February 24, 2014: Luke Chapter 13

The Gospel According to Luke Chapter 13

Originally posted Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Gospel According to Luke Chapter 13:1-9 Repent or Perish

In this passage Luke concludes the theme of the urgency to repent. He uses two apparently historic events to demonstrate the tenuous nature of life. The first involved the death of a number of Galileans killed by Pilate's soldiers. The details of this particular atrocity are not given but we know enough of Pilate from the Jewish Historian Josephus that such an occurrence is not out of character. In the second a number of Jews were killed in a collapsed structure, one of the wall towers near the pool of Siloam in the southern part of Jerusalem. For both incidents Jesus applies a first century understanding of such disasters which assumes that their sin led to their death. He asks the rhetorical question whether those who suffered were any worse offenders against God than anyone else. Their expected answer would be, "No they were not and neither are we." The message is clear: repent or you will perish just as they did. Jesus does not use "perish" to mean physical death. Everyone dies physically. Here he uses the word as a metaphor for the final Judgment and being cut off from God's Kingdom. Only repentance can avoid such a fate.

We have two events, one a heartless killing of worshippers and a second where eighteen construction workers were killed by a collapsing tower. Both events serve the point Jesus is making. Be it deliberate or by fate, death is always near and unpredictable. Repent now before it is too late. In a social order under a capricious Roman rule and extensive poverty, such a warning was realistic.

The second part of the passage concludes the section on repentance that began at vs. 12:1. Here Luke uses the brief parable of the barren fig tree to add another dimension to the urgency of repentance. One's death is not only unpredictable, it is inevitable. The theme of the parable is taken from Isa. 5:1-2, 4-7, where God is the planter of the vineyard which is Israel. The vineyard bears no good fruit and is left to the wilds of nature to consume it. In this passage the fruit is repentance. Even though the time of Judgment may seem far off the fate of the Galileans and the victims of the falling tower demonstrate that physical death may not be.

We should consider one more use to which Luke puts this passage. Even before the time of his writing the delay in the return of Jesus had created the need too explain the validity of that return. This parable would lend itself to being treated as an allegory, as a number of parables were in the early church. If that were the case, the delay could be explained by the extended mercy of God to allow more time for repentance. The delay would allow the completion of the evangelistic goal of preaching the Gospel to all nations. The delay was certainly on the minds of Christian writers by the end of the first and beginning of the second centuries. 2 Peter 3 is an excellent example of the growing issue. Judaism had the same concern with respect to the delay in the arrival of the their Messiah. In both Christian and Jewish expectations, the delay gave rise to Apocalyptic books of the end times such as Revelation, Daniel, Enoch, Baruch and Esdras to name just a few. All deal with visions of the end times and God's ultimate destruction of all evil. This destruction is usually defined as everybody else besides either the Jews or Christians, depending on who the author was.

Luke Chapter 13:10-17 Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman

Scholars call this portion of Luke 13:10-35, the "Unexpected Reversals in the Kingdom of God" because of the change in status of the subject. This is in keeping with Mary's Song of Praise in 1:46-55 where the proud will be scattered, the powerful will be brought down and the lowly lifted up.

The outline of the healing on the Sabbath is similar to others: someone is healed and the Synagogue official or Pharisees complain that the healing is not lawful on the Sabbath because it is considered work unless the person is at death's door. Jesus, who sees healing from God's perspective as making persons whole again, works on the Sabbath the same as God does, out of compassion for all. The text says she has a "spirit of illness" that has left her doubled up for eighteen years. Jesus responds to the "Torah abiding" attendant reminding him even on the Sabbath animals are untied and taken to the water. Work that is allowed to attend to the needs of an animal should certainly - and more so, be allowed for this woman who is as much a child of Abraham as he, and especially so on a Sabbath, God's gift to all humanity. This woman who had been bound by a spirit of weakness is now exalted to the status of a daughter of Abraham.

Jesus cites this as another example of self righteous hypocrisy. The mask of the attendant's righteous indignation hides the heart which has no compassion and shows no mercy.

