[Dialogue] 4/12/18, Progressing Spirit: Ubeda: A Brief Exploration into the Gospel of Luke; Spong revisited

Thu Apr 12 08:33:20 PDT 2018

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A Brief Exploration into the Gospel of Luk

Essay by Deshna Ubeda on April 12, 2018
I would like to take a moment to explore the Gospel of Luke. When I read Biblical passages these days, I am looking for the deeper meaning behind the words. Meaning, I am not just looking for the dates, context, and scribes, though these are important pieces to the puzzle. I am looking for what the crisis might have been that caused the author to write it and how does the scripture speak to that crisis. I am seeking the wisdom that the passages hold for me in the moment as I read them. The wisdom found in sacred texts can shift as the reader shifts…that is one of the reasons why they are still valuable to modern seekers. My journey with the Bible has taken many turns through the course of my life. Growing up in a progressive Christian church, I was initiated into the Bible from a historical, informed, and liberal viewpoint. I never had to unlearn certain mis-translations or rescue the baby from the bath water. And yet, the Bible seemed outdated and irrelevant and I yearned for a break from it during spiritual community time. It felt forced. I stepped away from Christianity when I went to college… and then found myself back in its arms with the work I do today. Through my work with ProgressiveChristianity.org and studies in Interfaith Chaplaincy, I was called to look deeper into these sacred texts… to explore them like a treasure found in a time vault… to seek the magic in the words… to envision the ancient voices orally sharing the tales, the lessons, the songs, and the poetry around a bright fire, with an unblemished star-filled sky above them. Ancient wisdom holds much for us today, when we can see below the temporary concerns being addressed.

According to biblical scholars, the Gospel of Luke was written between 89-93AD, though there are, of course, debates about the exact time. During this time period, the Christian movement was largely concerned with legitimizing itself in the Roman Empire. This gospel also reflects the transition of Christianity out of Judaism toward the Gentile world. Bishop John Shelby Spong argues that the community Luke was writing for “appears to have been made up primarily of dispersed Jews, who no longer followed their traditions in a rigid pattern and, as a consequence, are beginning to attract a rising tide of converts from the Gentile world. These Gentile proselytes, as they came to be called, had little dedication to or interest in the cultic practices of circumcision, kosher dietary rules and unfamiliar liturgical practices such as a 24-hour vigil around Shavuot or Pentecost and the eight-day celebrations of the Harvest Festival known as Sukkoth. They were not intent on discarding or losing the meaning of these holy days, but they clearly were eager to reduce their place of importance and the hold they had once had on their lives.”[1] This is backed by many writings on Luke, including the “Parting of Ways,” by Anne Amos, who suggests that for early Christians, the 1st century was a time period focused on who was a Christian and who was not. This was also a time period when Jewish Rabbis were excommunicating those who used to be Jewish but then identified as Christians. Jewish Christians were heretics in the eyes of the Rabbi’s.  Clearly this was a time period of great division as to Christians, Jews became “the others.”

The author of Luke is unknown, like many of the Bible’s authors, but tradition has always identified the book of Luke with the physician who accompanied Paul and is mentioned in both Colossians and II Timothy. Scholars also propose that the same author wrote Acts as Volume II of his gospel and “in all probability he was born a Gentile and had been drawn first into the ethical monotheism that marked Judaism. He appears to have actually converted to Judaism and to have joined the synagogue through which he moved into Christianity. He may well have been a convert of Paul’s, at least he has clearly identified himself with Paul’s point of view and he champions it in both the gospel and the book of Acts.” [2]

Much of Luke (at least half) was quoted from Mark and he makes no claim to have been an eye witness but honestly acknowledges the research he has done. He says in his first chapters that “many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of the things which are surely believed among us, even as they delivered them to us, which from the beginning were eye witnesses and servants of the word (Luke 1:1-5).” However, one thing that is quite obvious is that Luke’s purpose was to interpret Jesus in light of the Hebrew scriptures, not to recreate him as separate from it. As it was written during a time period of great division and accusations on both sides of the Judeo-Christian religious map- this would have been a crucial argument.

