Luke the Social Justice Warrior

 

St. Luke, the Social Justice Warrior

 

Each of the four Gospel writers has a distinct point of view. St. Mark, the first to write a Gospel, gives us the basics. St. Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience. St. John’s mystical view begins at the very beginning—the Creation. St. Luke, whose feast day is October 18, portrays Jesus as a social justice warrior in the tradition of such Old Testament prophets as Isaiah and Amos. In fact, in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Mary, before she gives birth, sings the Magnificat, based on the Song of Hannah from First Samuel. Of the Lord, she sings:

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
    and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and sent the rich away empty.

A few years before Jesus’ birth, the Roman Empire proclaimed the “good news” of Augustus Caesar and lauded him “as Savior, who  has put an end to war and has set all things in order;  and (whereas,) having become (god) manifest, Caesar has fulfilled all the hopes of earlier times.” (from the inscription at Priene). In Luke 2, an angel proclaims “good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke is issuing a direct challenge to the Roman Empire, as anyone of his time would have recognized.

In the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6: 17-49), Jesus preaches “Blessed are you who are poor” without the comforting “in spirit” of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. And while the Jesus of Mark and Matthew both proclaim the Two Great Commandments, which we recite in the Rite I Eucharistic service: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” But only Luke goes on to ask, “who is my neighbor?” He then gives us the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a foreigner is the good neighbor. (Luke 10: 25-37)

The Gospel of Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles, also written by Luke, have many other examples of Jesus and his disciples as the social justice warriors. But one passage initially suggests Jesus was calling for literal warriors. On the night before he was crucified, and after the Last Supper, Jesus, who earlier had told his disciples to go out “without a purse, bag, or sandals,” tells them “’the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” They said, ‘Lord, look, here are two swords.’ He replied, ‘It is enough.’” (Luke 22: 35-38)

Luke’s Jesus is calling for the fulfillment of scripture—Isaiah 53:12—that the Lord’s Anointed “was numbered with the transgressors.” Later after Jesus’ arrest, one of the disciples “struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus said, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched his ear and healed him.” Thus, we can follow Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s call to work for social justice through the Way of Love. No swords required.

(All Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version.)

 Image: Jan Brueghel the Elder, Harbor Scene with Christ Preaching (Wikimedia Commons)