Posts Tagged ‘Inclusion of the Gentiles’

Calling people “dogs”. The Syrophoenician woman

September 7, 2024

Pentecost 16 – 2024

Mark 7:24-37

Marian Free

In the name of God in whose eyes nothing and no one is unclean in and of themself. Amen.

Some years ago, I watched a move titled simply Water. It was set in rural India in the 1940s. Set against the social movement of Gandhi’s non-violent resistance it tells a story of a number of widows (aged from about 12) who were forced to live out their lives in an ashram in order to expiate the bad karma which had led to their current situation of destitution. The widows were in effect an impoverished religious order. They rarely left the dilapidated building that was their home and when they did they were clearly identifiable in their plain white saris. A scene that has stayed with me is that of a young, beautiful widow who happened to be walking in the street when another woman brushed up against her. Even though the physical connection was brief and not caused by the widow, the other woman recoiled in horror and disgust and began to abuse widow for causing the contact. In that culture a widow was considered to be unclean and her impurity deemed to be contagious. The offended person was angry with the widow because it was the widow’s responsibility to keep well out of the way of the rest of society so that she didn’t risk sullying anyone else.

In our culture it is difficult to understand the purity laws of another culture – how contact with an otherwise moral and clean person might cause us to feel in some way polluted. We might shudder if we were touched by someone who had not bathed for several days, and we might want to wash ourselves after the encounter, but we would not consider ourselves seriously contaminated and unfit to mix in society until we had undergone some form of purification.

Purity laws abounded in first century Judaism. The Pharisees (and the Essenes) in particular were anxious to avoid impurity and there were rules about bathing to restore purity. The reason that the Jews didn’t enter Pilate’s quarters when they handed Jesus over was that they feared being made unclean before the Passover and therefore unable to celebrate the festival. In Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, the Priest and Levite passed by the wounded man because, had he been dead, touching his body would have made them impure and unable to enter the Temple (which was their destination). 

Jesus’ encounter with the woman from Syrophoenicia Jesus takes place immediately after a discussion with the Pharisees and scribes on the subject of purity.[1] The Pharisees and scribes had challenged Jesus because he and his disciples did not observe the purity regulations – washing before eating, cleaning the outside of cooking and eating utensils and so on. Jesus’ response was to challenge the hypocrisy of his opponents who kept the letter of the law but not the Spirit of the law, whose inward nature was not at all impacted by their outward behaviour. Observing the purity laws had failed to purify them. (He on the other hand did not need to keep the laws governing purity as he was pure on the inside.)

After this encounter with the Pharisees, Jesus sought refuge in a house in the region of Tyre. Here, his own relationship with the purity laws was challenged by a desperate woman – a woman who was a source of impurity on three accounts. She was a woman; she was a Gentile, and she was the mother of a child who is possessed by a demon. For all these reasons, according to Jewish law, Jesus should have nothing to do with her. But the woman will do anything for her child. Even though Jesus insinuates that she is no more than a dog, undeserving of his attention, she will not take “no” for an answer. She refused to accept that she and her daughter were not worthy of Jesus’ attention due to their race, their gender and their state of health. She even accepted the description of “dog” and turned the argument around: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs under the table.”  

The woman confronted Jesus’ attitude towards outsiders and thereby his concept of clean and unclean, pure and impure. In so doing she forced Jesus to recognise that he was being that he was being inconsistent. If it was not the “outside” of a thing that makes it clean or unclean, then surely it was not the external identifiers of a person – race, gender, physical or mental health that could determine their state of purity. In his debate with the Pharisees, Jesus claimed that it was not what goes into a person that defiled but what comes out. Taken to its logical conclusion his argument implied that all people should be judged according to their inward nature not their outward characteristics.

This most extraordinary story of a woman, an outsider confronting Jesus and changing Jesus’ mind, makes more sense if we understand the context in which Mark was writing. Mark, and indeed all the gospel writers, were writing to an audience that was primarily Gentile in origin. The evangelists had to answer an unspoken question – How was it that those to whom Jesus was sent did not accept Jesus’ message, and those who were outsiders did?