As always, these Biblical stories need to be seen as narratives, not historical fact. When viewed through the lens of Jewish mythology and prophecy, one can see how important it was to align Jesus with stories from the Old Testament as well as those from age old oral traditions so that words and deeds were inserted or deleted to fit the agenda of the time period. Luke, along with the other Synoptic Gospel writers, would have needed to somewhat fabricate a narrative about Jesus that could be threaded into the collection of sayings, miracles, and passion narratives that arose out of the Jewish history, theology, and storytelling and it needs to be understood that much of these writings are “the creative invention of the authors and assorted intrusive scribes” [3] This was likely done to not only continue to legitimize Jesus as the son of God and Messiah but also to legitimize Christianity in a time of great internal and external chaos. By all accounts the early years of the Christian movement were rife with conflict and rivalries. [4] As the Gospel accounts were based on data “transmitted…by those who were eyewitnesses,” (Luke 1: 1-3) we are dealing with thirdhand information at best.

In order to situate Jesus and his deeds in alignment with the Old Testament and the Jewish religion, while at the same time set him apart, Luke and other early Christian writers would have been organized to align with the annual Jewish liturgical cycle of the synagogue where Christianity lived in its first generations as a movement within Judaism. Just as the Jewish holidays of that time period were focused on cleansing of sins (Yom Kippur), Jesus is shown to not only not be corrupted by other’s sins and uncleanliness, but he also transforms and purifies the evil. He banishes demons, heals the unclean, and forgives the sins. Set against the Jewish liturgical cycle, Luke’s Jesus fits quite nicely.  Luke, along with his fellow Gospel writers, were aiming to align Jesus with ancient prophesy and legitimize his birthright. And at the same time, Luke works toward creating a religion that can spread and exist outside of the ethnic group of the Jews. Brilliant, in my opinion.

These early Christian gospels must be read through the lens of Judaism. “The later Greek thinking period, which shaped the creeds in the 4th century and informs Christian doctrine to this day, has actually distorted the gospel message in a radical way.” [5] However, early on, the Christian community was made up of dispersed Jews living far from home and increasingly interacting with their Gentile neighbors. As Deborah Broome writes in Who’s at the Table? – Inclusiveness in the Gospel of Luke,
Luke was clearly universally-minded. He wrote of a Jesus that welcomed everyone at his table. This Jesus taught that faith was the most important characteristic, not wealth or status. During Jesus’ time, the synagogue rejected this message, but Luke’s Jesus persisted in this teaching, widening the door to allow all flesh, beyond Israel.

The Gospel of Luke is unique in its theology of inclusiveness. Only Luke tells us the parable of the Good Samaritan. This is another indication that the community he lived and existed in had moved beyond the Jewish mythology of a chosen people. Luke emphasizes a universal point of view, likely influenced by Paul, and this theology has a lot to do with why Christianity spread in the exponential way it did. In Luke’s gospel, it is emphasized that Jesus heals, teaches, and even often shares a meal with the sinners, the tax collectors, the unclean, the sick, the marginalized, the excluded, and the women, etc. Luke’s Jesus is a radically inclusive teacher who impresses people with his ability to heal and his lack of social boundaries. Luke emphasizes that the Spirit fell not only on the Jews but on the peoples of the world, who then proclaimed the Gospel in whatever language those hearing spoke. (Acts 2) Clearly Luke was aiming to move Christianity away from the exclusive ethnic Jewish group to a universal faith, which also meant all people were held accountable to their choice to be Christian or not and could be persecuted if considered a non-believer or heretic. For the next thousand or so years, this inclusiveness would shift from a compassionate stance to a justification of immense destruction and violence against non-believers. Whether or not Luke was considering that when he wrote about Jesus will remain unknown.

~ Deshna Ubeda

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About the Author

Deshna Ubeda is a Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, where she has worked since 2006. She is an author, speaker, and seeker. She has presented at conferences in Canada, Australia, Hawaii, Seattle, and Portland. She is currently studying at The Chaplaincy Institute to become an Interfaith Chaplain. She was a lead writer and editor on the children’s curriculum: A Joyful Path, Spiritual Curriculum for ages 6-10. 

Deshna grew up in an amazing Progressive Christian church, IUCC, in Irvine California as a PK (pastor's kid) and so was blessed to be involved in a community that was open, educated, innovative, and inclusive. She was involved in the church at many different levels, as a representative for youth at National UCC Conferences, as a youth group leader, and a camp counselor for many years. She went to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she graduated with honors as a Religious Studies major and a Global Peace and Security minor. This led her to be a part of the Global Reconciliation Service in New York doing some work with the United Nations.

