A bit of Luke...

I spent much of the day re-reading Michael Card's commentaries on Mark, Matthew, and Luke.  The further I read into Luke makes me want to re-read Mark and Matthew.  Plus, well, I keep getting hung up on Luke Chapter 15 and the commentary on the Parable of the Father with the Lost Son(s).  If I were to be glib, I would say that those pages/paragraphs alone are worth the price of the entire commentary.

I am tempted to type it all out here, but I read it often enough and have the passaged bookmarked.  It is easier to find it in the Kindle app than on the less-than-efficient search engine that is on my blog.  I read and ponder, with much time passing without notice.

Michael Card's commentaries are certainly teaching me to be a better reader of the Gospels.  In a way, as I read each passage before the commentary that follows, I can, in small part, anticipate what I might encounter.  Certainly the reading and re-reading of Mark and Matthew help.  But with Luke there is this sense of camaraderie, this being one of the ones standing on the outside looking in and listening and yearning for more.  I mean, Luke is collecting eye-witness testimonies in his Gospel.  He, as with Mark and Matthew, have a keen sense of audience and have personal influences that color and inform his craftsmanship.  His is the Word of God and it is perfect.

Mark is perfect.
Matthew is perfect.
Luke is perfect.

Holding those thoughts in my head as I read leaves me standing more outside this Gospel than the other two.  I certainly have learned to celebrate the perfection of the Word of God, especially in the differences amongst the three testimonies read thus far.  But, as I said, this one seems less ... intimate ... and yet just as informative.

Take the opening commentary on Luke 16: 1-13:

Chapter 16 opens with Jesus telling this parable to his disciples.  We will discover in verse 14 that the Pharisees are listening in and "scoffing"—literally turning up their noses at him.  With the opening of this chapter, the focus of Jesus' teaching shifts toward the new value system of the kingdom:  what is valuable and what is not.  We have come to expect, given that radical reversal is part and parcel of the kingdom, that everything will be turned upside down.  And that is precisely what we find.  Money, which the world regards as the ultimate measure of value, is put in its proper place as merely a tool to be used to facilitate relationships with people, who are now to be highly valued.

I am repeatedly struck by that last sentence.  If the facilitation of relationships with people is the standard, can you imagine a revision of The Forbes 400 or the Forbes list of the 500 wealthiest people in the world?  It's mind-boggling.

Lately, I have been struggling with someone who puts a price, who weighs the cost, of getting professional help for a child.  If the money is going toward facilitating both the relationship with the child and future healthier relationships the child might have, how can any price be too high?  I honestly do not understand how it is that parents will try to stand in the shoes of professionals when it comes to the physical, mental, and social welfare of their children, but would not even think of doing so with the professionals in their lives, such as an attorney or electrician or mechanic.  If your car is "ill," you take it to a mechanic. To be more willing to spend money on car repair than the welfare of a child just doesn't make sense with me.  And, frankly, I struggle with hearing about the cost.

I know the cost of medical care.  I know the tangible and intangible costs of the choices I am making with regard to that care.  But I would never, ever try to cut corners with the care of a child, never try to work things out myself when it comes to the care of a child.

I just don't understand it.  I don't understand how there can be money for vacations, for example, but not money for therapy.  So, reading that one sentence, I suppose, is different for me than for others.

But, in another way, that sentence is a lesson that can be transferred across many of Jesus' teachings and parables:  people are what matters.  Take, for instance, Jesus being called upon the carpet for his disciples gathering food on the Sabbath.  Jesus response is that people matter more than a set of laws.  And when Jesus is accused of breaking the law by healing on the Sabbath, Jesus response to the accusations point to the fact that the well-being of those being healed is most important.  Or consider when the disciples wanted to send all the hungry people away.  Jesus care was for the people, wanting them to be fed and sustained for their journeys home.  People matter.

People mattering is, after all, why Jesus came to die.

I think that reading Michael's Card's commentary on Luke is helping me to better understand some—just some—of Jesus' teaching itself.  I mean, Mark is All Jesus All the Time.  And Mark's Jesus has a plan and a purpose and is racing toward that goal.  Matthew's Jesus is more the "word" of God than either Mark and Luke.  By that, Matthew's emphasis on all the bits of Scripture Jesus fulfills leaves no doubt that "Jesus" is what God has to say to His creation.  In that, I wonder if Matthew was the inspiration, in part, for Michael Card's song "The Final Word."