Placed alongside each other, the debate with the Pharisees about purity laws and Jesus encounter with the Syrophoenician woman provide an answer to that question.  The Pharisees were too rigid to see in the rule-breaking Jesus the one whom God had sent. The Syrophoenician woman dared to claim God’s promise that the Gentiles would be included. 

All that of course is ancient history. We belong to a faith that has little connection with the faith from which it grew. That said, there are at least two lessons for us in today’s gospel. One is that it is not ours to judge others. The second is that God’s embrace can and does include all people regardless of sex, gender, race, religion or any other criteria that we might use to separate and divide.

Beware of calling other people: “dogs” or any other slur – they might just supplant us in the kingdom.

[1] I am grateful to Dr Margaret Wesley for this insight. 

Tags:, ,
Posted in Mark's gospel, Syrophoenician Woman | Comments Off on Calling people “dogs”. The Syrophoenician woman

Everyone has a place at the table

August 19, 2017

Pentecost 11 – 2017

Matthew 15:21-28

Marian Free

In the name of God whose goodness and mercy include all who seek it. Amen.

Movies/TV shows are a great way to learn about the culture of another country without having to go there. For example, there is a movie simply titled “Water”. It is set in India and follows the lives of two widows – one who appears to be only twelve years old and the other who seems to be in her twenties. In Hinduism widows are reviled; their husband’s assets revert to his family and any assets the woman might have had become the property of her family. As a result, widows find themselves destitute. At the same time they are considered to be bad luck – as if their husband’s untimely death has somehow tainted them. It is little wonder that, when it was legal, some widows willing threw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre. Those who choose life are confined to an Ashram in which they are expected to live a religious life and never to remarry. They are totally dependent on the charity of others and often live in quite impoverished circumstances.

The older of our two widows is very beautiful, even in her simple white garment. It is hard to imagine that she is an object of disgust who must be avoided at all costs, but this is her fate. One of the more confronting moments of the movie occurs when someone accidentally brushes up against the young woman, immediately recoils and hurls a string of abuse at the widow whose responsibility it seems is to remain invisible and to steer clear of those who do not share her despised status. (It is her job to ensure that she does not contaminate them, not theirs to avoid her.)

It is easy to cast judgement on what, to us, appears to be the inhuman and insensitive treatment of widows and indeed of the caste of “untouchables” within the Hindu religious and cultural system. But before we pat ourselves on the back for our “enlightened” attitudes it is important to remind ourselves of our own heritage. Most cultures and religions have holiness or purity laws that serve to distinguish and separate people and things into holy or profane. This was certainly true of the Old Testament people and of the Jewish culture into which Jesus was born. Some of these regulations are spelled out in the book of Leviticus that identifies the holy and profane, the clean and unclean. This was important in a religious sense because those who were contaminated by the unholy and unclean could not enter the Temple (the place in which God met with the people of Israel). In some instances that which was profane or unclean were considered to be in some way contagious – that is that contact with the person or item rendered the other profane or unclean[1].

Fear of contamination explains why, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Priest and Levite avoid the injured man. If he is in fact dead, they will become unclean and will have to purify themselves before they enter the Temple (to which we presume they are walking). Gentiles (non-Jews) were considered to be unclean and to have unclean practices. This was the reason that their inclusion in the new community caused so much dissension (as is attested especially by Paul’s letters to Galatia and to Rome).

Purity and holiness laws served to set the Jews apart. By observing the rules and by engaging in prescribed behaviours and by avoiding those who did not observe them Jews in the first century could maintain their sense of difference and their belief in their own distinctiveness and holiness. When Jesus enters the picture he blows all those constructs apart and makes it clear that holiness is not a matter of external behaviours, but is entirely dependent on the state of one’s heart.

