Establishing the final editor's intention in the community context

1. Mark
   1. Community features
   2. Pericope readings in the context of this community
2. Matthew
   1. Community features
   2. Pericope readings in the context of this community
3. Luke
   1. Community features
   2. Pericope readings in the context of this community
4. John
   1. Community features
   2. Pericope readings in the context of this community

The aim of biblical analysis, with the help of the historical-critical method, is to answer the question: what did the evangelist, or more precisely the final writer, want to say? To answer this question properly, we need to assume the following: the final writer was primarily addressing a particular Christian community, even if the work had a universal aim. When we analyze a Gospel closely, we realize that its insistence, the questions raised and the approach adopted can only really be explained in the context of a specific community with its own characteristics, demographics and problems. For example, why does Mark have to explain the rites of Jewish ritual purity, while Matthew has no need to do so? Why is Mark the only one to address the case of a wife who repudiates her husband, something unthinkable in Jewish circles, and why is Matthew the only one to admit an exception to the prohibition of divorce? We must admit, then, that a gospel is a catechetical and pastoral work, addressed primarily to a particular community. So our final step in biblical analysis is to take everything we've learned in the previous steps and situate it in a particular community.

Now comes the question: What is the community associated with each evangelist? Where can we find a description of such a community? The simple answer is: in the gospel itself. Isn't this a vicious circle? In fact, it's only with the passage of time and analysis that we learn to spot the distinctive features of an evangelist, in terms of his style and vocabulary, of course, but above all what characterizes his approach, the list of issues he raises, what he presupposes of his audience, the features of his theology. Biblical scholars have long been interested in the Sitz im leben, i.e. to the life situation implied in a gospel. Even if there is no complete consensus on the subject, a good number of biblical scholars nevertheless agree on the living environment presupposed by the four Gospels.

1. Mark
   1. Community features

      At the end of the 2nd century, Clement of Alexandria cites Rome as the place where Mark wrote his Gospel. Today, we can say that there is a consensus among biblical scholars on this subject. For Clement of Alexandria's assertion is confirmed by a number of features found in the Gospel according to Mark (on the subject, see R. Brown, Gospel according to Mark, in An Introduction to the New Testament).

      1. Let's start by noting that the Roman milieu of the first century was a bilingual one, where both Greek and Latin were spoken. The elite made a point of knowing Greek for life in society, and Greek was essential for international trade, while Latin was useful for a career in the military, law or the civil service. Early Roman emperors were bilingual. For example, Emperor Claudius (emperor from 41 to 54) sometimes addressed the Roman Senate in both languages, especially in the presence of foreign ambassadors, Suetonius tells us, referring to “our two languages” (The Life of Claudius, 42).

      2. Since Mark writes his gospel in Greek, we can assume that his audience understood that language. But his vocabulary is peppered with words of Latin origin: legiōn (“legion”) in 5, 9.15; dēnarion (“denarius”) in 6, 37; 12, 15; 14, 5; kentyriōn (“centurion”) in 15, 39. A coin like the kodrantēs (Latin: quadrans) in 12: 42 didn't exist anywhere but in the West, especially Rome. In addition, Mark uses Latinisms, i.e. Latin expressions with Greek words, such as hodon poiein (“make way”) in 2:23, a Latinism for iter facere (“make way”, i.e. walk); or: to hikanon poiēsai (“make sufficient”) in 15:15 a Latinism for satisfacere (“to satisfy”). Finally, note that when Mark speaks of this woman from the region of Tyre whose daughter is possessed by an unclean spirit, he describes her as a Syrophoenician, an expression in use in Rome (Matthew speaks of a Canaanite woman instead).

      3. By locating this community in Rome, we exclude a Palestinian sitz im leben, or at least a predominantly Jewish milieu. On the one hand, Mark has to translate into Greek the Aramaic words present in his Gospel, such as Ephphphata (open up), Elôï (my God), lema sabachthani (why have you forsaken me), korban (sacred offering), Talitha koum (girl, get up). On the other hand, he has to explain certain Jewish customs that at least part of his community is unaware of, such as purification practices (7:3-4).