Luke Chapter 13:18-21 Two Kingdom Parables [see MT 13:31-33; MK 4:30-32]

The Mustard Seed: Someone has calculated that it takes about 750 mustard seeds to weigh one gram, each one being about one millimeter in diameter. In the parable The Kingdom of God is like one of these seeds sown in a garden. This tiny seed (1/750th of a gram) grows to a tree as much as nine feet in height. It is this reversal in size that is compared to the Kingdom which has an unnoticeably small and inconspicuous beginning in Jesus' ministry but will one day be a large tree with many branches. As an added touch of irony, it was the cedar tree that was often compared to powerful people of the Old Testament while here a tiny seed is compared to the Kingdom of God.

The Leaven: The English translation of the parable of the small amount of leaven as being "mixed" into the flour is incorrect. The leaven is "hidden" in a large quantity of flour, about fifty pounds of flour. That would produce enough bread to feed well over one hundred people. If we recall that leaven was considered a corrupting influence. Before Passover started, all leaven had to be removed from the house. Picture a person not wanting to waste the leaven and thinking a small amount could be hidden in the flour (but don't press the image to hard). What was hidden - a small amount turns the flour into an enormous mound of dough. Again, the Kingdom of God is hidden at first and no one will suspect its hiding place. We might think of Luke's story of Jesus' birth in a stable with animals and lowly shepherds as his attendants. This little, hidden child, has become the source of the Kingdom.

Luke Chapter 13:22-30 The Narrow Door

Luke continues the theme of reversal using the metaphor of the door (also the "way") as entry into the Kingdom of God. Overall many (the first) will try to enter but few will succeed. They may claim to know God and to have been obedient to God's commandments, but they have done evil (did not bear fruit) and are locked out. No matter their protestations, when the time for the great Messianic banquet arrives and the Patriarchs and Prophets have gathered,  they will be thrown out while others (the last) will come from all the nations and will be guests at the table (see Isa. 25:6-7, 43:5-6). 

Although Luke has an abiding interest in the rejection of the Gospel by the Jews and inclusion of the Gentiles into the Kingdom, we cannot press that too hard. There were many Jews who did believe in Jesus' Kingdom message both as a future event and as a way of living in the interim. They mostly would have been among the poor and other marginalized groups considered by the Pharisees as shut out of the Kingdom for their lack of ritual purity. They will be the last in line who will become the first while the Pharisees and others who rejected Jesus' Kingdom message will be first in line at the gate expecting an easy entrance but will find the door locked and be ushered to the back of the line.

There is an interesting hint of God's universalism in this passage. It seems even the last have an opportunity to enter this table fellowship. But there is a time when the owner of the house will shut the door and many will not be able to enter.

Luke Chapter 13:31-35 The Lament over Jerusalem [see MT 23:37-39]

We should not be surprised that a Pharisee would warn Jesus of Herod Antipas' attempt to kill Jesus (see 9:9). Pharisees were more interesting in debating the Law than harming others. At least some of the acrimony between Jesus and the Pharisees is the product of the later Church experience with the Synagogue leadership in the various locations where Christian evangelism was taking place and being opposed by that leadership. It should be remembered that Pharisees did not take part in Jesus' hearing before the Sanhedrin and there were some of their number that were followers, albeit quietly. On the other hand, as far as Luke is concerned the Pharisees who rejected Jesus' Kingdom message would be among those who were first but would end up being last.

Jesus' work will not be determined by Herod's conniving. He will finish his Galilean Kingdom ministry before he travels to Jerusalem. He is under the divine imperative and it will be God's Will that moves him forward to complete God's redemptive purpose. He knows the danger that is ahead in the city that "...kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it." Jesus is under compulsion to take that road. The capital city of Judea, of all Israel no matter where its inhabitants have traveled, was important to Jesus. As Paul sought to bring the Gospel to Rome, Jesus wanted to bring the message of God's Kingdom as near to the center of his world. He had long desired to gather the inhabitants under the saving wings of that Kingdom (see Ps 17:8; 36:7; 91:4). Because they would not accept Jesus' message their house (Israel) is forsaken (see Jer. 22:5 as part of Jeremiah's exhortation directed to Judah to repent).