We can see this in the context of Matthew’s account of Jesus encounter with the Canaanite woman. Matthew places the story immediately after the Pharisees and scribes challenge Jesus with regard to what is clean and unclean. In response, Jesus redefines the concepts making it clear that it is not externals that make a person clean or unclean, but their acceptance of and faith in Jesus. That Matthew’s placement of the story is not accidental is suggested by the fact that Jesus (without any particular justification)– Jesus travels from wherever he is into what is very clearly Gentile territory – the region of Tyre and Sidon. The woman who approaches Jesus is clearly (from the Pharisaic perspective) an outsider who is also unclean. Jesus doesn’t recoil. Engaging with the woman will not contaminate him. Instead (after initially ignoring her) Jesus allows the woman to engage him in debate and then accedes to her request. The woman’s recognition of Jesus as “Lord, Son of David”, confirm to the reader that no matter how the Pharisees might view her, she is no longer an outsider and as such no longer unclean. Following this meeting, Jesus returns to Galilee (of the Gentiles) where he heals, without discrimination, all those who are brought to him. Like the woman they too make it clear that they are no longer outsiders by praising “the God of Israel”.

Through the way in which he has organized the material available to him, Matthew seems to be describing a progression from a ministry and mission that was directed solely to Israel (10: 6, 15:24) to a ministry and mission that is directed towards and fully inclusive of the Gentiles (28:19). An essential part of this programme is a re-framing of the concepts of clean and unclean, holy and profane. In the new economy, the barriers between the sacred and profane have no meaning and the divisions between Jew and Greek have been broken down.

From the genealogy, through the coming of the magi, Matthew has been making it clear that through Jesus the rules have changed – the definitions of holy and profane have been recast. Holiness no longer refers solely to those who were born Jews, to those who observed the purity laws and maintained a comfortable distance from the unclean and the profane. In the new economy, holiness/purity knows no boundaries. Inclusion is no longer determined by race or gender, class or skin colour. Everyone who recognises Jesus as Lord has a place at the table.

[1] (The use of iron tools to cut a stone altar made it unfit or unholy – Exodus 20:22, contact a corpse would exclude a person from the Temple until they had purified themselves and so on.)

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Matthew | Comments Off on Everyone has a place at the table

Incitement to violence?

October 11, 2014

Pentecost 18

Matthew 22:1-14

Marian Free

 

Holy God, may we so strive to understand your word, that we are not blinded by our own prejudices or limited by our own ignorance, and that we are always on guard against complacency and self-satisfaction. Amen.

As radical Islamists are rampaging though northern Iraq and Syria, wreaking destruction and committing atrocities against innocent civilians who do not hold their world view, the last thing that we want is to be confronted with on a Sunday morning is the violence of our own texts and the possibly that they might be used as an incitement to violence against others. And yet that is just what we appear to have this morning. Sure, the original wedding guests did kill the king’s servants but the king’s reaction does seem excessive. He sends his troops against the offenders and not only kills them but burns their city. It is a parable and not meant to be taken literally, but if it were literal a lot of innocent people would have been killed along with the guilty. If that were not enough, the parable ends with what many think is a second parable – that of the man without a wedding garment who gets cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. There is just no getting around the aggression in these two parables.

Before we condemn all Muslims and their holy texts, it is important to understand how easy it is for our own to be twisted or distorted. To recognise how easily they can be used as a justification for violence and exclusion and to exercise some caution before we point our fingers at others.

In recording the parable of the banquet both Matthew and Luke have used it to further their own distinct arguments. Luke’s emphasis on the inclusion of those on the edges comes through loud and clear in his placement and re-telling of the parable while Matthew’s agenda of demonstrating that the Jesus-believing Jews are the true Israel is obvious in the way in his placement and telling.

Luke’s setting is that of a series of banquet stories. In response to a dinner guest who says: “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God!” Jesus says: “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’

In Luke’s story someone has a banquet, there is only one servant, the guests who refuse to come are ignored. The servant is sent out again, not once, but twice. Luke makes it very clear that the replacement guests are the poor, the crippled and the lame – in other words the vulnerable and those who would usually be excluded. As Luke perceives it, the Kingdom of God will include all these outsiders.

Both writers are trying to explain why it is that those to whom Jesus was sent have not embraced him and others, the outsiders (Gentiles), have. Those who were invited did not come and others invited in their place did.