      4. But the most important thing to note is that this community is facing the persecution of Nero (emperor from 54 to 68), which will begin after the burning of Rome in July 64. Let's start by recalling the events. On July 19, 64, at the eastern end of the Great Circus - not far from the Jewish quarter at the Porta Capena - a formidable fire broke out, which the axes and buckets of seven vigil cohorts, each with a thousand men, were unable to put out until six days later. Of Rome's fourteen regions, four remained intact, three were burnt to the ground, and the remaining seven offered little more than the remnants of ruined and half-burnt buildings. In this terrifying inferno, many of the city's one million inhabitants had lost everything; many had perished in the flames. Who was responsible for the catastrophe? Here's what the Roman historian Tacitus wrote on the subject:

         Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

         Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed. (Annals, 15, 44, from Complete Works of Tacitus. Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, Sara Bryant, edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc.).

         So, to allay suspicions, Nero used the Christians as scapegoats. The persecution would be terrible, accentuated by an atmosphere of jealousy (see 1 Clement 5:2-7), denunciation and betrayal of one another.

      5. Mark's Gospel would have been completed just a few years after this persecution, around the years 67 to 70. This would explain the dark atmosphere of the Gospel, with its emphasis on persecution, suffering and death. Some have said that this gospel is above all an account of Jesus' passion, accompanied by a long introduction (of the 11,133 words of the original gospel that end with the fear of women, 3,998 words belong to Jesus' last week in Jerusalem, i.e. 36%). The structure of the gospel reflects this perspective. According to John, Jesus went to Jerusalem several times. So why doesn't Mark mention these multiple trips to Jerusalem, but instead concentrates all Jesus' activity in Galilee, and his only trip to Jerusalem is to die there? This is not a “historical” plan, but a “theological” one, in which, having made known the power of God's reign at work in his action and teaching to all the people, and having associated his disciples with it, he accepts to face suffering and death. This plan expresses the Christian way, and constitutes a teaching for this suffering community in Rome.

      6. All this would go some way to explaining the insistence of Mark's Jesus on secrecy about his actions, in order to avoid misunderstanding about his identity: for we can only truly understand who the Messiah is after witnessing his suffering, and resurrection necessarily involves death. All this would explain Mark's portrayal of the twelve apostles, in which he emphasizes their difficulty in believing, their incomprehension, their flight from Gethsemane: all in all, they are not so different from the Christians of Rome. All this could explain the finale of his original gospel, which ends with the fear of women, a fear that would reflect what was happening in the Roman community?

      7. It's easy to imagine the drama of this community. Freshly baptized, believing in the transforming power of the risen Jesus, hoping for his imminent return, how could they understand what was happening to them: Nero's terrible persecution and all those apostasies? Would this explain their overheated expectation of an imminent parousia (see Mark 13): for their whole world was collapsing, and this community could only look forward to the new world promised by Jesus.

   2. Pericope readings in the context of this community
      1. Mk 12:38-44: the hypocritical scribes and the poor widow

         This pericope comprises two distinct sections: the first deals with the scribes who strut about the public square, seeking first places, hypocritically pretending to pray long hours while devouring widows' possessions; the second section contrasts a poor widow who deposits a few coins in the temple treasury.

         Mark probably has at hand a tradition in which Jesus would have denounced the attitude of the learned of the time, who were also Bible scholars, people who had many social pretensions and considered themselves apart from others, who wore various religious signs to display their piety, but all this was at odds with what they were doing: there was no sincerity in what they were doing, and even at the limit, they could be swindlers. It's possible that this tradition reflects several of Jesus' interventions during his ministry. In any case, Mark decided to take up this tradition and insert it at the point where, in his narrative, the bridges are cut with the religious authorities, as a form of conclusion and judgment towards them. Through the crowd listening to Jesus on the temple forecourt, Mark sees the Christian community, in particular the educated elite, and intends to warn them of a similar attitude of hypocrisy. Jesus will no longer be there to guide them every day. Christians need to remember his teachings.

         Mark has chosen to follow this warning against the scribes with the story of a poor widow who makes an offering in the temple. The language of this story does not belong to Mark's usual language, and is probably not a story he created. We don't know when this scene may have taken place, according to tradition. But Mark chose to insert it just after the warning against the scribes. Why was this? It has already been pointed out that the hook-word “widow” may have played a role, since the preceding narrative spoke of the scribes devouring the houses of widows. But there's certainly more to it than that, as this is the last scene before the long apocalyptic discourse and the actual account of his trial and death. What's more, Jesus takes the trouble to have his disciples come to him to offer a teaching: he intends to deliver a fundamental message, not a little moral reading.

