Lectionary 481: Luke’s Journey Narrative

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Lectionary 481. Scripture: Oct 29. Ephesians 6:1-9. Psalm 145:10-11, 12-13, 13-14.  Luke 13:22-30.

Often we find the Scriptures for the daily liturgy difficult to understand.  We meditate on them and nothing seems to give us clarity.  We ask questions about the text and often get no answers.  The reason why this may happen from time to time is that we have small sections of a Gospel or an Epistle rather than having their surrounding passages the come before and after the reading.  This is the reason why we need to prepare before the Eucharist by reading the passages within their context, that is, what precedes and what follows the given passage and how it fits into the larger framework of a given Gospel or Epistle.

Contextual reading often solves our problems with the text.  A Professor told her students this principle: “Text without context is pretext.”  In other words, the true interpretation is not possible without knowing the context; our thought is more of our own rather than what the text is saying.

Today we need to remember we are within the large framework of Luke’s Journey Narrative (Luke 9:51-19:57) which gives us many scenes of Jesus speaking to and educating his disciples in what it means to follow him as his learners and as his disciples.  His last journey up to Jerusalem is very important for understanding the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.  The disciples are learning about this and still need more and more help for understanding the Paschal Mystery of the Lord.  We, too, need to learn where Jesus is on the journey and what the journey is all about.  The outline and perspective of Luke’s narrative is thus helpful to give us the larger context while the immediate passages before and after help us to situate the passage and to understand it. In reality we, too, are being instructed   for our journey as disciples of Jesus who also are on the way to understand and experience the mystery of his life, sufferings, death, and resurrection.  Jesus, of course, is the “WAY” on the journey and we follow him as disciples. Our goal is the heavenly Jerusalem where we join Jesus and the Father through our own resurrection from the dead.

Today, as we ponder over the Gospel passage, we are able to answer the question of the one who asks the question about how many will be saved?  We are not given a numerical answer but we learn that by following Jesus on the way up to Jerusalem we will be on the path of salvation. Our goal is the same that Jesus has shown us and our Way is the Word of God leading us to the heavenly kingdom.  Our passage thus helps us to think about our final goal.  We pray, “Lord, you are the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE.  Help us to listen to your words, to follow you on the way, and to enjoy eternal life with you.  Amen.”