Bible for Catholic Nerds – The Programmatic Discourse

The Programmatic Discourse

“When Jesus began his ministry, he was about thirty years of age. He was the son, as was thought, of Joseph.” Luke, according to his literary and mixed training, is the most precise Evangelist from the point of view of the historiographic indications. He has dated the beginning of the ministry of Jesus in the fifteenth year of Emperor Tiberius and now he adds another important detail that we only know from him: Jesus was about thirty years old. To say ‘about’ does not mean giving a precise indication. We have generally taken it as a fixed date and combining the indications of John on the three Passovers of the public ministry of Jesus, we have generally said that Jesus’ ministry lasted three years. If he started at 30, he died at 33.

We have to be careful not to fix these numbers too much, trying to define this reality because instead the texts give many more generic indications. Jesus is in his early thirties when he starts and was known as ‘ben Yosef’ = son of Joseph. Luke points out that Jesus was believed to be the son of Joseph. He has already mentioned in the infancy narratives that, instead, the conception of Jesus took place in an extraordinary way, as a creative intervention of the Spirit of God. But Joseph provided Jesus with the human genealogy. Actually, from a legal point of view, Jesus belongs to the family of Joseph, who considers him a son, adopts him according to all the terms of the law.

At this point, in chapter 3, the evangelist Luke reports the ascending genealogy of Jesus, while Matthew, at the beginning of his gospel, proposes a descending genealogy that goes from Abraham to Jesus. Luke does the opposite: he starts from Jesus and goes back to Adam. The names do not correspond perfectly in the two texts of Matthew and Luke; they belong to two different traditions and there is an imperfect correspondence, but this detailed indication does not count; the commitment to show how Jesus is inserted in a concrete human family, with parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and going backwards it reaches to David, it reaches to Abraham, and much higher it reaches Adam. Luke describes this genealogy by simply using a genitive: son of Joseph, of Levi, of Matat, etc. until reaching: son of Adam, son of God. These two elements are important. ‘Adam’ in Hebrew simply means human, son of Adam means man; while Son of God refers to the new and extraordinary nature of Jesus.

The beginning of his ministry is marked by the revelation at the Jordan. Immediately after, the first action of Jesus. In fact, it is not performed by Jesus but by the Spirit. Jesus moves away from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert. It is the Spirit that leads Jesus into the desert where he had to choose how to act.

Knowing that you have the messianic task does not mean being very clear about how to act. how to act. The fact of knowing that he has the messianic task does not mean having a clear understanding of how to go about the task. This period in the desert was, for Jesus, a preparatory moment in which he intelligently faced the project of his ministry and chose a way of being and working modality according to the Word of God. The narration of the temptations in Luke is very similar to that of Matthew, that is, it comes from a particular tradition of the sayings of Jesus that modern scholars call the “Q” source. “Q” has nothing to do with Qumram. It is simply the initial of a German word “Quelle”, which means source, beginning. It is a hypothesis of history of tradition that is reliable, verified in the literary field. It is about some texts present only in Matthew and Luke and absent in Mark. It means that both Matthew and Luke, independently of each other, drew from the same literary source.

This hypothetical source is initialed with the letter “Q” which simply means ‘the source’ from which Matthew and Luke get their texts. The narrative of temptations is one of these texts. It is a didactic narrative in the sense that it serves to teach the disciples how to choose correctly. There are three moments in which the devil proposes ways, suggests diabolical ideas.

Note that Luke reverses the order of the second with the third. He places last the temptation in the temple of Jerusalem. He does it intentionally because Luke always puts Jerusalem at the end, as the vertex, as the goal towards which everything tends. Even in the infancy narratives, the birth of Jesus follows by the trip to the Jerusalem temple for the presentation. And at age 12, again a trip to Jerusalem. The infancy narratives end in Jerusalem.

Thus, in the gospel story, Jesus’ long journey will end in Jerusalem where the Paschal mystery is fulfilled. With the Acts of the Apostles everything begins from Jerusalem; it is the way of the Word that moves from Jerusalem to the ends of the world. Even in this small editorial detail, we realize that Luke works with intelligent and consistent criteria.

The temptations are suggestions of diabolical methodologies: to feed people for free to gain favor; to use power and wealth to dominate or to reach the top of everything. Flying over the temple of Jerusalem or throwing yourself off the cliff, and asking the angels to support him, to give a striking demonstration of his divinity. That is, to amaze with extraordinary effects. He could do them‚ but these are devilish suggestions. Jesus chooses according to the Word of God: “One does not live by bread alone”; “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test” and “Him alone shall you serve.” Jesus overcomes temptations by referring to the Word of God.

It means that during this retreat Jesus meditated on the Word of God. He reread the Scriptures of Israel and rethinking according to God’s style, he tried to have the same style. He chose well. The devil abandoned him but with the intention of returning at the appointed time. Those initial temptations are over but Luke says there is another moment, a kairos, a favorable opportunity that the devil will not let escape; it is the moment of the cross; there the last temptation will take place: “If you are the Son of God save yourself and come down from the cross.”

The beginning of the ministry of Jesus is recounted by Luke with some changes compared to the other synoptics, Mark and Matthew. Luke anticipates the return to his homeland in Nazareth because he wants to show the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in the synagogue by commenting on the Scriptures, exactly as Saint Paul did during his evangelization. When Paul came to a city, beginning from the Jewish synagogue, he started from the Scripture to announce the coming of the Messiah and announce Jesus according to the Scriptures. So, Luke, who many times accompanied Paul to the synagogue, shows how Jesus also began in the synagogue by reading the Bible, commenting on the Bible, and explaining that the Scriptures are fulfilled in his person.