The author of Matthew’s gospel makes this point even more strongly to demonstrate his claim that the new believers have supplanted the old. The Jesus-believing Jews have taken the place of the Jews who do not believe. We see this in the preceding two parables (see Pentecost 16). The vineyard is taken away from the wicked tenants and the son who initially says he will not go, is the one who does. Matthew uses hyperbole in his retelling – it is a royal wedding banquet, there are several servants, not just one, the servants are killed and in retaliation the invited guests are killed. Whereas Luke describes the replacement guests Matthew simply points out that they have been invited indiscriminately – the good and the bad together.

It is possible that as well as using exaggeration Matthew is employing Old Testament allusions to make his point. There was a tradition that Israel killed the prophets sent by God and also a belief that Israel’s faithlessness led to punishments such as defeat by their enemies and being taken into exile. Matthew’s listeners may well have understood the servants to be the prophets and the destruction of Jerusalem as a consequence of the king’s (God’s) anger.

That leaves us with the man without the wedding garment. Why does Matthew append this detail? One explanation is that he is warning his community against complacency. The man without the wedding garment represents those who think that their inclusion is the end of the matter and do not understand that it comes with certain responsibilities. This parable makes it clear that just as easily as they have been included, they can be excluded. They must be on their guard and not take their invitation for granted.

When we go to the trouble of grappling with Matthew’s telling of the story, we can see that it is NOT an incitement for us to use violence against or to destroy those who do not believe what we do. Rather it is a parable, a story (and an exaggerated one at that) to explain why it is that we, who are not Jews came to be included in the people of God. It is also warning that we should look to ourselves. At all times we should be on our guard against smugness and self-satisfaction. If we treat God’s invitation with disdain it can always be extended to others.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Matthew | Comments Off on Incitement to violence?

Moving the boundaries

August 16, 2014

Pentecost 10. 2014

Matthew 15:21-28

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who is constantly breaking down barriers and opening new possibilities for existence. Amen.

The account of the Canaanite woman is perhaps the most confronting story in the New Testament. Our familiarity with the Gospels means that we are not at all shocked by the way that Jesus befriends sinners and eats with them. Nor are we surprised that he allows a woman of the street to wash his feet. It seems perfectly reasonable to us that Jesus should heal on a Sabbath. But this story is shocking Jesus is rude and unsympathetic. He refuses to respond to a mother’s agonised cry for help. Worse still, not only does Jesus ignore the woman’s pleas, he adds insult to injury when he justifies his refusal by likening the woman to a household pet that does not deserve the same food as the children.

This hard, uncompromising Jesus is almost unrecognisable. Is this, we might ask, the same Jesus who only a short while ago had such compassion for the crowd that even though he needed to be alone he healed the sick and fed more than 5,000 people?

What is going on here? Such an unflattering and unexpected description of Jesus demands further explanation. Why would the Gospel writers include an account in which Jesus is so uncompromising, so rude? What is it that causes Jesus to withhold healing in this situation? Did he think that he would find the peace he was seeking outside Israel’s borders and did the woman interrupt that peace? We may not be able to find a satisfactory answer to those questions, but we can draw the conclusion that the purpose of this story in Matthew’s gospel is to explain how it is that the Gentiles have come to faith in a Jewish Messiah. – why it is that the faith community consists of both Jew and Gentile.

There are two versions of Jesus’ encounter with a Gentile woman in Mark and Matthew. A comparison between the two accounts shows that Mark’s record of the meeting is much less confrontational. Matthew has heightened the contest in a number of ways, which makes the outcome even more surprising. He elevates the position of the woman and he emphasises Jesus’ refusal to help. The woman recognises Jesus as the Son of David and falls down and worships him. This makes her a more formidable combatant than the woman in Mark’s account as she knows who Jesus is at a time when Jesus’ disciples have not yet made up their minds. The battle lines are more clearly drawn In Matthew, Jesus ignores the woman’s request not once but twice and his refusal to acknowledge her is supported by the disciples who urge him to send her away. Jesus’ response to the woman is strengthened by the assertion that his responsibility is only to the lost sheep of Israel. Matthew makes the woman stronger, Jesus harsher.

