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Hey y’all, my name’s Lisa Harper. I’m a middle-aged chick – which basically means that my hair’s chemically dependent and my favorite pants are stretchy! More importantly, Jesus is my first love, my Savior, my living hope, and my main squeeze. Second only to my love for Jesus, is my love for my daughter Missy, who God blessed me with through the miracle of adoption. In addition to being a passionate Christ-follower and passionately biased mom, I’m a mediocre author, Bible teacher, recovering Pharisee, Tex-Mex food lover, a doctoral candidate at Denver Seminary, and a bona-fide, born and bred storyteller.
My mom, Patti Angel (yes, that’s her real last name), will tell you that I started telling stories as soon as I could string a few words together and only got windier as I grew up! I’ve always loved stories – telling stories, listening to stories, reading stories, and writing stories because I think human narrative is the heartbeat of real life. More significantly, as a Christian I believe that at its core, the Bible is a love story. Which leads me to a good-natured warning: this new Bible study on Luke is going to contain lots of stories and the Hero of every single one will be Jesus!
Speaking of stories, a few years ago I went to church with a young friend named Laurie who I met while volunteering at a faith-based, addition recovery program. Laurie had turned her life over to Jesus after experiencing horrific abuse, which led to drug addiction and ultimately being arrested for possession with intent to sell. And like most of my friends in recovery she is refreshingly honest. Even in church! After listening to the pastor preach for a few minutes about what a motley crew the disciples were – how they were largely uneducated, coarse, and mistake-prone men – Laurie elbowed me in the ribs and whispered loud enough for most of the congregation to hear, “Hey Miss Lisa, Jesus has a thing for losers, doesn’t He?”
Although it’s admittedly informal, “Jesus has a thing for losers” could be an apropos subtitle for the Gospel according to Luke because his narrative reads more like Jerry Springer than Shakespeare! It’s replete with stories about Jesus engaging with outliers and outcasts like Samaritans, tax collectors, and the poor – people that ancient culture would surely have labeled as losers – yet the King of all kings lavished them with unconditional love and what some regarded as scandalous grace.
A great example of our Redeemer’s counter cultural compassion is found in Luke 18, which Luke frames in verse 9:
Then He told this story to some who boasted of their virtue and scorned everyone else.
In other words, the audience Jesus told the following parable to was a haughty group of yahoos who had the double whammy of being self-righteous and judgmental, which is like going to the movies only to find out the audio isn’t working and the popcorn’s stale!
Anyway, here’s the story our Savior told those supercilious stinkers:
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. — Luke 18:9-14
It wasn’t uncommon in the First Century to lump tax collectors with sinners because ancient tax collectors – also called “publicans” because they collected public revenue on behalf of the government - were about as well loved as dinner-time telemarketers! And to add insult to injury, they were infamous for charging whatever the market would bear and then skimming off the top before turning the coffers over to Rome. Which meant Jewish tax collectors built their bank accounts on the backs of their fellow countrymen making them the worse kind of traitors because their Beemers and fancy Mediterranean homes came at the expense of their friends, family, and neighbors.
Yet Luke makes one of those ancient Jewish IRS agents the unlikely star of this story! The takeaway is:
- being reconciled into a right relationship with God isn’t based on our deservedness, it’s based on His divine grace!
Human nature presumes that we have to earn favor with God. That we have to justify ourselves by checking off all the boxes on some sort of spiritual “to do” list. But the tenor and tone of our Redeemer’s earthly life and ministry prove otherwise. Luke paints a compelling portrait of Jesus opening the restorative refuge of His arms wide to include mistake prone misfits and that is the really, really good news of his gospel account!
I’m so excited we’re going to be diving deep into Luke together – this is going to be an awesome adventure, y’all!
Written for FaithGateway by Lisa Harper, author of Beautiful Word: Luke.
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Your Turn
Join us April 17th for the Beautiful Word: Luke Online Bible Study! This one is for us, friends! Grab a friend and sign up today! ~ Laurie McClure, Faith.Full