don't know. The name means “beloved of God". Is this
perhaps a discrete pseudonym? Was he writing perhaps to a
sympathetic official whose name needs to be kept secret of
fear of embarrassing him? At any rate it’s quite common in
the classical world to dedicate a book you’re publishing to
a particular individual and that seems to be the case here.
And he's writing as a historian. He's one who
has gone over the events in detail to present a connected
narrative. Like Matthew Luke is basically presenting an edited
and expanded version of Mark but he going to put things in
context, try to bring out the history in way which neither
of the other two gospels has managed. He recasts Marks stories
so as secure a better sequence; he puts them in context more.
Let me take an example. Both in Matthew and
Mark it’s clear that Jesus sees himself as having a political
ministry to the nation of Israel. He calls 12 apostles, one
for each tribe. He sees Israel facing a choice as a nation.
But in both of them this ministry is rather blurred. Who’s
interested they might say in yesterday’s politics? But Luke
is the historian. He wants to make the political background
clear.
In Luke as in no other gospel it's clear that
the political context is a warning by Jesus that the nationalist
mood, with its dream of a revolt against Rome, can only bring
disaster. So when Jesus comes in sight of Jerusalem Luke alone
tells how Jesus sees its destruction coming and weeps over
it. "If only you had known, on this great day the way
that leads to peace". Later in the city Jesus makes the
link again when he compares his death to what the Romans will
do later to the whole city. "If they do these things
when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry"?
In Mark 13 there is an obscure reference to "the abomination
of desolation" and the warning that when this is up everyone
must take to the hills. Now this text is the glory of a certain
kind of fundamentalist who interprets it as a clear to the
European Parliament in Brussels or the U.N. building in New
York. Luke looks at it and says to himself “What are my gentle
readers going to make of this”. So Luke replaces the words
"when you see the abomination of desolation" with
"when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies". Ah
so that's what it’s about! It’s the Roman army besieging the
city. It’s back in context.
So firstly Luke is a historian. He wants to
give dates for when events happen. He wants to put everything
in place in the national life. Here's he's done us a great
service. By showing us how Jesus fits into the politics of
his own day it makes it easier to see how he fits into ours.
"Oh Jerusalem. Jerusalem. If only you had known the way
that leads to peace". Oh Baghdad, Beirut, Jerusalem,
London. This is a tremendous benefit.
Then secondly Luke tries to set out the ministry
of Jesus in a way that will speak to the Gentile world. He
sets out a humanitarian Jesus who sets out a ministry to the
poor and the excluded. To make this unmistakably clear he
alone tells how Jesus goes to the synagogue at Nazareth and
declares what his ministry is going to be about.
4.18-19
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed
me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free”.
This is a remarkably apt summary of Luke’s Jesus:
he is the spirit-filled anointed prophet, whose ministry is
especially directed to the poor and the oppressed,
Time and time again Luke works out the meaning
of that in his gospel. Take women as an example. In Palestine
the position of women was low. In the Jewish morning prayer,
a man thanks God that God has not made him "a Gentile,
a slave or a woman". But Luke in his gospel gives a very
special place to women. It is Luke who makes vivid the picture
of Martha and Mary, and the woman who anoints Jesus feet in
the house of Simon the Pharisee. Luke gives us the Magnificat.
Luke gives us the story of the widow of Nain. Women are more
prominent in this gospel than in any other.
There is a greater stress in this Gospel on
the commitment to the poor. Jim Wallis tells us in the New
Testament as a whole one out of every 16 verses refers to
money or to the poor. In three gospels it is in one verse
in every ten. In Luke it is one in every seven
At the beginning of the Gospel is the Magnificat.
"He has filled the hungry with the good things and sent
the rich away empty". The question of the relation of
rich and poor will be returned to again and again in this
gospel. Luke alone tells the story of Dives and Lazarus He
alone tells the story of the Rich Fool who builds barns and
dies before he can enjoy them. It’s only Luke who gives us
the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector who gives half his
possessions away.
Wealth is of such concern because it is tied
to fundamental religious matters. The chasms that separate
rich and poor, weak and powerful, insider and outsider, are
not intended by God. If you have possessions you must use
them to feed the hungry and help the poor. The story of the
Good Samaritan illustrates this point. The real pious person
is not the priest or the Levite but the one who helps his
neighbour.
That same parable illustrates of Luke’s great
themes - the attack on exclusivity. The hero of the parable
is not a strict Jew but a Samaritan, a half-Jew despised by
Israelites. Luke highlights how Jesus goes out of his way
to associate with "sinners and tax-collectors".
He alone tells the story of the woman who anointed Jesus’
feet and bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her
hair in the house of Simon the Pharisee. He alone has the
story of the Prodigal Son which is part of his answer to those
who criticise him for mixing with the wrong kind of people.
Have you noticed how often I've used the phrase
-'Luke alone’? All the evangelists have material peculiar
to them. But Christianity without the stories that Luke alone
gives us is almost unthinkable. Where would our understanding
of the moral teaching of Christ be without the parable of
Good Samaritan? Where do we understand the love of God more
clearly than in the parable of the prodigal son? Then there
is Christmas. With a little help from Matthew Luke is largely
the author of Christmas as we now celebrate it. He alone gives
us the shepherds in the fields; the babe wrapped in swaddling
clothes and laid in the manger. Looking to the resurrection
its Luke alone who gives us the marvellous story of the disciples
on the Emmaus Road.
I think this tells us something about
Luke. Yes he is a historian. Most scholarly reconstructions
of Jesus and his work have drawn heavily on Luke. But as well
as being a historian he's also a marvellous story teller.
There's a poet here as well as a historian. That's why it’s
not only the scholar but the ordinary reader who develops
a love for Luke's gospel. None of the Gospel writers got closer
to the heart of Jesus than Luke.
Rev'd. Martin Camroux MA
Trinity Church, Sutton
(United Reformed/Methodist)
Cheam Road, Sutton, SM1 1DZ |