The basic elements of the story are the same in both gospels. Tyre and Sidon are on the Mediterranean Sea – a long way from Galilee and in territory that is primarily Gentile. It is Jesus, not the woman, who is out of place. The woman who seems to appear out of nowhere is desperate. An evil spirit oppresses her daughter. When Jesus rejects her plea for a second time she is not deterred. So confident is she in his authority and in his ability that she informs him that the crumbs will be enough. In her wisdom (or humility) she has understood that there is more than enough to go around and that even the left-overs will be more than sufficient to meet her need[1]. By helping her daughter, she suggested Jesus’ ministry to Israel would in no way be diminished.

Jesus is outside his territory on the woman’s home ground and she demands that he take her faith seriously. Consciously or unconsciously, the woman foreshadows the future. After Jesus’ death, the gospel will be preached in the regions beyond Israel. There the Gentiles will recognise Jesus and will demand their place in the community of faith.

In the final analysis, this account is much more than a story about one woman’s faith. It is in fact a reflection about boundaries, boundaries that turn out not to be rigid and immovable but fluid and ever-changing. The world into which Jesus was born was very clear about who was in and who was out and the lines between the two were fiercely guarded. Belonging was more than a birthright it also required adherence to strict purity laws. One could be born a Jew but still be an outsider. Anyone with a disability or skin disease was considered unclean, tax collectors and prostitutes were excluded. Temporary exclusion could result from contact with a corpse, a flow of blood or a failure to observe the purity laws. It was close to impossible for anyone from outside to be given admission to God’s chosen people. The woman’s insight and her refusal to be denied made it clear that the boundaries were moving and that Jesus’ message was intended not just for a few, but for the whole world.

Our readings today remind us that God doesn’t observe conventions or maintain strict boundaries. Genesis tells us that by default Joseph, the Hebrew slave of Pharaoh, becomes the ruler of all Egypt. In Romans Paul reminds us that, contrary to expectation, wIld olive shoots (the Gentiles) are grafted on to the rich root of the olive tree (the Jews).

The faith that grew in Jesus’ name shattered all previous boundaries and admitted as full members those who were previously on the outside or who were languishing in the shadows.

The Canaanite woman demanded and received recognition for her faith. She challenged Jesus’ narrow mind-set and forced him to think differently. In a world in which boundaries are becoming drawn ever tighter or being raised against perceived threats or new fears, perhaps it is time for us to consider where we stand and to ask ourselves whether our fences represent the mind of God or whether they are simply there to separate ourselves from others and to protect the ways of the past.

[1] An interesting insight in view of the quantity of leftovers from the feeding of the 5,000.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Mark's gospel, Matthew | Comments Off on Moving the boundaries

A window into Luke

February 2, 2013

Epiphany 4

Luke 4:21-30

Marian Free

In the name of God, whose son Jesus is revealed to us in the gospels. Amen.

Over the course of this year you will notice that our gospel readings come predominantly from the Gospel of Luke. The reason for this is that we are in the third year of the lectionary cycle. Over three successive years we read, almost in full, Matthew, Mark and Luke. (John does not have a year to itself, but is read during Easter and Lent during those years.)

We do not know anything about the author of the gospel of Luke, but we can deduce some things from the gospel and the way in which it is written. Luke, as Matthew, follows the same order as Mark, however Luke leaves out information and text which he (we presume the author was a “he”) considers unnecessary. For example, he completely omits chapters 6 and 7 of Mark possibly because they contain a number of repetitions. On the other hand, Luke is a storyteller and with just a few details is able to create a comprehensive picture or tell a compelling story. Two of the most well-known and loved stories in the New Testament are told only by Luke – the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal son both of which say a lot very succinctly. So, despite Luke’s preference for brevity, his gospel is significantly longer than that of Mark.

For centuries, it was argued that the author of Luke was a physician. Scholars pointed to Luke’s interest in, and apparent knowledge of things medical. However, it has long since been observed that Luke has no more knowledge or interest in medicine than any other NT writer. It is clear, however, that Luke does have more interest in social justice. (In Acts we find the idea that members of the church should have all things in common and the Song of Mary states that God “has put down the mighty from their thrones and the rich he has sent empty away.”)

