Be like Luke

Advent 4C
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
22 December 2024

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Listening to Scripture and reading our context

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Throughout this year we shall especially focus on the Gospel tradition attributed to Saint Luke. 

This is year C in a three-year cycle for the ecumenical lectionary shared by all the major Christian churches. During the past twelve months we have been especially listening to how Mark told the Jesus story, and when we start Advent all over again next November we shall refocus on Matthew’s telling of the Jesus story. But for the next twelve months we listen to Luke.

Who was Luke?

Each of the Gospels in the New Testament are traditionally attributed to a particular apostle or close associate of the apostles.

There is no historical basis to those attributions, and they really do not add anything to our understanding of the documents. We are better advised to pay close attention to the narrative that each Gospel offers us and then discern the different theological emphases that each provides. In other words, we read between the lines as we seek wisdom for everyday life.

There is an added twist in that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles seem to be volumes one and two of an original continuous account that has been separated into different parts as the NT took shape. The first half was eventually collected and transmitted in the set of Gospels, while the second part was often attached to the collection of Paul’s letters.

The author/editor is never named, although they speak in the first person in the opening paragraph of each volume.

Whoever crafted these two documents (which comprise more than 25% of the New Testament), seems to have been a Gentile (i.e., not a Jewish follower of Jesus) and yet someone who was deeply influenced by the Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures, the Septuagint. Whoever this person was, they wrote more of the New Testament than any other person in the early church. Even more than Paul!

Let’s adopt as a listening strategy the idea that we are listening to the words of a Gentile Christian during the earliest stages of the Jesus movement. This will be somewhere during the last 25 years of the first century and the first 25 years (or so) of the second century. I would suggest later rather than earlier.

By the time “Luke” is writing his account of things, several people have already written accounts of Jesus. Luke is aware of Mark and Matthew, and perhaps also the Gospel of John. None of this is 100% certain, but it is a reasonable set of assumptions to help us understand what we are going to be hearing in the coming year.

Interestingly, Luke thinks the earlier accounts were incomplete or inaccurate and he writes to set the record straight!

What did Luke do?

Without delving too deeply into the details in a sermon, let me suggest that Luke was doing two things at the same time. Let me also suggest that he is offering us a model that we might well choose to follow.

Luke is listening to Scripture, and he is also paying attention to his contemporary culture.

I think that is exactly what we need to be doing as well.

We see Luke listening to Scripture when he draws on the ancient stories of Samuel to provide colour and detail for his story of Jesus.

This is especially the case today as we ready the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. This powerful prophetic song which Luke has Mary sing spontaneously after she meets her cousin, Elizabeth, is itself inspired by the song of Hannah from 1 Samuel 2. We read that prophetic song for our psalm portion on 17 November, as we began to turn our minds towards the Kingdom themes during the Sundays after All Saints Day.

Any ancient reader familiar with the Jewish Scriptures would have easily recognised how Luke’s description of John the Baptist and Jesus echo the biblical stories of Samuel.

Luke was not alone in searching the Scriptures when seeking to understand their experience of God in and through Jesus. All the early followers of Jesus did the same thing. For example, Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth draws on themes related to Joseph the dreamer, Moses and the escape from a murderous king.

But Luke does something that most of his peers failed to do. Luke also paid attention to the cultural context in which he and his readers were located.

To express that in more contemporary terms (even if slightly outdated now): Luke did not just read the Bible, he also read the newspaper.

For Luke and everyone else in the Mediterranean world around the end of the first century, the dominant reality was the Roman Empire.

Rome had its foundation myth, its national story: the legend of Romulus and Remus.

Luke is writing his account of the Jesus story for people living inside the Roman world.

Instead of the legend of Romulus and Remus—two brothers—one of whom would become the founder of Rome; Luke tells a story about two boys—John and Jesus—one of whom would become the saviour of the whole world.

As you prepare for Christmas this week, take the time to read the first two chapter of Luke in one sitting. It is not a very long read, but we mostly hear the story in isolated chunks. Read the whole story as told by Luke in one go, and imagine how his original audience living in the Roman empire around 100 CE would have understood Luke’s message.

This outline I prepared some time back may be helpful …

Be like Luke

The challenge for us is to be like Luke: to be people who read the Scriptures but also pay attention to the cultural world in which we live.

That is something that comes naturally to us as Anglicans, since our tradition has always valued culture (fine arts, music, scholarship) while remaining firmly grounded in Scripture.

To repeat the metaphor I used earlier, we need to have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other hand.

The Scriptures teach us how best to recognise God in everyday life, and our world invites us to express the good news in ways that transform lives and communities.

That is our task this Advent, and during the year ahead.