Excerpt from
Children of a Compassionate God
A Theological Exegesis of Luke 6:20-49
L. John Topel, S.J.
© The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No
part of this may be reproduced by any means, without the written permission of The Liturgical Press,
Collegeville, Minnesota 56321.
Contents
Preface
PART I: The Literary Context of the Sermon
1. The Prologue (1:1–2:52)
Method
The Preface (1:1-4)
The Prologue (1:5–2:52)
1. The Annunciation of John’s Birth (1:5-25)
2. The Annunciation of Jesus’ Birth (1:26-38)
3. The Visitation (1:39-56)
4. The Birth of John (1:57-80)
5. The Birth of Jesus (2:1-21)
6. The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (2:22-40)
7. The Boy Jesus in his Father’s House (2:41-52)
Summary of the Infancy Account
2. The Beginning of Ministry (3:1–6:16)
Inauguration of John’s and Jesus’ Careers (3:1–4:44)
1. John the Baptist’s Career (3:1-20)
2. The Preparation for Jesus’ Ministry (3:22–4:13)
Jesus’ Baptism as Prophetic Call (3:21-22)
Jesus’ Genealogy as Son of God (3:23-38)
The Temptation of God’s Son in the Desert (4:1-13)
3. The Beginning of Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee (4:14-44)
Summary (4:14-15)
Jesus’ Programmatic Sermon in Nazareth (4:16-30)
Jesus’ Ministry in Capernaum (4:31-44)
An Exorcism (4:31-37)
Healings (4:38-41)
A Preaching Tour (4:42-44)
Jesus Calls Disciples to His Healing Ministry (5:1–6:16)
1. Jesus Calls Peter and his First Disciples (5:1-11)
2. Jesus Cleanses a Leper (5:12-16)
3. Jesus’ Healing Shows Authority to Forgive Sins (5:17-26)
4. Jesus Calls Levi (5:27-32)
5. Controversy over Fasting (5:33-39)
6. Controversies over Sabbath Observance (6:1-11)
7. Jesus Chooses the Twelve Apostles (6:12-16)
Summary of Luke 3:1–6:16 as Setting of the Sermon
1. John and Jesus Fulfill Prologue Themes
2. The Ministries Add Other Themes to the Prologue
PART II: Exegesis of the Sermon on the Plain
3. Blessed are the Poor (6:20)
The Audience of the Sermon (6:17-19)
The Tradition of the Sermon
The Rhetoric of the Sermon
1. The Structure of the Sermon
2. The Rhetoric of the Sermon
Symmetry
Variety
Sound and Tone
Exegesis of the First Beatitude (6:20)