         First of all, the scene of the hypocritical scribes, who enrich themselves at the expense of the widows, and that of the widow, who gives all she has to live, must be read together, as a striking contrast; there could be no greater antithesis, no more opposite paths. And just as Jesus passed judgment on the hypocritical elite, he also passes judgment on the widow: she has given the greatest gift possible. In Mark's construction, there is an invitation to follow the widow's path. And for the community in Rome, who have lost everything in the persecution, there is the consolation of knowing that they have chosen the widow's path.

         But there's something even deeper. For this scene around the widow shortly precedes the whole story of Jesus' trial and death. Mark, a fine storyteller, loves characters who embody various aspects of Jesus' life and that of the Christian community. For example, in Jericho, the blind Bartimaeus, who finally sees clearly and decides to follow Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, and therefore the road to death, represents this Christian community which, with the eyes of faith, is able to follow its Master on this difficult road. Now, this widow who is capable of stripping herself of everything, even what is necessary to live, represents both the path of Jesus who accepts to strip himself of everything, including his own life, and who will be represented by a naked body on the cross, and the path of the Christians of Rome who will be disinherited and killed. Mark's approach to his persecuted community is not to soften the blow, but to make sense of what they have to go through. And finding that meaning will enable this community to face events head on.

      2. Mk 6: 1-6: Jesus in Nazareth in his own milieu

         The context is that of Jesus' ministry in Galilee, where he is confronted above all with his own people. Our pericope is particularly an inclusion with 3:31-35, where Jesus asserts that his true kinsmen are those who listen to him and do God's will, staring at his audience as he is told that his mother and brothers are banging on the door to see him. Now Jesus is teaching in the synagogue of Nazareth, the place where he was brought up, and the people are shocked; they say, “Where did he get this? What is this wisdom given to him, and how are these miracles performed by his hands? Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Jose, Jude and Simon? Do not his sisters live here among us?” And Mark concludes: they didn't believe in him, and Jesus couldn't perform any miracles there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

         Why does Mark insist on the lack of faith of Jesus' immediate family? We know that, after Easter, the Christian community in Jerusalem enjoyed a high reputation, especially with stalwarts like James, Jesus' brother, perceived as rather conservative. After his conversion, Paul found it important to go and meet him. And it's possible that Jude's epistle echoes the thoughts of Jude, another of Jesus' brothers. Mark's approach has the effect of relativizing these blood ties and the reputation of the Jerusalem community, and contrasts it with the fundamental value of faith. Thus, the community of Rome would have nothing to envy that of Jerusalem. But above all, blood ties serve no purpose, which means that any true relationship with Jesus, and access to the power of the risen Jesus, is based on faith. This is a message for a community that feels persecuted and isolated, and thinks it would be different if Jesus were physically present.

         What's more, the very fact that Mark insists on the presence of the disciples accompanying him makes this scene a teaching for the disciples, and therefore for the Christian community. Indeed, when Mark writes: “And Jesus said to them that a prophet is not esteemed except in his own country, and in his own kindred, and in his own house”, the word “them” refers to the disciples. It is they who must understand that, without faith, blood ties are worthless. Jesus then sends them out on mission to continue his work.

         The question of faith is at the heart of the story. When Mark presents us with a Jesus who is astonished at their lack of faith and insists that Jesus is becoming almost powerless under the circumstances, just after the extraordinary scenes of faith of the hemorrhoid and Jairus, he is saying this: faith is the key to life. If we except the Gospel according to John, it is the one that uses the verb “to believe” the most (Mt = 11; Mk = 14; Lk = 9; Jn = 98). This is all the more important for a persecuted community. Let's recall an earlier scene in which the disciples wake Jesus in the boat, where they fear perishing, and Jesus replies: “Why are you so afraid? How can you have no faith?” (Mk 4:40). You can't get through difficult times without faith. And in the past, people may have experienced physical closeness to Jesus, and even blood ties, but none of this came to anything unless they were willing to believe in him.

