This week, we continue our study of Luke’s gospel with Luke 17:11-19:27. These readings are the final leg of Jesus’s march on Jerusalem and take us to the eve of his Triumphal Entry. You can join us any time on our journey.
Cleansing of the Ten Lepers: (vv.17:11-19)
Luke follows up Jesus’s lesson on forgiveness and humility with a lesson on gratitude. Like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the hero of this story is likewise a Samaritan – an outsider and a foreigner. Of the ten healed, only the Samaritan returns to give thanks.
Ruminate on how each of these three traits is related and is simply a different manifestation of the same underlying virtue. For many Christian thinkers, particularly C.K. Chesterton, gratitude is the essential characteristic of living a Christian life because it keeps our lives in balance. A grateful person knows he is undeserving of God’s grace but is capable of accepting the gift of divine grace. Gratitude is the mean between the extreme of the arrogance of not believing one requires grace and the pessimism of not believing that one has received God’s grace.
I had the opportunity to preach on these verses three years ago. That sermon is here.
The Coming of the Kingdom: (vv. 20-37)
In these teachings, Jesus employs a bevy of apocalyptic illustrations. As we looked at in our discussion of Luke 13, we can read these warnings in the narrow historical setting of the soon-to-be destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans. Cities are destroyed. People are snatched. (In Luke, the rapture is not about God taking people into heaven but the Romans taking people as war prizes into slavery.) People run away without preparation. And the vultures are everywhere.
However, in a more eschatological or spiritual understanding of these warnings, Jesus is telling us that the Kingdom of God is not about external signs or geographical locations. Because the Kingdom is not delineated either temporally or geographically, we should not be looking for the Kingdom in these places. The Kingdom transcends time and space. Rather, the Kingdom is within you or among us (depending upon the translation). v. 21.
These teachings emphasize that the end is always imminent. Therefore, we should always be prepared. This preparation, however, is not concerned with the external but the internal. This internal spiritual preparation is an ongoing project regardless of the violence or general turmoil that may surround us in the world. God transcends time, space, and the things of this world, yet God is also imminently present with and within us. The end, when all things are judged and made right, is both out there and very near. A deeper discussion on the immediate presence of the end is here. (Eclectic Orthodoxy, The Irresistible Truth of Final Judgment, 09/18/2019)
Parable of the Persistent Widow: (vv.18:1-8)
We have previously read through this parable with Rev. Robert Capon. I commit that discussion to you. Like the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, which we looked at last week, the main character in this parable is the Unjust Judge. In the parable, the widow pesters the judge to such an extent that he gives her the judgment she desires without holding a hearing, without getting a response from the other side, without any semblance of due process, and without even weighing the merits of her case. God is unjust; thanks be to God.
Luke places this parable immediately after Jesus’ teaching on the coming (and already present) Kingdom and our need to be in preparation. This preparation begins with prayer – persistent, pertinacious, and constant. The widow is our example to follow. v.1
Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican: (vv.9-14)
We have previously read through this parable as well with Rev. Capon. I commit that discussion to you. Jesus’s teaching is that the self-righteous Pharisee is the bad guy, and the humble repentant Publican is the good guy. This teaching follows up with the Parables of the Lost in Luke 15. Like the Parables of the Lost, and particularly that of the Prodigal Son, Jesus’ teaching should be somewhat morally offensive. The Pharisee is the one who actually obeys God’s commandments, and he is giving thanks to God. The Publican is like the local drug cartel member, and he simply asks God to be merciful to him – he never says he’s sorry or promises to change his profession.
Again, Luke places this parable immediately after Jesus’s teaching on the coming (and already present) Kingdom and our need to be in preparation. This preparation may begin with prayer, but it extends to (i) not trusting (i.e., having faith) in ourselves and our righteousness and (ii) not considering others better than ourselves. v.9. See, also, Phil. 2:3.
Dinner is at 6. The menu is St. Patrick’s Day (observed). Discussion about 6:45. Compline at 8. Please join us!
Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him. Rom. 12:2-3