Sin, Faith, Duty, Gratitude - Luke 17:1-19 (part 1)

(Click here to read Luke 17)

Everything we have comes from God. It is by his grace that we continue to live each day. Jesus teaches us to pray for our daily provision (Luke 11:2-4). He says that we will be clothed and fed by our loving father, and that this is so sure we can abandon all anxiety over it (Luke 12:22-34). In the light of eternity, we also remember that it is by the power of the gift of Grace offered in the life of Jesus that allows us salvation and life with God. He is pleased to plant within humanity the Holy Spirit, through which his Kingdom grows on earth.

All of this is much easier to remember when we are poor or hungry, than when we find ourselves fed. When we leave corruption, and receive forgiveness like the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), our awareness of the infinite and all sustaining power of God is acute.

But for many of us (many of us who have access, time, and literacy to read a blog) our lives aren't lived primarily in desperate situations and rescues. In the day to day, it's easy to forget that we are forgiven, healed, provided for, and free because of the generous gift of God. We have an alien grace, an alien righteousness. It doesn't come from us. We have no right to judge others or hold unforgiveness toward them. We are free to be generous and kind, since we have been given such an overabundance of generosity and kindness. We can be merciful, as our heavenly father is merciful.

Jesus teaches his disciples that sin is a real part of our lives and our relationships, and that it is a horrible thing (Luke 17:1-6). Intentional and malicious sin and deception is under God's heavy judgment. However, in love and humility we should act graciously to one another when offenses happen. As heinous as our sins are to one another, we must never cease to seek reconciliation and offer forgiveness. We have been forgiven. We can forgive. We are not the judge.

The disciples rightly respond by asking Jesus to increase their faith. It is in faith by the power of God that we are able to forgive as God does (see Luke 15 an my notes for more). Jesus assures them that they will be given the faith they need. If our faith can move a mulberry bush, it can overcome any obstacle to forgiveness.

Jesus digs deeper as he reminds his disciples that they are servants of the God that sustains them (vv7-10). The duty of a servant is to do what the master commands. This is not special or extraordinary. One does not expect personal show of gratitude from their supervisor for a task for which they receive a paycheque. Such is expected. In the same way, forgiveness of our brothers and sisters is our normal faith expressed, not at all beyond the line of duty. God has given us extraordinary grace. To extend that grace to others is just what we do. It is expected. It is necessary.

We are not unlike the ten people with leprosy who beg Jesus for healing (vv11-19). Because of their leprosy they lived outside of society, banished to quarantined camps of others similarly dying of disease and poverty. They beg Jesus for mercy, and it is exactly mercy that they need. Jesus shows them mercy, and tells them if they go show themselves to the priest, they will be healed, and pronounced clean by that priest. This would allow them to enter back into the city and normal life again.

The ten people with leprosy leave and find they've been healed. One of them returns to Jesus to offer thanks. Instead of responding with surprise or joy at the one who would cone to offer thanks, he is sad the other nine are not with him. A simple thankyou is very little to expect from someone saved from abject poverty and certain painful death.

This is also the nature of our salvation. We have been saved from destruction, from the corrupt powers of this age, and freed to live according to justice and peace. The provision God promises us allows us to seek and give love, and to abandon the selfish and vain pursuits of the world.

Let us use the faith we've been given to do the least, to act in forgiveness and grace to our brothers and sisters. To be grateful in all we have. To walk humbly, remembering that it is God's goodness that we are reflecting. Let us praise God in all things.

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vv7-10 is a hard teaching about humility.

Jesus, the awkward dinner guest - Luke 14 - The cost of discipleship and the Great Reversal

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(Click here to read Luke 13)

(Click here to read Luke 14)

Luke 14:7-11 (ESV)

⁷ Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ⁸ “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. ¹¹ For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus continues to challenge his disciples with the cost of following him. His is the way of the cross (Luke 9:23-27), execution as an insurrectionist at the hands of the empire. A life of true Justice and humble Love is also a life of resistance. The law of the new Kingdom is to love one's neighbour as one's self, to give one's life in service to the poor, outcast, and marginalized.

At the end of the chapter, Jesus reminds his disciples of the cross again (vv25-35). But if they do count the cost and follow, they will be a salt in the world, a preservative sustaining life, and a flavour of the Kingdom to Come.

