Blog Posts

Woman Supporters

The last few verses of today’s gospel provide a fascinating and often overlooked insight into the ministry of Jesus. It names the followers of Jesus as being the Twelve (the apostles), three named women – Mary the Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna – as well as several other women. Interestingly, it is the women who are identified as being the ‘financial backers’ of Jesus. They ‘provided for them out of their own re-sources’. It is not clear how these women came to be financially independent but they used their wealth to support the work of Jesus and his male apostles.

Restoring to life

We may not have the capacity to enact a miraculous ‘resurrection’ as Jesus did with the widow’s son, but we certainly have the capacity and frequent opportunity to restore someone to life in the manner that Jesus restored the life of the widow. Whenever we encounter someone who has been cast out by life circumstances or by the cruel actions of others, we have the capacity to restore them to a fuller life through our actions. We restore life when we restore dignity; when we refuse to participate in grinding someone down and instead ex-tend a hand to help them up.

Give them something yourselves

In the gospel, the disciples encourage Jesus to send the crowds away to find food for themselves. Jesus tells the disciples, “Give them something to eat yourselves.” This is a challenge and a test of the disciples – a chance for them to be like Jesus. He calls them to act with compassion and do what he would do to feed the people. But the disciples fail to grasp either his meaning or the opportunity and the miracle is left to Jesus. Jesus believed that they could feed the people if they tried but the disciples didn’t have that same faith in themselves.

Trinity

Every time we make the sign of the cross we reaffirm our belief in a God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Although some people have difficulties with the gender-specific language of ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ and look for other ways to express this reality, all Christian people profess a belief in the one God who is experienced in three distinct ways. We are baptised ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ and we remind ourselves of this reality when we pray and when we bless ourselves or others.

Have you thought? The Spirit

We can sometimes regard Pentecost as the day the Holy Spirit came into the world. However, the Spirit had long been active in the world before this event. In fact, even the second verse of Genesis Chapter 1 tells us that the Spirit hovered over the waters. The Old Testament is filled with references in which ‘The Spirit of God came upon (him) with power’ and the Spirit was evident at Jesus’ baptism and throughout the gospels. Jesus is frequently described as being ‘filled with the Spirit’. So, from the very beginning of creation the Spirit has moved in the world and continues to energise it today.

A message for all people

One of the defining features of the Gospel of Luke is the fact that the message preached and practised by Jesus made salvation available to all people. At times in the gospel some of the Jewish audience became quite angry at Jesus because he said that pagans and gentiles were also included in the salvation he promised – something they regarded as exclusive to the ‘chosen’ people. The two accounts of the Ascension make very clear that the message and ministry of Jesus are to be carried to all nations – even to the ends of the earth!

Peace

Jesus promises his peace to the disciples in today’s gospel passage. However, some people argue that the world has not known that peace in the time since then. Some Jewish people cite this as one of their arguments against Jesus being regarded as the promised Messiah. One of the prophecies about the Messiah was that there would be universal peace once the Messiah arrived. Those who argue against Jesus as the Messiah point to the fact that since the time of Jesus, not a single day has gone by in our history in which there has not been some war or conflict occurring somewhere on earth.