makarioi
ptwcoi
1. Semantic Overview
2. Old Testament Terms
3. Old Testament Conception of Poverty
Poverty is evil
The poor are virtuous
4. The Protector of the Poor
5. Isaiah’s Use of ptwcoz
6. Socioeconomic Analysis of ptwcoz
7. Lukan Use of ptwcoz
8. Other Lukan References to Poverty
9. Who are the ptwcoi?
h basileia tou qeou
1. The Reign of God in the Old Testament and in Judaism
2. The Reign of God in Luke-Acts
Conclusion
4. Beatitudes and Woes (6:21-26)
The Beatitudes (6:21-23)
1. The Second Beatitude (6:21ab)
2. The Third Beatitude (6:21cd)
3. The Fourth Beatitude (6:22-23)
The Woes (6:24-26)
1. The First Woe (6:24)
2. The Second Woe (6:25ab)
3. The Third Woe (6:25cd)
4. The Fourth Woe (6:26)
Summary of the Beatitudes and Woes
Conclusion
5. The Love Command (6:27-36)
The Structure of the Sermon’s Central Section
1. The Thematic Division
2. The Rhetorical Structure of Luke 6:27-36
Exegesis of the Love Commandment (6:27-36)
1. The Command to Love One’s Enemies (6:27-30)
2. The Golden Rule (6:31)
The Context
Theology
The Unexpressed Motivation
3. The Contrast with the Ethic of the World (6:32-34)
In Israel
In Hellenistic Ethics
4. Positive Repetition with Reward (6:35)
Jewish Usage of "Sons of God"
Greco-Roman Usage
New Testament Usage
Lukan Usage
5. The Deeper Christian Principle (6:36)
Summary and Conclusions
6. The Critique of Judgment (6:37-42)
Thematic Division of This Section
Exegesis of Luke 6:37-42
1. Parallel Prohibitions of Judgment and Commands to Give (6:37-38)
2. The Parables on the Blindness of Those who Judge (6:39-42)
6:39
6:40
6:41-42
Summary and Conclusions
7. Paraenesis on True Discipleship (6:43-49)
The Literary and Rhetorical Structure of 6:43-49
Exegesis of 6:43-45, on the Fruits of the Human Heart
Exegesis of 6:46-49, on the Security of the True Disciple
Conclusion
PART III: The Interpretation of the Sermon
8. The Theology of the Lukan Sermon
Summary of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain
The Sermon as Counter-Cultural and "Irrational"
1. Two Essential Qualities of the Sermon
Maximization
Conversion to the Neighbor
2. Countercultural
For Jews
In the Greco-Roman World
In Contemporary American Culture
3. Beyond Human Reason
The Christian Tradition
Social Science
Freud
Jürgen Becker
Theology
Interpretations of the Sermon
1. Law
2. Unrealizable Ideal
3. The Gospel of the Realizable Ideal
Hermeneutics for New Testament Ethics
Luke’s Description of Christian Empowerment
1. Human Structures of Knowing and Acting
2. External Spiritual Agencies
Oracular Spirits and Demons
God’s Word and the Holy Spirit
3. A New Relationship to God Constituted by the Reign of God
The Reign of God
The Spirit in Jesus’ Person and Mission
The Spirit in the Disciples’ Activity
Sons and Daughters of God
The Sermon’s Image of the Christian
"Sons of God"
Conclusion
An Authentic Human Ethics
1. The Psychology of Moral Development
2. Developmental Moral Theology
The Instinctual Level
The Moral Level
The Personal (Religious) Level
The Good News of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain
Abbreviations
Appendix A: Scholarly Discussion of ‘Anawim
Appendix B: Preindustrial Agrarian Societies
Appendix C: Interpretation of the Reign of God
Appendix D: Persecution Terminology in Luke-Acts and the New Testament
Appendix E: The "Son of God"
Appendix F: Narrative Asides In Lukan Discourse Material
Appendix G: Lukan Anthropology
Preface
The Subject
Most New Testament monographs begin with an apologia for yet another study of
a shop-worn text. I need not apologize, for, although the Lukan Sermon on the
Plain is one of the most significant foundations for Christian ethics, there has
been, in the entire history of New Testament exegesis, only one brief study of
this important text! The reasons for such neglect are various, but with the
advent of redaction criticism and literary-critical approaches to the NT they
long ago lost their validity. The Lukan selection, compression, and rhetorical
shaping of the traditional material has transformed it into an eloquent sermon
with its own appeal for the contemporary Christian. The work cries out for
exposition.
The Method
I was educated in historical-critical exegesis, the diachronic methods
culminating in a kind of composition criticism that in the 1960s was forming a
bridge between redaction criticism and a synchronic literary/rhetorical
criticism of the text. I found congenial the increasing importance of more
literary models of criticism in the 1970s and 1980s, and I have worked my way
through structuralist, narrative, reader-response, and socio-critical approaches
to NT exegesis. I have utilized the techniques which were helpful, but I have
also discovered the internal contradictions of these theories that have led many
NT critics to question them. NT exegetical methodology is now more pluralistic
than ever.