Luke 14:12-24 (ESV)

¹² He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

¹⁵ When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” ¹⁶ But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. ¹⁷ And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ ¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ ¹⁹ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ ²⁰ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ ²¹ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²² And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³ 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. ²⁴ For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Jesus is a tough dinner guest. Luke records frequent awkward conversations with religious people around their dinner tables. This chapter repeats the theme. Once again, Jesus is confronts the religious elite with the radical difference between the Kingdom of God as they conceive it, and the Truth and Justice and Freedom that he demonstrates.

The proper religious folk still prefer to demonstrate their faithfulness by following their interpretations of godly customs blindly, whatever the consequence. When given the opportunity once again to heal on the Sabbath, Jesus challenges the faithful to consider the value of rules that contradict living according to love and freedom (vv1-6).

In verse 5, he reminds his hosts that they would certainly help one of their own animals in need on the Sabbath. It must be right to be compassionate to a person in need, even if it seems to contradict the strict literal rules of religion. His brief analogy here is expanded to three stories in chapter 15, the lost coin, sheep, and son, and ties the two chapters together (click here to read Luke 15, and here to read notes on the "lost" parables).

(the second link will work when the notes are posted on May 31, 2012)

It seems it may have been trendy to have Popular Rabbi Jesus visiting your home. Perhaps he was seen as hip and bohemian. Certainly he was popular. Thousands listened to him. But when alone among other contemporary teachers, Jesus did not pander. Instead, he challenges them to open their homes to the crowds whom he loves, to expand their hospitality far beyond their own benefit, even sacrificially for the benefit of others.

Such is the order of the Kingdom of God. It is costly, but it is worth infinitely more.

Unfortunately, the beginning of the next chapter reveals their continued misunderstanding. The religious elite have no complaint with Jesus eating with them or they him, no matter how awkward a guest he may be. But when Jesus demonstrates exactly what he had been teaching them simply by sharing life with the scallywags and scoundrels, they simply cannot abide it.

Luke 15:1-2 (ESV)

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. ² And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

Such judgment and loss of reputation is only one part of the cost of following in the footsteps of Jesus. Would we rather be counted among the poor, or the wealthy? Would we rather have a spotless reputation, or be known as a friend of the outcasts?

Jesus demonstrates the love of the Kingdom as his love for sinners. A love at his own expense. A love even for us. Even for you. Will we do the same?

 

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The first part reminds my wife of Godspell.

vv12-14 – Again Jesus is teaching about taking care of the poor.

When you are generous with the poor, God will repay you.

vv25-35 – It seems that Jesus is saying to take great consideration and care before being his disciple.

Jesus’ teachings are a bit more cryptic in this gospel. Perhaps this had something to do with Luke being a doctor. Maybe he was speaking to an upper crust crowd. Maybe he’s challenging them to be generous because he’s writing to people who have a lot.

"You are the Christ of God" - Luke 9 - Jesus reveals himself to his closest disciples during his last days in Galilee – part 2

(Click here to read Luke 9)

Luke 9:18-20

18  Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” 19 And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.” 20 Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”

Luke has been challenging his readers with the question of Jesus' identity since he announced the beginning of his ministry in Luke 4. (see yesterday's entry)

His ministry in Galilee began in Luke 4, after his baptism and temptation. With a dramatic reading from Isaiah, Jesus claimed that a prophesy of Messiah was fulfilled in himself. The passage described a person anointed to preach good news to the poor, set captives free, and proclaim the day of the Lord's favour.

From this moment until his death, Luke records Jesus' ministry as expanding. It begins among his family and neighbours, moves to the surrounding Galilean region, and then on to Jerusalem, the closest urban centre of religion, politics and culture. After his death and resurrection, Luke continues to record the spread of the message of good news and grace beyond Jerusalem to the heart of the Roman world.

Chapter nine of Luke is the major hinge in the middle of the narrative of Jesus' ministry and teaching. Up until this point he has remained close to Galilee. In chapter 9 he "sets his face for Jerusalem" (Luke 9:53), stated strongly and boldly for the reader that likely knows Jesus is taking one step closer to his own crucifixion.