She has worked in Administration for the UC Education Abroad Program, as an Infant Specialist for a non-profit organization, as a Spanish Teacher for elementary children, and as a Yoga Instructor. She is also a certificated post-partum doula and a yoga instructor. Deshna co-wrote a book, Missing Mothers with her mom. During her free time, she continues to write, do yoga, hike, and enjoy her life in Portland with her wonderful community and family.
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[1]   Bishop John Shelby Spong, The Origins of the New Testament XXIV – Introducting Luke http://progressingspirit.com/2010/05/27/the-origins-of-the-new-testamentpart-xxiv-introducing-luke/
[2]   Bishop John Shelby Spong, The Origins of the New Testament XXIV – Introducting Luke
http://progressingspirit.com/2010/05/27/the-origins-of-the-new-testamentpart-xxiv-introducing-luke/
[3]   The Joy of Sects, A Spirited Guide to The World’s Religious Traditions, Peter Occhiogrosso, page 285
[4]   The Joy of Sects, A Spirited Guide to The World’s Religious Traditions, Peter Occhiogrosso, page 296
[5]   Bishop John Shelby Spong, The Origins of the New Testament XXV – Concluding Luke and the Synoptic Gospels
 http://progressingspirit.com/2010/06/03/the-origins-of-the-new-testament-part-xxv-concluding-luke-and-the-synoptic-gospels/

Question & Answer

Q: By Michael

As someone who considers “God” to be primordial Being, through whom and in whom I have my own being, I find it impossible to understand prayer. Do you have any suggestion as to how prayer should be embraced? I come from a Roman Catholic background, but am no longer an adherent. I have pursued the theology of Bultmann, Tillich and the wonderful Scottish Theologian, John MacQuarrie, whose existentialist/ontological approach to the mystery of Being has led me to, what I believe to be, a more wholesome and logical interpretation of God. 
My difficulty now, however, is understanding where/how prayer fits. Any advice you can give would be deeply appreciated.

A: By Kevin Thew Forrester, Ph.D.

Dear Michael,
I appreciate how your evolving understanding of God as Being inevitably calls into question fundamental and practical understandings of your spirituality, such as prayer. In my most recent column I began an exploration of Christianity as a non-dual spiritual practice. The implications of a non-dual Christianity for the conventional practice of prayer are transformational. For starters, within a non-dual Christianity there is no separate entity we call “God,” for the mystery often called “God” is most accurately perceived as being the Being of all. This means each of us is a unique manifestation of Being – distinct but never separate, and that there is not a separate entity to entreat or petition or implore. Being is not some thing out there or in here. Being simply is (and as the East recognizes, Being also implies the emptiness of non-Being – which is a topic for another time).

Within a non-dual Christianity, integral to our spiritual practice is the dedication or entrusting of our lives to the truth of who we are and the life of our unfoldment, as well as to Being that lives and moves and expresses as us. We live lives of gratefulness, because Being is essentially gracious – Being is always already Boundless Love and is our own true nature. The spiritual path thus becomes one of realizing our true nature to such a degree that it transfuses and radiates our entire being without hindrance or veil. When we sit in meditation. When we serve others. When we are sick. When we are at play. Whatever we do, our spiritual practice invites us to realize that we do it as Being expressing itself graciously and freely. The surprisingly spontaneous creative arising of Being, moment-to-moment, captivates our hearts with awe and gratefulness. Our response is song, dance, silence, painting, parenting, sculpting, gardening, etc. All creative expression is sacramental, as it embodies and manifests in sensual ways the undeniable ebullience of Being.

As a teacher, and as a priest in the Episcopal tradition, I lead communities in worship. I endeavor, through education, meditation, conversation, to invite these individuals and groups to inquire into and come to understand the deeper truth of their experiences. I continually reform the language of liturgy – to the degree I judge possible relative to the community’s capacity and within the latitude granted by my polity –  so that it more fully embodies the non-dual Christianity of which I speak; wherein “God” is appreciated as symbolic speech – poetry – for gracious Being.

~ Kevin Thew Forrester, Ph.D.

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About the Author

Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“.

Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

NBC's Dateline, Miracles and the Virgin

Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on May 25, 2005

 The setting was surreal. We were in St. John’s Lutheran Church in Helsinki, Finland. It was 2 p.m. Finnish time, (7 a.m. EST) on a Friday afternoon in May. St. John’s, a huge, neo-Gothic structure seating some 2400 people, was built in 1891. Its focal point was not the altar where the catholic sacraments were observed, but the massive pulpit standing high above the congregation from where “the Word” in all of its protestant reformation glory could be proclaimed. On this occasion, however, there were only seven people present. One, an NBC producer, his eyes heavy with jet lag, had flown over that day from New York. His two-person camera crew had flown in the day before, one from Germany and the other from England. Others present, in addition to myself, were my wife Christine, my Finnish translator, organizer and close friend, the Rev. Dr. Jarmo Tarkki and the St. John’s pastor, the Rev. Auvo Naukkarinen.

Television lights, set up for the interview, turned that dark interior space into the brightness of high noon in the desert. All of this created the setting for a Dateline program, featuring miracles and the various appearances of the Virgin Mary, especially those that were supposed to have occurred in the town of Medjugorje in what we once called Yugoslavia. It was a subject in which I had little interest and healthy suspicion; indeed more than that, I regard such phenomena as both superstitious and almost hysterical. That appeared to be the reason that NBC was so eager to have me on this program that they flew this production crew to Helsinki where I was engaged in a ten-day lecture tour across Finland.

1st there was the account of the person who believed that the head of the Virgin Mary had appeared on a piece of toast. The story developed ‘legs’ when that toast was sold on an E-Bay auction for thousands of dollars. Next, there was the ‘sighting’ of the head of the Virgin under a bridge in Chicago, attracting crowds and media attention. Finally, there was the move on the part of Pope Benedict XVI, to speed the process of declaring the late John Paul II a saint, for which the certification by “competent” authorities of at least two “miracles” was required. Already a man was saying that his brain tumor disappeared after he met John Paul II, and John Paul himself had claimed that his survival of an attempt on his life had been a miracle. Bill O’Reilly had suggested on national television that perhaps the prayers of this Pope brought down communism in Eastern Europe. Miracle stories, always popular with the masses, were in the air. So ‘Dateline,’ NBC’s top magazine news program, decided to dedicate a full hour to this subject. Their producers had contacted me on three occasions about appearing while I was on my book tour across America and Canada. I declined, having no interest whatsoever in the subject and not being eager to play the role of the resident religious critic who would appear alongside the “wide-eyed believers” who talk of their ‘supernatural’ experiences with both ease and wonder. I thought three refusals would be the end of it. On the third day of our tour in Finland, however, NBC decided that I was what this program needed for balance and were willing to dispatch the crew overnight to Helsinki. No television program had ever been this persistent, so the time and place were arranged by Dr. Tarkki. That was how we happened to come together in that holy space in the center of Helsinki. This 45-minute interview was fed immediately via a telephone line to New York where editors and producers would do their magic on great amounts of taped footage to create an hour-long program, which had to include time for commercials. My 45-minutes would, at best, take up no more than one to five minutes of that time.

How was it that “a man of the cloth,” as they referred to me, “a bishop no less, denied the reality of miracles?” That was the first question. Does not the New Testament speak of nature miracles and healing miracles, to say nothing of the great miracles on each end of the Jesus Story: the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection? Is it not incompatible with historic and traditional Christianity, they suggested, for anyone to interpret these events in any other way than as supernatural signs of a miracle-producing deity?

I responded that post-Newtonian people understand the laws of the universe quite differently from the way that first century gospel writers did. We cannot impose a first century world of miracle and magic on people living in the 21st century as the basis for Christian belief. There are many ways to understand the miracle stories of the New Testament other than as supernatural invasive moments. For example, is the story of Jesus feeding the multitude simply an attempt to portray him as a new and greater Moses? Moses had to pray to God asking for heavenly bread. Jesus provided it on his own. Was the story of Jesus ascending into the sky a literal story describing an event in history or was it a magnificent retelling of the story of Elijah’s ascension designed to show Jesus as filled with and exceeding Elijah’s power?

