The Current Church Year

The Year of Luke (Year C)

Year C in the Revised Common Lectionary maintains a steadfast focus on the book which describes itself as “an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us”—a work which know as the Gospel according to Luke. This work tells the story of the man from Galilee, called to a prophetic role of inviting his people to renew their covenant relationship with their God and live faithfully within that renewed relationship; a man who gathered a group of committed followers whom he taught and told stories that offered a vision of God’s realm.

The account relates how those followers travelled with their leader, from Galilee to Jerusalem, where they witnessed the arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of their leader—who, they subsequently attested, had been raised from the dead and had appeared to them to commission them for their ongoing task.

Each Gospel came into being in a different context. The “orderly account”, it would seem, originated in a place where the vision of a renewed people, as proclaimed by Jesus, offered a sense of a broad, inclusive community—and people were being challenged to live as that community. This “orderly account” offers a story in which Jesus functions as an eschatological prophet of hope, offering an attractive vision of the coming kingdom, pointing to the ways that God is calling the people of God on earth to work towards the realization of that vision in the realities of the here and now: good news for the poor, sight for the blind, mobility for the lame, acceptance for shunned outsiders, as a sign of the Jubilee Year being enacted.

The story affirms that salvation is offered to “all flesh”, that salvation has come “this very day”, that soldiers acting unjustly under forced orders will be forgiven, that even condemned political rebels will be welcomed into the realm of paradise in the company of the Saviour. It is a story in which Jesus offers a gracious invitation to the lost and forsaken, a promise that they will be found and restored, a vision of the restoration of the people of Israel, a glimpse of the heavenly realm breaking into the time of the here and now.

Towards the end of this story, Jesus looks beyond the immediate situation of the people of Israel, and envisages a time judgement amongst the nations and an offer of hope to those who have remained faithful, to those who become “the chosen people”–Jews and Gentiles alike.

Time after time, Jesus has been portrayed as the friend of all, who entered the houses of tax collectors and shared at table with them, went to the homes of Pharisees and ate with them, such that they became his friends and followers. In this story, Jesus was able to gather committed followers of people from right across society, who were willing to follow him well into the future. This “orderly account” particularly emphasizes the active presence of women alongside men in that inner group of followers.

In this story, Jesus values inclusive community, for he sat at table with the outcasts of the time: utterly impoverished beggars, morally destitute sinners, totally marginalised lepers, and patriarchally oppressed women. The story provides regular accounts of the practice of open table fellowship in the time of Jesus, and points to the fact that this practice came to lay a foundation for a richly inclusive community of insiders and outsiders, women and men, rich and poor, Gentiles as well as Jews.

In this story of Jesus, the author has begun to prepare the way for a larger, more encompassing story, in which the small movement of immediate followers of Jesus blossoms out into a growing and impressive movement of committed people who become fervent and effective in their mission, welcoming newcomers in an inclusive manner and broadening the movement in waves of growth, such that it ultimately reaches “to the ends of the earth”.

John Squires, Editor