He exemplifies this with the quote from Isaiah 61, a splendid text that recounted the prophet’s vocation and becomes a kind of messianic program of Jesus: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me,” said the ancient prophet, “because he has anointed me.” And this is true for Jesus who received the Spirit, was consecrated in the Jordan, and was sent by God to: “Bring glad tidings to the poor.” The gospel, the good news that God saves is the liberation of the prisoners that Jesus proposes; to free the oppressed, to proclaim the Lord’s year of grace. That was in the intention of the ancient prophet: the jubilee, which is the holy year of redemption, redemption of prisoners, cancellation of debts. Jesus announces this year of grace, a year pleasing to the Lord, an extraordinary occasion of liberation.

The people of Nazareth are in awe of his biblical knowledge and would like to take advantage of this prophet; they acknowledge with amazement that their fellow citizen has great prophetic ability, he knows the Scriptures and speaks for God. They would like to profit, they would like to get something from the fact that he is a compatriot, but Jesus immediately cools them off with two not delicate quotes: “There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah… It was none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a a Lebanese widow. There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, but that ancient prophet widow in Zarephath in the Land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” “No prophet is accepted in his own native place” means he does not do favors for those in his village; he does not seek votes and electoral consensus. If he is a true prophet, he is open and this is precisely what Jesus announces as his own mission: a universal opening of salvation.

Jesus moves from Nazareth to Capernaum and there it becomes the seat of his ministry. According to Mark’s text, everything begins in Capernaum. Note that Luke has anticipated the moment of Nazareth to give a general picture of the ministry of Jesus. He has made another interesting move: He postponed the time of the call of the disciples. In the primitive descriptions followed by Mark, Jesus returned first to Galilee, and the first things he does is to call the disciples to follow him.

Instead, Luke reconstructs the event in a more historical way the moments that must have preceded the call of the disciples. If Jesus, without being known, without having reasons of credibility, had called the disciples, he would hardly have obtained any result. If a stranger comes to you and calls you while you are working, telling you to drop everything and follow him, it would be foolish to believe him. You have to meet that person, you must believe that it is worth it, that he has reasons for you to choose to follow leaving everything else behind.

And it is precisely this reasoning that Luke must have done. And that’s why he narrates the vocation of the disciples in chapter 5, after first presenting the ministry of Jesus in Nazareth as a programmatic opening speech; then Luke narrates several miraculous episodes in Capernaum: the healing of the possessed man in the synagogue; the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law; many other healings, and the crowd following him. At this point, Luke places the episode of the call of the first disciples.

Jesus was already in Simon’s house, he has healed his mother-in-law, so Simon, the fisherman, has seen Jesus at work, he heard him speak. That day, on the beach of Capernaum, there were so many people that Jesus asked for Simon’s boat, to prevent the crowd from crowding too close to him. Sitting in the boat, not far from shore, Jesus teaches the crowd gathered on the beach.

After the sermon, he proposes to the fisherman Simon to resume fishing. The reaction is one of desperation. Simon tells him: “Master, we have worked all night and have caught nothing, but at your command, I will lower the nets.” Luke sets the call of the disciples in a miraculous event. This so-called ‘miracle fishing’ is the narrative context in which Simon’s vocation unfolds. Jesus is no stranger to him, but he is still a stranger in his life; Jesus asked him for the boat and Peter willingly lent it to him. Then, Jesus gives Peter some practical advice: “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon is an expert fisherman, knowing that he has not caught anything at work all night, he knows from experience that there is less fish in broad daylight, but he trusts Jesus, despite his experience. As a fisherman, he agrees to go against his own ideas and follow the word of Jesus: “but at your command, I will lower the nets.”

To cast the nets on the word of Jesus becomes a very important symbolic gesture, and an announcement of what the Church will do: “Put out into the deep water,” do not stay on ashore, but face the great outdoors, the large crowds, the new peoples… the universal proclamation of the Gospel and the courage to launch networks, to proclaim the Gospel even when it seems like a waste of time, even with people who seem unrecoverable.

Having done so, Simon realizes that he has caught an immense quantity of fish when he is unable to bring them ashore. He beckoned the partners in the other boat to come to help him. And with great effort they did that; after bringing the nets laden with fish to shore, Simon fell at the feet of Jesus and said: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” He reacts with a typically Jewish mentality; recognizes that Jesus is a saint, he is the saint of God, and he recognizes himself as a sinner and, therefore, asks Jesus to step aside, asks him for distance, ‘Get away, stay away, I am a sinner, you are the saint.’ And Jesus, on the other hand, turns the perspective upside down and says: ‘NO… come closer come closer precisely because you are a sinner‚’ I came to save those who are like you and it is the closeness that allows you to be saved. If you leave behind what your life represents and follow me, I will change your life and make you a fisher of men.’

It’s not just a superficial change, it’s a complete change. If we think about it, the fish angler takes out fish to kill them, while the people angler is the one who saves lives at sea, and therefore saves those who are shipwrecked bringing them alive. Fisher of men is a reversal situation of the death-giver for its own commercial interests. Simon becomes a giver of life, a collaborator of Jesus for the salvation of the world.

It is the beginning of the great work of evangelization that starts from that small area of Galilee and reaches the ends of the earth. Luke knows this well because he is one of those saved fish caught by nets of evangelizers. He found life and enthusiastically tells others what he himself experienced.