2. Matthew
   1. Community features

      Most biblical scholars link Matthew to Syria, and specifically to Antioch (on this subject, see R.E. Brown, Gospel according to Matthew, in An Introduction to the New Testament) and J.P. Meier, Antioch, in Antioch and Rome. One clue comes from the addition of the word “Syria” in Mt 4:24, when Matthew copies Mark's text on the spread of Jesus' activity. Another clue comes from the use twenty-six times in the Gospel of the word “city”, against four of the word “village”, suggesting an important city in Syria; and Antioch was the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire. Finally, Ignatius of Antioch and the Didache (associated with Antioch) provide the earliest evidence of knowledge of the Gospel according to Matthew. In addition to these external clues, we can add internal ones.

      These internal clues first answer the question: what was the composition of the community? Jewish converts to the Christian faith certainly played a major role. Matthew, for example, does not need to explain to his audience the Jewish practices surrounding ritual purification (Mt 15:1-20). Moses and the Jewish Law remain important. Matthew presents five major speeches by Jesus, which seem to follow the five-book structure of the Torah or Jewish Law. And Jesus' first discourse containing the charter of the Christian life takes place on a mountain, an echo of Sinai where Moses received the tablets of the Law. Matthew is careful to put into Jesus' mouth: “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets...” (Mt 5:17). And when Matthew's Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said to our ancestors...” (5:21,27,33), this presupposes a Jewish audience. And a phrase like “I (Jesus) was sent only to the lost sheep of the people of Israel” (Mt 15:24; see also Mt 10:5-6) is understandable and acceptable only to a Jewish audience.

      Yet other clues point to the presence of Christian converts from paganism. This should come as no surprise. Flavius Josephus (Jewish War 7.3.3; #45) tells us that the ceremonies of the Jews of Antioch attracted many Gentiles. So it's not surprising that, when the Hellenistic Jewish Christians were dispersed from Jerusalem after Stephen's martyrdom (c. 36: Acts 8:1) and came to Antioch, they spoke of Christ to the Gentiles there too (Acts 11:19-20). The list of Antioch's “prophets and teachers” (Acts 13:1: early 40s?) includes a childhood companion of Herod Antipas, so the Christian community there may have included some prestigious and wealthy individuals. Paul's letter to the Galatians (2:12), written around the year 53 or 54, tells us that in Antioch, Christians of Jewish and pagan origin shared the same Eucharistic table. And it was the Antioch church that commissioned Paul's first mission to the Gentiles. When Matthew concludes his gospel, he sends his apostles to all nations (Mt 28:19).

      Beyond the composition of the community, what can we learn about its situation? Several clues point to a number of tensions. Firstly, there were tensions within the Jewish community, between Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews. Luke tells us that it was here, in Antioch, that Jesus' disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). This means that the disciples of Jesus, who were Jews from Antioch, were distinguished from other Jews, perhaps appearing as a sect of Judaism. The tension between the two Jewish communities was to increase with the Jewish revolt (66-70). There, in Antioch, Jewish antipathy for Christian Jews increased as the latter did not support their fellow Jews in the revolt. In the 70s, after the first Jewish revolt had been crushed by the Romans, the leading forces of Judaism gathered in Jamnea, on the Palestinian coast, to form an academy of scholars and write down their religious heritage; they were close to Pharisaic thought and honored as rabbis. While Christian Jews continued to frequent the synagogue for some time, tensions turned to conflict with their non-Christian brethren. According to Mt 10:17 (see also Mt 23:34), some Christians are scourged in the synagogues. In Mt 23:2-3, Matthew warns his community against the scribes and Pharisees who succeeded Moses, that while we must observe what they say, we must not do what they do. When referring to the synagogues, the expression “their synagogue or synagogues” is used; when referring to the rumor of the theft of Jesus' body, Matthew writes: “This story has spread among the Jews to this day”. Thus, the Jews and their synagogues have become another reality. This language of alienation suggests a separation from Judaism on the part of Jewish Christians who, together with Gentile Christians, formed a self-subsistent church.