I seek a method that best brings out the underlying theological intent of the text, for the biblical text is at home not in the academic world but in the believing community. Therefore I am not seeking some newer and better refinement of secular literary analysis as model. Biblical texts, repeatedly read in the believing community, shape and demand a different kind of listener and implied reader. Further, the faith of the biblical reader goes far beyond the willing suspension of disbelief recommended by Coleridge or a "religious studies" approach. Although Luke may have been trained in Hellenistic literature and rhetoric, his preface makes clear that he is not writing for literary effect, but to lay secure foundations under the faith of those already catechized in his community. He is, as redaction critics saw, a pastoral theologian.
Consequently, biblical interpretation must find its own method for its own kind of text. At present I find composition criticism (as late-stage redaction criticism) the best available tool for uncovering the theological intent of the implied author. But I do not think naïvely that the author’s explicit intent is all that resides in the text. And so my composition criticism is enriched by the following approaches:
1. I welcome the shift from diachronic to synchronic methods. I will be interpreting the meaning of the text as a literary artifact interacting with today’s reader. Historical questions explored by diachronic methods (the written sources, the oral tradition, the words and deeds of Jesus) are important elements of the whole interpretative process, but they are increasingly hypothetical, and so are better investigated only after one has explored synchronically the meaning of the final, canonical text as the whole literary work its author intended. Consequently, I will use diachronic methods (principally redaction criticism) only to uncover theological interests of the present Lukan text.
2. In synchronic method I begin from the difference in narrative criticism between the real author, the implied author, and the narrator; also between the narratee, the implied reader, and the real reader. Here I wish to specify only one of these terms. The implied reader is the one implied by the text: the text presupposes the kind of reader who can take its directives and put the text together, create the text. The implied reader must be prepared to engage the text in such a way as to enable the act of reading to transform her life. Although each reader brings her individual presuppositions and interests to the text, the more the readers share the preconceptions, world view, and interests of the implied author, the more they will approach the ideal reader who understands fully the meaning communicated by the text.
Still, one cannot shuffle off all the particular interests of the implied reader into a category called the real reader, who is not part of the interpretative process. If the individual real reader shares the major presuppositions of the author (is willing to have his life interpreted by the text) and has the grounds (e.g., faith) for this to happen, then his individual ways of doing this will be part of the implied reader envisaged by the text. Thus my notion of the implied reader emphasizes those aspects of Iser and Rasseguie’s reader-response criticism that integrate individual interpretation into the implied reader.
In my view, the implied reader of Luke is a person of Christian faith (Luke 1:4), living in a Christian community where there is some controversy over who Jesus is and what discipleship means. She will approach the "ideal reader" if her community is exercised over the meaning of the parousia, the reality of persecution, the problems of poverty and other injustice, the object of prayer, the "reality" of Jesus, and the other themes of the gospel. I expect I will fill the role of the implied reader insofar as I listen to
(1) how the biblical tradition (text, and community shaped by that text) has already created the Christian person I am, my world-view and aspirations, as well as my heuristic approach to interpreting the text;
(2) how the words, structures, and resonances of the text engage not only my mind’s efforts to "put it all together," but also my affections and aspirations to be healed by the good news and live it;
(3) how the good news summons me to Christian orthopraxis in my community and world.
3. Again, in Part I, the narrative of Luke 1:1–6:19, I will attend to some of the following literary elements, which embody the theology of the text:
a. Narrative Style: I will examine point of view (the degree of omniscience of the narrator) and voice (analytically caught in the characterization of the narrator).
b. Plot Analysis: I will examine rising action, complication, climax, anticlimax, subplot, as well as temporal sequence, retrospective and anticipatory breaks in chronological order, and the long or short duration of reporting.
c. Reader Response: I will look at the gaps, ambiguity, redundancy, and patterns of analogy that engage the reader in recreating the text.
4. Finally, since I think that the gospel genre is as much rhetorico-didactic as it is narrative, the techniques of the rhetorical criticism developed by James Muilenburg and by George A. Kennedy will be integral to my reading of Luke 1:1–6:19, and especially of 6:20-49.