Luke 8 - Women and a World of Difference

In the previous week, one of our ministry team had collapsed and died very unexpectedly.  Diana Adams had grown up in Highbury and most recently been one of our Pastoral Care Ministry Leaders.  As we turned to Luke 8 Diana' contribution to the life of the church together with the faith she had shared with us was very much at the forefront of our minds.

There’s something wonderfully inclusive about the love of God Jesus makes real in his words and in his deeds.

Women as well as men have been in the crowds that Jesus taught.

Women as well as men have been in the crowds that Jesus healed.

Women played a prominent part in the opening chapters of the early days of Jesus – Elizbeth and Mary, Anna the prophet in Jerusalem too.

Indeed the very first person to spread the good news of the coming of Jesus as the expected Messiah in Jerusalem is Anna, the prophet.  She it was who began to praise God, as soon as she had been introduced to Jesus, and she began to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

The story first of John the Baptist, and then of Jesus as Luke’s Gospel gets under way  in chapter 3 is very much the story of redemption, of the setting free of God’s people.  It is the story of good news for the poor, release for the captives, of sight for the blind and of freedom for the oppressed.

It’s a wonderful story as God’s love in Jesus reaches out to all – tax-colletors and sinners as well as fishermen and townspeople.   Leprosy sufferers too.  It’s a love that reaches beyond the boundaries to the Centurion’s servant and the widow of Nain.

It’s an all inclusive love.

And it’s just what John had been waiting for.

It’s happening

Something exciting is on the move.

And it’s for everyone.

But the powers that be find that hard to accept.

Now comes a woman.  Not just any woman.  But a woman with a reputation.  A bad reputation at that.

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.’Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet.You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

It’s a wonderful story of forgiveness.

Jesus had already brought healing to the paralysed man whose friends had lowered him through the roof.  It had been a healing that touched his innermost being with the deep-down healing of forgiveness that he needed most.

Now too it was this deep down healing of forgiveness that touched this woman.

Those so religious people couldn’t take it.

Jesus … could he declare God’s forgiveness and make it real.

You could see the transformation that came into this woman’s life.

And people were amazed.

Then comes those wonderful words.

Your faith has saved you, go in peace.

It’s one of the most wonderful words in the language of the New Testament.

Your faith has SAVED you.

Rich in its meaning – it could be translated, ‘healed’ you.  It could be translated ‘made you whole’ It could be translatged ‘saved you’.

For salvation is not something just for the spirit.  And healing is not just something for the body.

God’s love brings transformation to us as whole people – body, mind and spirit – we are healed, we are made whole, we are touched with the salvation of God.

Sometimes this side of dying, sometimes the other side of dying.

For twenty years it has been easy to forget just how ill Diana has been.  When we arrived here in Cheltenham she was in and out of hospital, not well at all.  And yet she has plateaued and been so vigorus in her support of all with disabilities, challenging us as a church to be welcoming to all not just by having the right adjustments made to our buildings but by our attitudes as well.

Healing in the sense of cure didn’t come for Diana from the condition she has lived with for so many years.

But healing in all sorts of other senses has been something that has come to her over the years.  And healing that then she has shared not least in that vigorous commitment to people with different abilities.

Your faith has ‘saved’ you, made you whole, go in peace.

Maybe that’s a word for us to connect with Diana in our minds even now.

But then I want to move on into chapter 8 of Luke’s gospel story of Jesus.

For it is in chapter 8 that Luke introduces us to a set of women none of the other gospel writers describe or name.

8Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, ²as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, ³and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

This is fascinating.

This is a very different picture of the gropu around Jesus from the one we often carry around in our mind’s eye.

We have been introduced to the fishermen disciples and to Levi, one of the dreaded publican.  We have been introduced to the twelve who were drawn out from the disciples and names as apostles.

But now we discover something Luke alone tells us.

As he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

I love that – proclaiming and bring the good news.

In words and also in actions – in the teaching so wonderfully summarised by Luke as the fly on the wall, and in the way he brought healing to so many hurting people.

The twelve were with him.  He was not alone.

As well as some women.

Isn’t that fascinating.

A mixed group.

The twelve as well as some women.

Who were the women?

8Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, ²as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities:

These were women who h ad received the healing touch of Jesus as he reached out to bring healing to hurting people.

Three of them are named.

Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,

So much is told of Mary Magdalene.  Often the story we are used to is an amalgamation of several stories about a Mary and an anonymous person.

As far as Luke is concerned she had been a profoundly disturbed person.  Troubled by seven spirits – a way of saying how deep and pervasive the troubles that afflicted her were.

But she had been healed by Jesus.