      Within the Antioch Church itself, however, there was considerable tension. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians (ch. 2), gives us an echo of this tension as conservative Christians from Jerusalem, in particular James, the brother of Jesus, and his entourage arrived in Antioch to impose stricter observance of Jewish laws. While this Church of Antioch had initially sponsored Paul's first missionary journey to the Gentiles, a group from the same Church later set out to destroy Paul's teaching, as it promoted too much freedom from Jewish customs. This tension can be seen in Matthew's Gospel. First of all, the evangelist seems to be addressing those who want to free themselves from all laws, perhaps certain Christians of pagan origin or very liberal Jews who misunderstood the “Christian freedom” of which Paul speaks: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets... Whoever therefore violates one of these least precepts, and teaches others to do the same, will be held to be the least in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt 5:17-19). For without landmarks, without identity, some Christians seem to have lost the breath of their origins, especially considering that the promise of Jesus' return does not seem to be coming true: “As a result of the increasing absence of law, love will grow cold among the many” (Mt 24:12). On the other hand, Matthew also seems to be addressing the conservative Jews in his community: “If your righteousness does not surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees...” (Mt 5:20). He also addresses them when he talks about certain Jewish practices: “When you give something to a poor person... When you pray... When you fast...” (Mt 6:5-18). Matthew reserves the harshest words for the scribes and Pharisees, with whom the conservative members of the community had a certain kinship of spirit: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites...” (Mt 23:13,15,23,25,27,29). And the renewal of Judaism in Jamnea, where rabbinism was developing, may have exerted a certain influence on some Christian Jews, leading Matthew to write: “But do not call yourselves ‘rabbi’, for you are all equal and have only one teacher. Do not call anyone on earth your 'father', for you have only one father, he who is in heaven. Nor call anyone on earth your 'guide', for you have only one guide, Christ.” (Mt 23:8-10).

      Finally, Peter and James were very present in Antioch. Peter appears more often in this Gospel (14:28-31; 16:17-19; 17:24-27) than in any other; and to the list of the Twelve taken from Mark, Mt 10:2 adds “first” before Peter's name, making Peter the foundation of the Church (Mt 16:18). This is the expression of a highly structured vision of the community, which finds its logical evolution with Bishop Ignatius of Antioch (35 - 108 CE), who develops the roles of deacon, priest and bishop, taking up the structure of the Jerusalem temple: Levite, Priest, High Priest. In addition, processes were developed for settling certain problems, the beginnings of canon law, such as that concerning community conflicts (Mt 18:15-18).

   2. Pericope readings in the context of this community
      1. Mt 2: 1-12: The Magi Come to Pay Homage to the King of the Jew

         (For a detailed analysis, please refer to R.E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah. Book One: The Matthean Infancy Narrative, p. 45-232).

         The story of the Magi is inspired by the story of Balaam (Num 22 - 24), who arrived from the East, considered a magus and a pagan, who predicted that a star would rise in Israel, a royal leader. This story, written by an anonymous Christian, tells of magi from the East (which can be identified with Arabia), considered wise men and astrologers, who associated, as was customary at the time, the appearance of a new star with the birth of an important figure. They wanted to pay tribute to this royal figure. Why are they heading for Judea? Assume that the new star appeared in the constellation of Pisces in the zodiac, associated with the Hebrews. This star will lead them to Bethlehem, much as the pillar of fire illuminated the people of Israel by night on their march to the promised land. Once in front of the child, they will pay him royal homage.

         For Matthew, this story is important because it represents the history of a part of his community, people who came from paganism and welcomed the good news of the risen Jesus. They didn't have Scripture to guide them towards welcoming the Messiah, but simply the observation of nature. But Matthew also sees in this the fulfillment of what the prophet Isaiah (60) and Ps 72 had foretold for the end of time, when pagan kings from the East would come to Jerusalem to acknowledge the good news of the God of Israel, bringing their precious products, gold for the temple building, incense for worship. So he modifies the narrative to insert this allusion to Isaiah and Ps 72.