You and me we use so very many clumsy words.
The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.
When the Father’s Wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.

He spoke the Incarnation and then so was born the Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born the baby who would die to make it mine.

And so the Father’s fondest thought took on flesh and bone.
He spoke the living luminous Word, at once His will was done.
And so the transformation that in man had been unheard
Took place in God the Father as He spoke that final Word.

He spoke the Incarnation and then so was born the Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born the baby who would die to make it mine.

And so the Light became alive
And manna became Man.
Eternity stepped into time
So we could understand.

He spoke the Incarnation and then so was born the Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born the baby who would die to make it mine.


I suppose I digressed a bit.  But it is hard to put into words the thoughts that are in my head reading Luke. I really, really, really wish I had someone with whom I could talk about Luke.  And Mark.  And Matthew.  And how Luke has me going back and reading through Mark and Matthew anew.  SIGH.

Anyway, before the commentary, I would have thought Chapter 16 was a mishmash of text.  I mean, how could a desperate manager, a proverbial line in the sand, and the eternal lives of the rich man and Lazarus be connected?  And yet I can now see the patterns of radical reversal in all three.  Michael Card's commentary demonstrates how knowing the fuller text of Matthew 5 on the Law makes Luke 16 seem less harsh.

What is harsh is the end of Chapter 16.  I almost feel like it is a condemnation that is particularly painfully apt now ... in this time.  How blunt was Abraham speaking to the rich man!  If the words of Moses and the prophets are not enough to inspire repentance, the miraculous appearance of someone raised from the dead will meet with the same stubborn disbelief.

Much disbelief is coming even from the Christian church.  God's word is doubted and outreach is prioritized over the unadulterated, unvarnished Gospel.  I find the talk of outreach and building relationships nauseating, more so now having lived in the Gospels for a while, than even after drowning myself in the Christian Book of Concord.  It is a bit ironic, I think, because Jesus did come back from the dead and stubborn disbelief in this world still remains.

I will say that I have a personal experience clouding my reading of the first part of Luke 17.  For a long while, as I think I've noted before, I was on a prayer list and the prayer for me was to have "an increase of faith." At the time, it was unsettling to me.  It just seemed like a miss on a prayer focus.  If you read Luke 17, that very topic comes up.  The disciples ask for an increase in faith and Jesus tells them that they don't need it.  The measure (or quantity) of faith is not important.  Faith itself is what is important.

I smiled ... deeply ... when I first saw Michael Card's heading for Luke 17: 11-19:  The Perfect Prayer.  I knew what that prayer would be before reading the Scripture passage.  I knew because I have learned—probably more than I think—from reading and re-reading the Gospels.  What is the perfect prayer?  The Kyrie!

In Luke 17:11-19, we are reminded of the journey once again, but finally we are given an actual location:  the border between Galilee and Samaria, an area we've seen Jesus pass through more than once.  As the crowd enters a village, they encounter ten lepers.  The diseased men keep their distance to avoid rendering Jesus and his disciples "unclean" (Lev 13:46; Num 5:2).  People in that era would have assumed that the ten contracted their skin disease as a result of personal sin.  These men would have naturally seen themselves as unworthy.  Nevertheless, there they stand, crying out for Jesus' help, whether they deserve it or not.

Their cry is really a prayer.  It is the perfect prayer:  "Master, have mercy ..." It is a cry from men who, although they have a right to expect nothing, are asking for everything.  This makes it a cry for hesed.

It will be another of Jesus' unmiraculous miracles.  Notice that there are no words of healing, no pronouncements that the ten are forgiven or clean—only Jesus' command that they go and show themselves to the priest.  The only reason for someone with a skin disease to submit to examination by a priest would be to determine whether they had been healed or not.  In this case, they discover on their way that they have been completely healed.

Out of the ten only one returns, shouting his praises to God.  he comes back and falls at the feet of Jesus, giving thanks for what he has done.  Luke wants us to know that the sole person who comes back is a Samaritan. The implication is that the other nine are Jewish.  The one person who should not have gotten it, did.  The other nine who should have, didn't.

Something not particularly noted here, but is elsewhere, is the pattern that when someone is healed by Jesus, that person gives praise to God.  I wouldn't have noticed that before reading the commentaries.  And yet it is important.  Praising God for His good gifts.

