Year of Luke

Over the years New Testament scholars have compared the soteriologies of Luke and Paul and have found Luke wanting. For Luke rarely, if ever, uses Paul’s traditional terminology, that is, that the shedding of Jesus’ blood saves us from our sins. But Luke is not Paul the systematic theologian and letter writer. Rather he is a narrative theologian, whose stories teach us that God saves us through the actions of Jesus among us. I call Luke’s soteriology “a soteriology of with-ness” and make three points.

Luke’s stories of Jesus’ eating habits instruct readers of his Gospel that God is immanent to creation, that God longs to be with God’s creation and that God will remove all boundaries that impede that “comm-union.” Luke paints the winsome picture of a Jesus who is almost always eating with people. But more important than Jesus’ hearty appetite are his table companions: sinners, tax collectors and even self-righteous religious leaders. Drawing upon the vision of Isaiah 25 of salvation as a banquet, Jesus ritualizes in table fellowship God’s desire to bring all to the table of life. Jesus’ eating habits draw fire from the religious leaders who charge him with being “a glutton and a drunkard” (7:34). This indictment is similar to Deuteronomy 21:18–21 which describes a rebellious individual as “a glutton and a drunkard.” The punishment for that person is ultimate removal from the community by being stoned to death. Jesus has crossed over the boundaries set up by religion and society to unite himself and the God he preaches with the marginalized of society and of religion. Jesus’ opponents see the God, bodied forth in Jesus’ eating practices, as an alien God. Jesus will be crucified because of the way he eats.

The salvation that Jesus brings effects transition from destructive isolation to nurturing community. The key words here are boundary/isolation and access/communion. That is, this aspect has to do with boundaries that deny people access to communion with their fellow men and women and keep them isolated. Salvation is boundary-breaking. It is communion after isolation. This dimension is present in a number of Luke’s miracle stories. Luke 7:20–22 highlights Jesus’ kingdom power to restore people to wholeness. The blind, lepers, the lame, the deaf, the dead and the poor are given access to full human community through Jesus. No longer are they isolated. Upon closer inspection we can note that in 7:22, Luke is alluding to promises God made in Isaiah 29:18–19; 35:5–6; 61:1. By means of these allusions Luke further teaches that in Jesus, God is faithful to God’s promises of breaking the boundaries that deny individuals access to communion with their fellow men and women in society and in the worshiping community.

The story of the Gerasene demoniac (8:26–39) is a parade example of Luke’s teaching that the salvation brought by Jesus’ kingdom activities is transformation from destructive isolation to nurturing human community. In 8:36 Luke expressly states that this is a story of how the man who had been possessed was saved. Through Jesus the possessed man becomes rational again and thus able to make the decisions necessary for healthy human interchange. He even wants to join Jesus’ community of disciples. He abandons life in the tombs and in the desert and now lives in a home among his fellow men and women. He clothes his nakedness with clothing that gives him an identity and marks his position in human society. In summary, through miracle stories Luke proclaims that in Jesus, God is with ailing men and women, restoring them to community.

The final point revolves around Jesus’ words to the good thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (23:43). This verse summarizes and underscores Jesus’ faith that God will be faithful to and with God’s creation to the last. The innocent and righteous Jesus, hanging on the cross with sinners, typifies God’s creation held in the grip of sin and death. Through God’s resurrection of the crucified Jesus, God proclaims mightily and clearly that nothing, not even sin and death, can or will hinder God from being with and thus saving God’s creation. Jesus will be seated at table at the messianic banquet with the good thief and his companions.

Tradition has fittingly symbolized Luke’s Gospel by means of a sacrificial ox. For this Gospel dedicates page after page to narratives of God’s “com- passion” for us in Jesus. Thanks be to God for Luke’s unique voice in the chorus that is the New Testament canon.

Robert J. Karris, OFM, is a professor at St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, N.Y., and a New Testament scholar. His latest book, Invitation to Luke, will be published by Paulist Press in 2001.