         How was Matthew's catechesis received by his community, as described above? Let's not forget that while Christians of Jewish origin made up a large part of the community, there was also a significant group of Gentile origin, and throughout the history of this community in the first century there were tensions. So the story of the Magi consolidates the place of Christians of pagan origin: the story of the Magi anticipated their coming to faith. There are many paths to the Messiah, and one of these paths was based on the science of nature (as Paul would develop in his epistle to the Romans), so there was not only the path of Scripture. Moreover, the Jewish authorities who knew Scripture did not open up to the good news; they even became adversaries. For Christians of Jewish origin in the community, they could see in the opposition of Herod and the chief priests a reflection of the present situation, when they had just been excluded from the synagogue by their Jewish confreres; so the present situation had already been anticipated at the time of Jesus as a child.

         Matthew's catechesis is addressed to Christians of both Jewish and non-Jewish origin. On the one hand, it justifies Jesus messiahship by his birth in Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David and the place from which the prophet predicted the messiah would come. And on the other hand, the presence of all these Christians of pagan origin in the community actualizes what the prophets of old had foreseen for the end of time, when they visualized the arrival in Jerusalem of these pagan kings from Arabia to celebrate the salvation offered by the God of Israel, bringing with them what they had most precious for the service of worship; the new worship is now the risen Christ. And in this, Jesus is the son of Abraham, in whom the nations of the earth will be blessed.

         The story of the Magi also anticipates the way Matthew now conceives the Christian mission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...” (Mt 28:19).

      2. Mt 14: 22-33: Jesus' walk on water

         Much of Matthew's narrative is provided by Mark. But on the one hand, the story takes on a new color for his Antioch audience, given its situation. On the other hand, Matthew's own alterations give a certain orientation to his catechesis.

         The story of the walking on the water is inseparable from that of the multiplication of the loaves, and the way this story is written clearly refers to the Christian Eucharistic assembly. Our story begins with the sending away of those who have been satiated: the meal is over, and it's time to part. Jesus is presented as the one who forces this separation. Why is this so? For the author of the story, this separation is the death of Jesus, and in faith, this death is not simply an accident, but part of God's plan, a plan that Jesus fully assumed. By his choice, Jesus in a way obliges us to live without him. He has returned to his Father, symbolized here by the mountain and the moment of prayer alone. On the other hand, he has given us a rendezvous “on the other side”. What is this “other side”? For Christian communities like Matthew's, it was clearly the return of the risen Jesus, the moment when we can experience his presence once again. Matthew insists on two things: this separation was voluntarily assumed, for it is “by himself” that Jesus ascends the mountain; and this separation raises Jesus' true transcendence, for “he is there alone”, a place inaccessible to human beings. This is part of Matthew's “high” theology.

         “The boat was already several stadia from land”. For Matthew's community, this must have had a very clear meaning: we have been separated from Jesus of Nazareth for some time, and he no longer walks among us. This separation is frightening. He's no longer there to guide us every step of the way, to direct us, to be our “rabbi”.

         “The boat was troubled by the waves, for the wind was contrary”. In Mark, it's the disciples who are tormented by rowing. Here, it's the boat that's tormented, i.e. the ecclesial community. It is tormented by the waves, which represent the forces of evil in all its forms. With the knowledge we have of Matthew's community, by what waves is it tormented? They are probably being tormented by the external forces of their Jewish brethren, who want to exclude them from the synagogue, or have already done so. This conflict was bound to have repercussions on social and family life. The community is probably also tormented by internal rifts, between conservatives who hold to the status quo, to the application of all Jewish rules, and those who believe that Christian freedom frees them from all rules, who perhaps frequented the markets offering those meats that had been sacrificed in pagan temples, throwing their brothers into disarray. The community is probably also tormented by the pretensions of several Christian leaders who are more in search of authority and prestige than motivated by pastoral concern and the desire to serve. All this threatens the community's survival.