The next is fascinating

 ³and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza,

That means Joanna has come right out of the court of Herod – the very Herod who had had John the Baptist imprisoned.  And quite possibly by now beheaded.

Notice here that these women, like the twelve, are travelling around with Jesus.

It is a reasonable inference that just as the fishermen disciples had left their nets to follow Jesus, so too Joanna had left her position of comfort in the household and court of Herod and had thrown her lot in with Jesus.

One other is named.

and Susanna,

Not that we hear anything of her.

My Aunty Suzie was Suzannah.   A lovely name.

Why should these three be named.

In a fascinating study of the Gospels and the history behind them, called Jesus and the Eye Witnesses, Richard Bauckham suggests that the people who are named in the Gospels are the people who in the opening few verses of his Gospel Luke describes as ‘eye-witnesses’.

They were those who had told their story.

They had in the fullness of time made sure that their story of Jesus was passed on.

How is it that Luke is able to give us a fly-on-the-wall glimpse of Jesus preaching in the synagogues, of Jesus’s open-air preaching to the crowds, of the ministry Jesus shared as he toured around those villages and cities?  It is because of the way the early church gave an honoured position to those who had been eye-witnesses and treasured the stories they told.

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Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Suzannah are very much in the mould of Anna – the one who had been the very first one to speak about Jesus to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

There werent’ just three in this group.  There were, Luke tells us, many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

I love that reference.

It’s easy to imagine that Jesus just was a wandering preacher who happened on a particular town or city.  This suggests that his mission was planned and well resourced.

It’s just a glimpse.

But a significant one of the way all the work of Christ’s kingdom does take planning and resourcing.

Maybe good to move on this evening to these women as we treasure the memory of Diana and all she shared with us in the church family.

Growing up through the Sunday School, Diana has gone on to play a significant part in the worship of the church not just through the choir but also in the lovely prayers she wrote and the services she put together for Christmas and Easter.    She served on the  Diaconate with Dick and with Dick was Church  Secretary at a diffult moment in the church’s history.  She has worked tirelellsy with young people through at church and especially through Highbury Guides and through District and County Girl Guiding.   Diana would be ever present at meetings of our Congregational Federation, has edited Highbury NBews and most recently has shared with Lorraine the post of Pastoral Care Ministry Leader.

It’s this kind of work, often behind the scenes, that enables the work of the church to continue and to grow.

And it’s part and parcel of what Luke gives us a glimpse of here at the very outset of the work of Jesus.

The work of ‘proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom’ is very much like sowing seeds – some come to fruition, some don’t.  It’s very much like bringing light into a darkened world, light that cannot be shrouded.

To be part of such a group as this is to be part of a family, the Jesus family.

He thought of those 12 and those women as his family – his own mother and his own brothers found it hard to take – but he was adamant, My  mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”

Wow – church is very much a family.

And we feel the loss as a family feels the loss.

But being church family is not just a cosy reassuring kind of thing – it carries with it a challenge – to hear the word and do it.

Diana was impatitent too often with us just talking about doing things.  We need to do them too.

So much speaks to us in this chapter at this moment –

When the storm rages it is easy to lose faith … and yet it is in the midst of the storm that the presence of Jesus is so real, bringing peace where the storms only rage and roar..

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, ²³and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. ²⁴They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. ²⁵He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

To people troubled in mind, rejected by society, reduced to isolation that sinks into self-harm, Jesus brings peace.

And the chapter ends as it takes us back to just how inclusive the love of God in Jesus is.

It’s now the turn for a leader of the synagogue to turn to Jesus and find in Jesus the healing he needs for his daughter.  Maybe another of those eye witnesses, for he too is named Jairus.

But on the way to his home who should have the audacity to touch him but a woman who had problems with constant haemorrhaging, a condition that resulted in her constantly bleeding  - for twelve long years.

To touch him was to make him in turn untouchable.

Against the letter of the law to touch such a woman.

Jesus knew the touch had been there – power had gone from him.

And the woman came forward and the words Jesus spoke were so powerful, so moving, so wondlerfully inclusive.

Daugher, he said.

This woman too was one of the family – one of God’s people.

Your faith has made you well, go in peace.

It’s the same words – translated a bit differently.

This is salvation – the peace that she now finds.

It’s a wonderful chapter that’s somehow all-inclusive.

A wonderful chapter to read as today we remember Diana and think of Dick, Lesley and Wayne, Thomas and Samuel, Graham and Sheryl, and Bethan too.

It’s a chapter that reminds us of the sheer extent of the love of God in Jesus as it reaches out to us and draws us into his family.   How strange and how wonderful that at a time of sadness in our church family, there should also be a time of joy too.  As one departs, so another arrives

And we have become grandparents with the arrival of a little girl for Phil and Lynsey.