READING LUKE-ACTS, PART XXIV

Above:  Christ with the Children, by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Image in the Public Domain

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Luke 9:37-50

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First, I know that demonic possession does not cause epilepsy.  In this regard, I know more than people did in the first century C.E.  Reading ancient texts that carry discredited assumptions we moderns do not necessarily share requires one to ask, “What is really going on here?”

We read that, one day after the Transfiguration, Jesus’s disciples were not “ready for primetime.”  We read that they did not understand his second prediction of the Passion.  We read that, in contrast to the Twelve, someone else was “performing exorcisms) (whatever that means in current diagnostic terms) successfully.

…and everyone was awestruck by the greatness of God.

–Luke 9:43, The New Jerusalem Bible (1985)

And, among human beings in the divine order, the one who is least is greatest.  The Lucan theme of reversal of fortune recurs.

Ego is not necessarily negative.  A healthy ego is essential.  A realistic self-image is humility.  An inferiority complex and arrogance–opposites–lead to the same selfish results.  One places oneself at the center, at the expense of others and the common good.  One with an inferiority complex does so to feel better about oneself.  One with a raging ego does so because one imagines one is so important as to belong in the center.  Arrogance is appropriate in cats.  In the rest of us, it is sinful.

Status is a popular idol.  A relative few people may be immune to its temptations.  I am not one of these people.  Jesus still teaches us that the divine order is right side up and the human order is upside down.  Human psychology and sociology are consistent; human nature does not change.  Yet, in the divine order, the first are last and the last are first.

Luke 1:1-9:50 and 9:52f exist in the shadow of 9:51:

Now it happened that as the time drew near for him to be taken up, he resolutely turned his face toward Jerusalem….

—The New Jerusalem Bible (1985)

Jesus did not value high status in human terms.  He came to serve.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 31, 2021 COMMON ERA

THE SEVENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS

NEW YEAR’S EVE

THE FEAST OF SAINT GIUSEPPINA NICOLI, ITALIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC NUN AND MINISTER TO THE POOR

THE FEAST OF HENRY IRVING LOUTTIT, JR., EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF GEORGIA

THE FEAST OF ROSSITER WORTHINGTON RAYMOND, U.S. NOVELIST, POET, HYMN WRITER, AND MINING ENGINEER

THE FEAST OF SAINT ZOTICUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, PRIEST AND MARTYR, CIRCA 351

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