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FROM A READING FOR JUNE 12, 11TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
'We have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law...' -- Galatians 2:16

One of the keys to understanding Matthew and Luke's theology is to employ "redaction criticism" - trying to surface how each of the two evangelists changed the material copied from earlier authors in order to convey his unique theology.

Matthew and Luke just didn't copy from their sources; they redacted them. Sunday's Gospel (Luke 7:36-8:3) supplies a classic example of Luke's redaction.

At the end of the passage, the evangelist mentions that "accompanying [Jesus] were...some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities." He names Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna "and many others who provided for them out of their resources."

Though one source which Luke had in front of him when he composed his Gospel -- Mark's Gospel -- also mentions the women who followed Jesus, it doesn't do so until after Jesus dies in chapter 15. It's almost a surprise to discover Jesus had attracted women disciples.

Luke, on the other hand, redacts Mark, moving his remark about the women up to chapter 7, a third of the way into his Gospel. So, whenever Luke refers to Jesus's disciples throughout the rest of his Gospel, we're to presume that includes male and female followers! That's certainly different from what we find in the other three Gospels.

Pro-woman
We can always count on Luke to give women an even break. He not only makes Jesus' mother the ideal Christian, his Jesus also reminds Martha that her sister, Mary, by listening to Jesus, has "chosen the better part." And in Sunday's passage, Jesus praises the faith of the sinful woman who anointed Him and bathed His feet with her tears.

As Paul reminds the Galatians in Sunday's second reading (Gal 2:16, 19-21), faith is always more important than "works of the law." The Apostle is forced to say this because he's being challenged by conservative Jewish Christians over converting non-Jews to Christianity without first converting them to Judaism.

These "Judaizers" insist that any follower of Jesus must also follow the 613 laws of Moses. Unless they perform such works, they're not "justified" -- i.e., doing what God wants them to do.

Paul is convinced that justification revolves around giving ourselves to the risen Jesus: making His faith our faith. He doesn't object to anyone keeping the Mosaic laws for extra credit, but these regulations aren't obligatory. Faith, for the Apostle, is rooted in our becoming other Christs -- and Gentiles can pull that off just as well as Jews.

The key aspect of Jesus' faith was His relationships with people. Those personal encounters, in Jesus' mind, always trumped just keeping religious laws.

Pro-relationship
Even the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, as we hear in Sunday's II Samuel (12:7-10,13) reading, stressed the priority of relationships.

Nathan confronts David over the issue of Bathsheba not so much because the king broke Yahweh's laws, but because the Gentile Uriah had rights, as Bathsheba's husband, that not even a king could disregard. Only when David recognizes his sin against Uriah does he also recognize, "I have sinned against Yahweh."

The authors of our Christian Scriptures were convinced that the historical Jesus of Nazareth didn't create a new religion as much as He created a new focus. He didn't eradicate the Mosaic law; He simply taught His followers to focus beyond it.[[In-content Ad]]

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