Before moving on to Jerusalem, Jesus focuses his attention upon his disciples, challenging them and us to become convicted in our belief in who he really is.

The chapter begins with Jesus commissioning his closest disciples to go in his name to share the message of the kingdom with his authority (Luke 9:1-6) He gives them his authority to heal the sick and perform miracles as they go and minister the good news.

This is a training mission for his disciples. At the end of Luke, and the beginning of Acts, they will be commissioned in Jesus' authority to continue his work, filled with the Holy Spirit

(see another entry about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in Luke and Acts).

From this example we see that the preaching of the good news of the Kingdom of God is paired with demonstration of the new authority of this new Kingdom. Also, we see that the authority of the Kingdom comes from Jesus, and submission to his word. It is by the will of the Father, anointing of Holy Spirit and the authority of Jesus' name that the Kingdom functions in and through its ambassadors.

The practice and witness of the power of the true Kingdom through their own lives would have certainly given the disciples ample opportunity to consider seriously exactly who this Jesus was.

Before the disciple's return, Luke inserts a detail about the tetrarch (see below)* the puppet authority of the oppressive empire. While Jesus' disciples travel and preach about the true Kingdom, the coming great reversal of the exalted an the humble (see notes on Luke 6), and demonstrate the authority of the new kingdom in power, a caretaker of the old order hears word of their ministry, and feels the foundation of his old world crumbling.

The power of Rome to hold its authority over the regions it conquered lay in keeping those colonies hungry, sick, poor, and uneducated. When the disciples return to Jesus, his compassion leads him to a revolutionary action contrary to the spirit of the empire (vv10-17). A crowd of at least five or ten thousand form, and stay to hear Jesus teach and seek healing. They remain long enough to become hungry. In an occupied land under an oppressive and violent empire, it is safe to assume these people are internally displaced persons - those without jobs and incomes who have become refugees in their own land. They can remain to hear Jesus preach, because they have nowhere else to go.

Jesus acts in the opposite spirit of the empire by teaching them (v11), healing them (v11), and feeding them (v17), in a demonstration of the authority of the new Kingdom that sets the oppressed free.

The crowds eat until they are satisfied. Any experience giving food to the hungry or homeless reminds us that this would be no small amount of food. His presentation of the food (here and in the other gospels) is the same as when he served the Last Supper, Passover with his disciples on the night of his arrest. He blessed it, he broke it, he gave it to his disciples (Luke 9:16, Luke 22:19). Nowhere else in scripture is Jesus shown doing this, outside of the description of these two events.  Later, the sharing of food together will become a hallmark of the church (Acts 2:42,46).

It is after this that Jesus confronts his disciples with the question of who he really is (vv18-22). He approaches them after spending time in prayer. When asked, they first respond with the same things Herod had heard in verses 7-9. People have been saying that Jesus may be John the Baptist, or Elijah, or another old prophet raised from the dead.

But when Jesus questions them further, Peter speaks for the group in his answer,Luke 9:20 - “And Peter answered, 'The Christ of God.'”

"Christ" is the Greek word for Messiah, the promised one of whom Mary prophesied in Luke 1. But the Jewish people, and possibly the disciples, were still expecting a military ruler, a revolutionary who would overthrow the Romans and establish a new kingdom by force. Jesus' way was demonstrated in the feeding of the 5000, and in the selfless nonviolence and love he taught in his Sermon on the Plain.

Jesus clarifies with the disciples that his path will lead to death, not a violent revolution. He tells them again later (vv43-45), but they are not ready to hear it.

Even after hearing Jesus twice describe his path as Messiah as one that will lead to his death, the disciples reveal their misunderstanding when they suggest burning a village down as an adequate response to their rejection of Jesus (vv51-56). Jesus rebukes them. But he doesn't reject them. They move on to another village.

Jesus' death, in fact, will be execution as an insurrectionist by the empire. But he assures them he will rise again. He also tells them not to tell anyone, lest they in their misunderstanding try to make him king by force.

Death on a cross was reserved for non-citizen enemies of Rome. It was a public and humiliating display to frighten would-be rebels and revolutionaries. In verses 23-27, Jesus tells his disciples that following him meant to take up a cross. This was a symbol of death, a symbol of humility, and a symbol of resistance to the corrupt patterns and powers of the world. To have a cross before you meant a life dedicated to resisting the empire, ending in your death at its hand. Many of the early church died this very way.

