Luke Chapter 1 packs quite a bit of interesting and unique stories into less than 100 verses and sets the tone for the rest of this Gospel. Luke states his intentions for these writings in the first four verses. He desires to make his theological point through his well-grasped understanding of the events that have happened to Theophilus in a well-ordered account. The stories in this first chapter are unique to Luke and do not appear in the other three Gospels.
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Luke 2, at its core, is a narrative about God’s breaking into the human story, prioritizing the least, last, and most marginalized, and revealing God's self to be on the side of the oppressed and in opposition to the sin of systems that elevate some and diminish others. As we queer this pericope, we experience the birth of Jesus, who was born and laid in a manger, because there was no room for him in the inn. How often do our queer siblings feel that there is no room for them in the spaces that they should expect to inhabit?
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After an infant’s greeting in his mother’s womb, after a maiden’s soul magnifies the Lord, after angels, births, shepherds, more angels, and finally the astonishment of the young Christ’s prodigious intellect in Luke’s first two chapters, Chapter 3 comes as a bit of a slower read. Here, our author takes a step back to fill in some of the details skirted over and begins with an exposition of the call and ministry of John, the baptizer. Baptism becomes a requirement— gift—for everyone as word spreads and people clamor with expectation and excitement at what wonders this sacrament would bring. With
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What Luke 6 is doing so forcefully is what liberation theology spells out directly: God is not encountered in abstract ideas separated from history, but in the concrete realities of hunger, exclusion, violence, and survival. We cannot look for God only in what is comfortable, respectable, or socially approved, because Jesus himself keeps pointing us elsewhere. He points us to the people the world treats as disposable, the ones left searching through what others have thrown away, the ones told in a thousand subtle and direct ways that their lives matter less because of the color of their skin or
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The parable of the Good Samaritan is peculiar because it follows after a Samaritan village rebuffs Jesus. To appreciate the parable in Luke 10, one should read from near the end of Luke 9, where the Samaritans are first mentioned. When Jesus sends messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to prepare his arrival, the people did not receive him “because his face was set toward Jerusalem” (9:51-55). The Gospel frames much of Jesus’ ministry around his journey to Jerusalem. The Samaritans were descendants of the people of the kingdom of Israel, which was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire centuries prior. The
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Source Text: All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” (Luke 19:7) Chapter Summary: The book of Luke is historically identified as the first account of Christian history. Scholars believe Luke’s foundational ministry is to demonstrate God’s intentions in birthing a
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In Luke 22, Satan makes a flamboyant entrance into Judas. Whether or not there was consent is debatable. Judas continues the motif with an over-the-top kiss that initiates a narrative we might hear in a Liturgy of the Passion. A flurry of activity at the Mount of Olives as Jesus and the apostles/disciples are confronted by chief priests, officers of the temple police, elders, and others. A question was asked and a choice was made. 49 When those who were around him saw what was coming, they asked, “Lord, should we strike with the sword?” 50 Then one of them
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