Sermon: Luke intro

Sermon  5-26-13

Bible text: Deuteronomy 6:4-12, Luke 1:1-4

We have a practice of “summer reading” of a whole book of the Bible precisely to keep the commandment we heard in Deuteronomy today, one of my favorite passages.

     “Keep these words in your heart…recite them to your children…

     talk about them when you are at home and when you are away…

     do not forget the LORD.”

Communal memory is the reason we have any of the Bible at all; these stories were remembered, and taught, and passed down through generations, because the community shared them and was shaped by them.

So we begin our summer reading of the book of LUKE today.

Luke is one of four gospel accounts in the New Testament; Mark was written first, Matthew and Luke borrow a lot from Mark, so about half of Luke is also found in Mark, but a full half is unique to Luke. 

We don’t know who Luke is or was; but the author tells us he is a second-generation Christian, who did not know Jesus himself but is now part of the Jesus movement. His purpose in writing, he tells us, is to provide an “orderly account” of these things. The author of Luke is highly educated, very familiar with both Jewish and Greek history, language, and writing styles, and a very good storyteller, which makes him appealing to a wide audience.

There are a few things that are particular to Luke’s gospel; see if you notice them as you read.

One, Luke is obsessed with food.

Jesus and the disciples are always eating, feeding people, talking about food, and figuring out how to get food. There are parables about food and metaphors using food, literal food and allegorical food.

Sometimes they get in trouble about food, when Jesus invites the wrong people to the dinner party or accepts an invitation to eat in the home of a sinner. Sometimes they are the heroes who feed thousands of hungry people with barely enough for one lunch. There is food, and allusions to food, everywhere in this gospel. So what is it about food that is so important, and how might we be called to utilize food and meals in important ways?

Second, Luke tells a lot of stories about people on the margins—

people whom stories are not usually told about because they are invisible, forgotten, undesirable.

There are poor people in this gospel, and a lot of them, and they are often the heroes, like Mary and Joseph and John the Baptizer and Jesus himself. There are despised people—tax collectors, Roman officials, prostitutes, corrupt religious leaders. There are sick people—lepers, paralytics, and people with demons and hemorrhages and withered hands and crooked backs—even the dead Jesus heals. There are women, right in the middle of Jesus’ attention where they ought not to be.  There are Gentiles who have no business hanging around the very Jewish Jesus.

Because we know these stories so well, we miss the scandal of the way Jesus easily and intentionally interacts with these “outcasts”. It’s a bigger deal than we often notice, and there may be a calling for us here as well.

And a third thing to look for is how Luke talks about “salvation”.

Luke is the only gospel writer to refer to Jesus as Savior, and he gives him this title in the words of the angels to the shepherds as soon as he is born:

“For to you is born this day in the city of David a savior,

who is Christ the Lord.”

Before he’s even had his first diaper changed, Jesus is the Savior, the one for whom they’ve waited, the one promised by God. Look through this lens of savior as you read these stories—

everything Jesus does is salvation.

For Luke, salvation = liberation from anything that is binding you today, anything that is keeping you from being the real you God created you to be, here and now.

·            When he heals lepers, they are saved (sometimes literally the word used in Greek).

·            When he feeds hungry people, they are saved.

·            When he notices an unnamed woman, she is saved.

·            When he invites the disciples to follow him, they are saved.

In Luke, God saves people through the life of Jesus. 

Death is one part of that life, as is resurrection, but Jesus’ saving work is not limited to the crucifixion.

Luke does not teach us “Jesus died to save us from our sin”—

Luke teaches “God saves us in Jesus--birth, life, death, and resurrection”.

Luke addresses his gospel to the “most excellent Theophilus”—it’s the only gospel to have such a dedication to a particular reader. Theophilus may have been a real person, but the name means “lover of God”, so this gospel is addressed to you, to all, who love God. 

Luke takes the Jesus story as it is already popularly known in Mark and frames it in time—he’s very conscientious about identifying key events to help us know when this happened—and in place—Jerusalem is a central geographic location,rich with historic and metaphorical significance. He uses concrete and accessible images so we can get the stories. He roots the stories in Jewish tradition and scripture but there’s this feeling of movement; the tradition is not concrete but rich soil out of which something new is growing. Luke shows us how Jesus is the Savior in everything he does—in first century Palestine and in 21^st century Texas.

I have always liked this gospel, but I’m liking it even more here at Living Word.

I see us in this gospel, especially after our Pentecost event and the leadership retreat this weekend. Like Luke, we have a heart for the poor and marginalized. Like Luke, we think food is important--we enjoy and celebrate what we have and we are mindful of those who do not have, and we try to provide for them. Like Luke, we don’t build our entire life of faith around Jesus’ death, but we try to be the Living Word that carries the promise of God in Jesus, before his death and after his resurrection.

Jesus doesn’t let anything stop him, and I’m encouraged by Luke that we don’t have to, either— 

we don’t have any Pharisees breathing down our necks, after all, so we charge ahead with Jesus to do God’s work in the world. We rest, we work, we play, we pray, we live lives that are meaningful, along with Jesus. As we read this summer, may this Living Word of God, as Luke tells it, work a new work in us.  

Sources: 

Porter, Stanley E., ed. Reading the Gospels Today. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.

Powell, Mark Alan. Fortress Introduction to the Gospels. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998. 

Rhoads, David. The Challenge of Diversity: The Witness of Paul and the Gospels. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.