We know that Luke was the author of two books – the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles – which, though separated by John in our Bibles, originally belonged together. That they have the same author is demonstrated by the fact that both books are addressed to the same person – Theophilus – and that similar themes play out throughout both books. One clear theme is that of journey and mission. The Gospel, concerned as it is with re-telling the life of Jesus, is focussed on Jerusalem and a large part of the book is taken up with Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and its consequences. In Acts, the focus begins in Jerusalem, the centre of Judaism and the birth place of the church, and from there the story broadens out to include the Mediterranean and Rome, the centre of the Empire.

Luke’s gospel was probably written some time between the years 80 and 90. it cannot have been written before the sixth decade of the first century otherwise it would not have been able to include the details recorded at the end of Acts, nor can it have been written any later than the late second century which is the date of our earliest copy.

By the time that the gospels were written, the emerging church faced a crisis – the Jews to whom Jesus was sent had failed to respond to his message, whereas the Gentiles – who did not belong to the people of Israel – had come to faith. To some extent, all the gospel writers deal with this conundrum in some way, but the issue expressed most clear in Luke. The third gospel demonstrates both that God remains faithful to his promises – God has not abandoned the Jews – and that the inclusion of the Gentiles was always part of God’s plan. This is one reason that the author of Luke begins the story in the centre of Judaism and concludes the account in the centre of the empire.

Even though Luke is keen to demonstrate the movement of the faith throughout the whole world, he is equally keen to emphasise its Jewish roots. According to Luke, the story of Jesus and of the early church is nothing less than a continuation of Judaism and the fulfilment of the OT expectations. Unlike Mathew, who repeatedly alerts us to the fulfilment of the OT, “this was to fulfil what was written in the scriptures”, Luke makes the same point by repetition and allusion. So for example, the Song of Mary is almost identical to the Song of Hannah and Jesus’ life is portrayed in such a way that those who knew would associate Jesus with Moses. (Moses goes into the wilderness. In the desert Moses experiences a call from God. The people to whom Moses is sent do not understand and so on.) In fact it can be argued that Luke sees the account of John the Baptist as the conclusion of the OT era (the last of the prophets), and Jesus as the beginning of the new, God’s anointed one.

Today’s gospel reading is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Luke’s record is however, quite different from the other two. If you were able to place the three accounts side by side you would see that Luke provides new material that is not found elsewhere. All three report Jesus’ preaching in the synagogue. Only Luke quotes the passages that Jesus reads: “He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives.” Likewise only Luke has Jesus claim that the scripture is fulfilled in him. The former is consistent with Luke’s social justice emphasis and the latter with his fulfilment theme. Luke alone has Jesus insinuate that the crowd (like the Jews in the times of Elijah and Elisha) are unable to recognise one of their own whereas those from outside (Naaman) do. (The reader is not surprised – this is what is happening in their own time – Gentiles believe, those to whom Jesus was sent do not.)

The response of Jesus’ listeners in Mark and Matthew is relatively mild despite being impressed, they took offense at him because they knew him so well). In Luke the reaction to Jesus’ claim and to his insinuation about the lack of faith in his listeners is so powerful and negative that they try to kill him. (Luke, at the beginning of his account of Jesus’ ministry is already making it clear that it is not that God has abandoned God’s people, but that they have failed to recognise God in Jesus.)

Most of us think that we know what the Bible says so sometimes it comes as a shock to learn that passages and stories that we thought belonged to all the gospels belong only to one or that one writer makes what we consider to be radical changes or additions to a familiar story. It is also exciting to compare the three accounts. Our new knowledge encourages us to ask questions, to consider why Luke added so much to his source material, what he was trying to say about Jesus, who were the people who heard or read the Gospel, how did the early church develop and grow and so on? During the year we will discover the answers to some, if not all of these questions.

Scripture is fascinating, confusing, challenging and comforting, but above all, it is one way that God communicates with us and a way that we in turn communicate God to the world. Don’t we owe it to God and to the world to discover and to understand as much as we possibly can?

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Epiphany, Luke's gospel | Comments Off on A window into Luke