At the end of the chapter, Jesus seems to discourage people who claim to want to follow him (vv57-62). He describes to them the loss of home, family, and friends as part of the cost of being his disciple. The power and authority of God's Just and Right Kingdom are true and real, but an easy life is not promised to the one who would choose to follow a path so contrary to the corruption and selfishness in this age.Romans 12:1-2 (ESV)
  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The way of the world is to seek riches, power, and influence. But Jesus lived a downwardly mobile life, and encourages us to follow. When the disciples argue among themselves which among them is the greatest (vv46-48), he tells them that it is as a child that they must become to enter the Kingdom.

Jesus' way is entirely different than the way of the world. We need to change from the inside out, our attitudes, desires, and actions. It is not enough to disagree with the selfishness that runs a capitalist world. We must also confront the selfishness in our own heart, and live a radically selfless life in a world that doesn't easily allow it. No wonder Jesus suggested in his Sermon on the Plain that those who follow him may be hated, excluded, reviled, and called evil for his sake. The world cannot conceive of a life so forfeit.

Jesus isn't looking for volunteers. He's calling for sacrifices lives. When he bids a man come, he bids him come and die.

But we have a hope beyond the cross. The Kingdom of God described and demonstrated by Jesus is Luke is inaugurated in his life, execution, and resurrection, but is not consummated until the end of the age. Jesus calls his disciples to live for a Kingdom that has come, but also has yet to be. And its consummation will not be some abstract and vaporous spiritual eternity. It is in fact a Kingdom to come more real and corporeal and meaningful than the one in which we now live.

Jesus gives his three closest disciples a glimpse of the glory of the coming Kingdom in Luke 9:27-36. After challenging his disciples with the cross, he promises the hope of the kingdom. He tells them that some will not die before they see the Kingdom in glory (v27). After this, he takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain, where his being is transfigured (see below)**. In brilliant whiteness, he is joined by Moses and Elijah. These two represent the Law and the Prophets. Their presence declares that the entire Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, testify that Jesus is the Messiah, which they do.Luke 9:35 - And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!”

In the presence of the Law (in Moses) and the Prophets (in Elijah), the Father declares that it is Jesus that the disciples should follow. This is a New Covenant, a New Wineskin, a New Kingdom, a New King.

The fulfillment of the Kingdom in perfect justice and peace at Jesus' return is our glorious hope. His life as he lived it demonstrates the life of a citizen of that Kingdom. His death on the cross frees us from the oppression of the old Kingdom and its sin within us as we follow him to the grave. His resurrection imparts in us the seed of the new Kingdom and the Holy Spirit. In him we can live in this life as ambassadors of a different way of being.

When we know who he is.

The Christ of God.

The Son of God.

Listen to him.

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*Herod the Tetrarch (v7) - Luke once again shows his literary and historical precision here by giving Herod his proper title. This is not King Herod the Great from Jesus' birth (Luke 1:5), but one of his sons. After King Herod's death, Israel was divided among his sons, each one given a section to rule, and the lesser title "tetrarch". The other gospels are not entirely incorrect to call him king, as his function was the same. But Luke's precision once again reveals his desire to clearly communicate to his intended audience, the educated and powerful elite of the Roman empire.

**Some will not die... - In every gospel where Jesus promises some disciples will see the Kingdom glory in their lifetime, the Transfiguration follows. We conclude, therefore, that the witness of the Transfiguration was a foretaste of the Coming Kingdom Fulfilled.

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vv9-10 – in all three gospels so far, the pattern has been to tell the story as 1 – John the Baptist was beheaded. 2 – Jesus needed to rest. 3. The crowds followed him, and he fed them miraculously. This is also after he sent out the twelve, and gave them authority. When he says in v13 that he wants the disciples to feed them, is that because he knew they could?

v22 – Jesus prophesies his death and resurrection.

v48 - he who is least among you is the greatest.

v54 – they had faith to call down fire on Samaritans that the Jews hated, but not faith for the convulsing boy for healing (v41).

Compare verses 23-27 with 57-62.