RLST 248-001 - Dr. William Arnal
Exegesis #8
November 18, 2004
This passage is of Jesus speaking to Jewish people during a Sabbath meal. Within this chapter are two responses to situations that opened for a grounded discourse on the intention behind an individual’s actions. The first incident is from recognizing an ill among the guests and secondly, when everyone seats themselves around the table. Both of these events created the fuel for Jesus to initiate his teachings in parables, to instruct his followers, and to rebuke the distinguished.
The man who was ill had dropsy and the situation allowed for an experiential application of theology rather than a conceptualized teaching that could be abstractly debated. The author of Luke made use of plot and narrative devices in an ingenious implanting of Jesus’ wisdom sayings in a way that cannot be contested. When the officials of Moses’ law were confronted with the question as to healing (for Jesus this would be working) on the Sabbath (3), the silence gave emphasis to the miracle performed. The writer’s main intent of showing Jesus first as a healer is supported by this chapter, where the healing took place before Jesus switched to his teaching role, allowing the awe over the miracle working to add credibility to his words, thus increasing the receptiveness of the guests and making them less likely to act on any offense taken in Jesus’ rebukes.
After the miracle of healing, the guests sit down for dinner and Jesus notes how others clamored for the places of honour (7). The pride and arrogance shown allowed him to teach through the wedding banquet parable, a more conceptually developed theology of a Q Gospel saying (11) that also occurs in the Gospel of Thomas (64). Using everyday reasoning from experiential settings, Jesus shows how pride comes before a fall (9). The reversal of order in the kingdom of God lies silently full behind the practical scene painted by ‘Luke’s’ words. Jesus instructs on how the intent behind giving a dinner party can be seen by who the invited guests status and suggests that merit is gained either in the limited earthly exchange of known and immediate value, or in the unknown value at a later date. Interestingly here, the reference of “the resurrection of the righteousness” (14) is a foreshadowing of two events; a literary device that foreshadows Jesus’ death and resurrection within the plotline, and the prophetic foreshadowing of the second coming.
In response to a comment thrown out off-handedly after this teaching, Jesus brings his wedding banquet into the more common arena of a dinner party. Here he points out that when the time for the party arrives, all the guests invited have other more earthly distractions to entertain them. This is how the writer stylishly anchors the theology into the arena of practice and the pitfalls experienced in applying oneself to two paths, the earthly and the spiritual.
Even though the invited guests all are engaged elsewhere, the destitute of society are not and are able to accept the spontaneous invitation from the servant of the Master. The destitute are unaware of the practices of law, the practices of religion and are more open to an invitation at a moments notice. They answer immediately, with gladness and humility, and in the parable, the invited are left destitute from having the experience. Again, emphasis is skillfully utilized in the reversal of rewards and of giving rebuke to those listening is cordially extended.
For the writer of this chapter, the teaching does not stop here. He again returns to Jesus’ teaching of how to behave consciously with intention. Using strong feeling words to get his point across, ‘Luke’ uses the Q traditions apocalyptic strength in the word ‘hate’ as applied to giving up the known: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate (family)… even life itself, cannot be my disciple (26).
The spiritual path makes no room for the energy expense of daily concerns in this theology. It is the spiritual path that needs all resources focused on carrying “the cross” and following Jesus (27). How can one have energy to do anything else? This is summarized as being possessionless (33).
This last statement of being without possessions is next analogized with salt. Possessions are good while the person has the taste for them, but are discarded when they are no longer fulfilling to the owner, just as salt loses its taste and becomes useless and thrown out. This analogy carries multiple layers of symbolic interaction and interplay: the comparison of possession/salt in an individual’s experience, as well as the salt/person of God’s kingdom to come.
Now this exceptional writing ability to use narrative analogy is sourced from the Q Gospel, but the writer of Luke can be credited with the matrixing of various parables into a narrative plot and theme that systematizes the earlier theology into a storyline that makes a memorial of Jesus as a character rather than an abstracted list of proverbial wisdom.
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