Were the accounts of Jesus performing acts of healing really miraculous events or were they interpretive stories intended to show that the signs that Isaiah said would accompany the end of the age now marked the life of Jesus? Were some of the miracles simply repeating supernatural stories from Hebrew Scriptures? Was the story of Jesus raising Lazarus, told only in John, nothing more than a historicizing of Luke’s parable of Lazarus and Dives? In this parable Lazarus at death goes to Abraham’s bosom and Dives to the flames of hell. There Dives calls to Abraham to have Lazarus return to the earth to warn his brothers lest they come to this place of torment Abraham responds “they have Moses and the prophets. If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not believe even if one rises from the dead.” John suggests that the raising of Lazarus did not cause people to listen; it actually caused them to kill Jesus.

When one comes to the Virgin Birth scholars today know that this miraculous birth account did not enter the Christian written tradition until the 9th decade. One finds no trace of it in the writings of Paul or Mark. It appears in Matthew in the mid 80’s and is retold by Luke in a dramatically and factually different way a decade or so later. Then it was dropped by the author of the Fourth Gospel who twice refers to Jesus as “the son of Joseph.”

Similarly, if a miraculous physical resuscitation of the deceased body of Jesus is the first meaning of Resurrection, then why is it that Paul seems not to know of it and why is there no undisputed story of a resuscitated Jesus until the later gospels of Luke and John written 60-70 years after the first Easter? Biblical scholarship has rendered the miraculous reading of the gospels by Evangelicals and conservative Catholics to be dreadfully inadequate.

Moving on to those appearances of Mary that people claim to have seen in Western history the obvious questions are: How do they know it is Mary when there is no description of Mary in the New Testament? The vision they claim to see is always the church’s later portrait drawn from developed cultural imagination. Have these people ever looked at the mother of Jesus in the New Testament separated from the church’s future doctrines regarding her? Would they be surprised to know that Paul, writing between 50-64, never mentions the Virgin? Jesus’ birth was quite normal, he says, adding he “was born of a woman, born under the law;” that he had a brother named James; and was descended from King David “according to the flesh.”

In Mark, the first gospel, the mother of Jesus is referred to only once and that by a stranger who shouts: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” Mark also portrays the mother of Jesus as believing him to be “beside himself,” or out of his mind, so she goes to take him away. Mary does not become a virgin until Matthew writes, and she appears to cease being one when John writes. Yet in history she becomes not just a virgin mother, but a perpetual virgin, a postpartum virgin, one who is immaculately conceived and bodily assumed into heaven. No vision is ever seen of the Mary of the New Testament, it is always the Mary of Christian tradition. When this is augmented by the fact that no non-believer as well as no Buddhist or Muslim ever sees the Virgin, subjectivity is obvious.

The major problem, however, with pious accounts of miracles of any sort is that it locks one into a concept of God that is ultimately neither believable nor even moral. If God is understood as a supernatural miracle worker then why are miracles so few, so spasmodic? If God has the power to stop the bubonic plague, the Holocaust, the spread of AIDS or the Tsunami and does not, is God moral? Does the concept of miracle represent the limits on our knowledge or our unresolved superstition? Does it not seem to keep us in a state of dependent immaturity questing after the power the church claims to possess but rations so sparingly? I do not choose to live in a disordered world ruled by a capricious deity who blesses one person with healing and not another, saves one life from peril and not another. The only miracle I recognize is the miracle of expanded knowledge, heightened awareness and transformed humanity that does, I believe, help us to see into the very realm of God where life is eternal, love is unbounded and all lives are called into the fullness of being. That is the God I now see in Jesus and the God we also see now so inadequately in the miracle stories of the first century and in the apparitions of the superstitious in every age. I hope that this is the God to whom I pointed the viewers of Dateline when it played across America on May 18. For this is the God who captures my imagination, challenges my intellect and elicits my devotion.
~  John Shelby Spong

Announcements

Awakenings Conference 2018
Pathfinding in an age of Polarization
April 26-29, 2018 in Holyoke, MA

This is the fourth biennial Awakenings Conference. Each one brings together thinkers, musicians, consultants, artists, and visionaries. We gather around tables for conversations and meals. We offer presentations, workshops, a bookstore, a marketplace — and plenty of time to meet up with people from communities across the continent. Each year we listen, laugh, learn, sing, wonder, and feast.

Click here for more information/registration.

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