This week we will continue our journey through Luke with Luke 9:51-11:28. In these readings, we encounter Jesus’s tussle with a lawyer and his sayings on prayer.
The Lawyer’s Question: (vv.10:25-37)
Remember the context. The Seventy have just returned, and Jesus is excited about their success and tells them that they have seen and heard things others had longed desired. Also, Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem, which will be the setting of the parable to come. A lawyer (i.e. someone well-learned in the Law) then stands up and asks Jesus a question. The lawyer wants to put Jesus to the test (as had Satan). He addresses Jesus as “Teacher” (as had Simon the Pharisee) and not as “Lord.” And he asks what he can do to inherit eternal life.
Jesus, in the Socratic and Rabbic tradition, answers with a question – What is written in the Law, and how do you interpret it? The lawyer responds with the same answer that Jesus gives in Matthew 22:34-40 – love God (Deut. 6:5) and love your neighbor (Lev. 19:18). But, like the Scorpion in the parable, it is in the lawyer’s nature to press the advantage, and he asks “Well then, who is my neighbor?” In other words, the lawyer asks where the boundaries are between my neighbor to whom I owe a duty of care and the stranger to whom I do not.
In response, Jesus tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan. (We have previously discussed this parable, and most of us probably know it well. Luke is the only Gospel to tell us this parable.) At the time of Jesus, Jews and Samaritans were like Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, Serbs and Muslims in Bosnia, or Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda in recent memory. Until now in Luke’s Gospel, the only mention he gives us of Samaritans is that they rejected Jesus. Luke 9:51-53.
At the end of the parable, Jesus has completely turned the lawyer’s questions around – the question is no longer “Who is my neighbor?” but “Who was a neighbor to the man in need?” The question has also moved from one of eternal life to one of how to live ethically in accordance with God’s will in this life. Jesus moved the lawyer’s inquiry, which sought to husband God’s grace in isolated security and purity, to one of extending God’s grace to the whole world. In other words, Jesus’ response to the lawyer’s testing shows just how far the mission that began with the Twelve and then the Seventy will extend.
Mary and Martha: (vv.38-42)
Luke moves us from a parable whereby Jesus blurs the lines of ethnic division to one that blurs the lines that separate the sexes. Jesus arrives in a village and enters the home of Mary and Martha. There is no indication that Jesus knew these women until now. Martha sets out to the women’s work of preparing hospitality for their guests. On the other hand, Mary sits at Jesus’s feet to listen to his teaching. To do so means that Mary is not only a student disciple of Jesus but also wants to become a teacher herself. (See Acts 22:3, where Luke uses the same language to describe Paul becoming a teacher of the Law by sitting at the feet of Gamaliel.) In Jewish tradition, this was strictly a male role – females did not sit and learn at the feet of rabbis or want to become teachers themselves. Martha complains that Mary is not fulfilling her female household role. In rebuking Martha and siding with Mary, Jesus also opens up his teachings to women. Luke, as a companion of Paul, would have been personally acquainted with many women teachers. See, Rom. 16:1-15.
The Lord’s Prayer and Midnight Friend: (vv.11:1-13)
Luke has Jesus “in prayer” more than any other gospel. Luke gives us his version of the Lord’s Prayer in these verses. Luke’s version is shorter than the version Matthew gives us in the Sermon on the Mount. Matt. 6:5-15. Luke follows Jesus’s teaching on prayer a parable of the Friend at Midnight. We have previously discussed the Lord’s Prayer and the parable of The Friend at Midnight.
Jesus and Beelzebul: (vv.14-28)
The question that always has to be answered is “Who is Jesus?” As Herod gives us in Luke 9:7-9, the usual answer is that Jesus is some type of prophet – maybe John, maybe Elijah, etc. Here, however, some say that Jesus derives his power from the demonic and, specifically, the demon Beelzebub. Jesus responds by pointing out that the accusation makes no sense. How can he cast out demons by the power of a demon? That would mean that the demonic is divided against itself, and a house divided will soon fall into ruin. Jesus then, once more, turns the question around. If Jesus is not acting with demonic power, then he must be acting with Divine power. And if he is acting with Divine power, then the Kingdom of God has come.
Dinner is at 6. The menu is pasta with chicken. Discussion about 6:45. Compline at 8. Hope to see you here!
Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
Isaiah 55:6