I think that Michael Card's commentary on Luke 18:1-8 is the most succinct explanation of qal vahomer, what I would term the If ...Then pattern, but a very specific one.

Jesus' conclusion in Luke 18:7 is based on a rabbinic rule of interpretation known as qal vahomer, or "easy and hard."  It is an argument from minor to major based on the "how much more" principle.  Hillel, the rabbi Jesus most frequently favored, first formulated it.  Hillel called it his first rule.  If the unjust judge gave justice to the persistent widow, then how much more will God, that great Judge, give justice to those who persistently seek him?  The parable closes with a note of challenge as Jesus wonders out loud if, when he returns, he will find this sort of persistent faith on the earth.  As long as we live in a fallen world, the need for persistence in order to receive justice is not going to go away.

Once pointed out, qal vahomer becomes seemingly ubiquitous ... consider the birds of the field....  But, then again, all the patterns and themes I am learning are seemingly ubiquitous.  That, really, is part of the perfection of the Gospels.  Mark's, Matthew's, and Luke's testimonies are fundamentally different from each other and yet they are, at heart, the same because they are all testimonies of Jesus.  To put it another way, the radical reversal of Jesus' Good News in Luke and Mark is His new orthodoxy in Matthew.  Words shaped for specific audiences of varying lengths and tones are still the same perfect word.

Something else I have learned to greatly appreciate is the added detail/setting that Luke often provides with parables.  Interesting and helpful, too, are his specific additions that clarify people, conditions, outcomes.  And, of course, I am grateful to see and take in just how much of Luke is about the weak and wounded who are most definitely welcomed and tended to by Jesus.

I would also like to say that Michael Card has taught me ever so much about the Pharisees and Scribes and Sadducees, both correcting misconceptions and breaking through preconceptions.  I mean, not all Judaism was alike then.  It was fractured into fractious factions.  It is important to understand that the law had become those 600+ laws that burdened consciousness and distorted the message of God.  But it is equally important to understand that the focus on studying and parsing the word is what helped Judaism survive the cataclysmic destruction of both the temple and a religious life based on sacrifices. And then there is the blunt reality that we are all far more Pharisaic than we would like to admit.

Consider this partial bit from the commentary on Luke 18:9-17:

Two men are going to the temple for prayer.  The first is, in fact, a Pharisee; the other is one of the tax collectors who are so despised by the people.  This tax collector despises himself as well.

The Pharisee stands proud and erect, praying about himself.  He thanks God that he is not like the tax collector with whom he entered the temple.  He provides a short list of his meticulous observances, assuming God will be as impressed with him as he is with himself.  He does not really seem to need God at all.  Even his coming to the temple feels a bit perfunctory.

Before we move on, let's stop and realize that as different as he might seem from you and me, the odds are the Pharisee is the person most of us should probably identify with in this parable.  We can probably camouflage our self-righteousness better, but every day we look around and thank God that we are not like some of the people we meet.  And we all make our little lists, hoping to impress.

The tax collector keeps well back.  His self-loathing can been seen in his body-language.  His eyes are lowered, and he repeatedly pounds his chest.  His prayer is for mercy, but the Greek word Luke uses reflects a desire for atonement.  Darrel Bock, in his marvelous commentary, translates it "mercy through atoning forgiveness."  He seems to intuit that a sacrifice is demanded for his sin and that he cannot hope to offer it himself.  It is a cry for hesed.  Jesus says that he goes home justified.

All those folk who like to live their lives by the WWJD creed really ought to switch to WWTCD.  Or WWLD.  Or WWCWD.  We cannot model our lives after Jesus because we are not the Son of God, but we can follow the example of the tax collector and the leper, of the Canaanite woman ... and of all those who spoke the perfect prayer.

One final note, another heading to pique your interest:  One Broken Link.  That's for a passage in Luke 18.  Can you figure out which one and why?

I have more thoughts about Luke 19, 20, and 21 and the commentary thereof.  But it is late and already I have waxed loquaciously about the commentary I am reading tonight.  Amos is wearing of the laptop taking his rightful place on my person.  And, to be honest, with all the reading and re-reading I've done today, I would like to sit and ponder a bit more, holding my snoring fluff ball.