         “(At) the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea”. In essentially repeating Mark, Matthew assumes the meaning he finds in his story. The fourth watch of the night is the dawn, and for a Christian, it's a reference to the resurrection of Jesus, and a reference to the return of the risen Jesus at the end of time; let's not forget that for the first Christian generations, this end of time was expected very soon. So we understand that at dawn, Jesus makes his presence felt. But what's really special is that Jesus makes his presence felt by walking on the sea. The author of the story is well aware that no one can walk on water, but he refers to several Old Testament passages about God the Creator who is master of his creation, in particular Job 9:8 (“He (God) alone has spread out the heavens; he walks on the sea as on solid ground”). To ensure that his audience makes the connection with this passage from Job, he modifies a detail of Mark's text: as Mark's Greek expression “on the sea” is a genitive (noun complement), he will transform it into an accusative (direct object complement), since the expression “on the sea” in the Septuagint text of Job is an accusative (direct object complement). What's more, by doing so, he will make the walk on the sea more dynamic than in Mark's account; for with his noun complement, Mark only answers the question: Where is Jesus? On the sea. Matthew's direct object complement answers the question: What is Jesus doing? He tramples on the sea, as God does in Job. Thus, the risen Jesus shares God's attribute of dominating the forces of evil, which the Jewish world associates with the sea and the waves. And for Matthew, these forces of evil refer to everything that threatens the survival of the community.

         “When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were shocked, saying that it was a ghost, and they cried out in fear”. This upheaval is due to fear. Why was this? The answer given is surprising: the disciples believe they see a ghost. How should we interpret this answer? We have to assume that Mark, if he is the author of this sentence as copied by Matthew, did not intend to create a children's story, or even to amuse himself, even if throughout his gospel he proves to be an excellent storyteller; his purpose was above all catechetical. The only Old Testament reference to phantasma (ghost) is in Wis 17:14-15, which speaks of ghosts in Sheol: for the Jews, the dead were in Sheol, leading a vegetative life and looking like spectres or shadows. In the Greek world, people spoke of Hades or the “underworld”. It's possible that it's such a specter that Mark wants to evoke, taken up by Matthew. Let's remember that the context suggests two things: firstly, the boat is in peril, so death is on the prowl, and secondly, there is a lack of faith. In this context, the specter could evoke Sheol, and the disciples are facing the shadow of death, their own death. So, rather than seeing the risen Jesus associated with God who controls the forces of evil, they consider the prospect of the fate that awaits them and may have been that of Jesus, joining Hades. There's plenty to be afraid of. Mark and Matthew could probably identify certain members of the community in this behavior.

         “Then immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: take courage! I am! Do not be afraid!” Matthew essentially repeats Mark's text. The important thing is to remember how Jesus identifies himself: by his word. It's not by seeing him or touching him that we know it's Jesus; we hear his word. First of all, we need to group together “take courage” and “do not be afraid”, because one cannot be separated from the other. Indeed, “take courage” means “have confidence”. And “to be afraid” is the opposite of faith: to believe is not to be afraid, but to move forward confidently. So “take courage” and “have no fear” form an inclusion whose center, and therefore the key to interpretation, is: “I am”. Now, the expression “I am” without any attribute is typical in Jewish circles for designating God's very being, and Isaiah will put the following words into God's mouth: “I, I am, I am who comforts you; who are you to fear mortal man, the son of man doomed to the fate of grass?” (51:12). It is now Jesus who takes up these words, who asks us not to be afraid. For to believe that he is risen is not simply to affirm that he is alive, it is to affirm that he is able, like God, to intervene against the forces of evil. Such a word is addressed to Matthew's torn community, a community in search of an identity, a community that must have felt in some way weakened.

         Now, with vv. 28-31, Matthew departs from Mark to add a “sub-narrative” of his own, featuring Peter. Why does this happen? One possible reason concerns the leaders of the community, in whom we detect a certain amount of tension: when one seeks titles like “rabbi” or “father” or “doctor” (see Mt 23:8-10 where Jesus prohibit these titles used by Jewish leaders), one is no longer motivated by the desire to serve, and one has certainly lost sight of the gospel message. It's probably for them that Matthew has written this short account of Peter, the representative of the disciples, who has spent a long time in Antioch, and is therefore the image of all community leaders. For Peter wants to follow in Jesus' footsteps, and so, like him, he wants to be able to trample down and dominate the forces of evil. But these forces are so strong that he no longer has the faith to keep going. The reproach “[you are] of little faith, why did you doubt?” is addressed to many leaders in the community. Leadership is based on faith, and if we don't have that mountain-moving faith, we'll fail in our role. But there's good news: Jesus is always there to come to the rescue of our little faith.

         “And when they got into the boat, the wind died down”. Matthew picks up the thread of Mark's narrative here, except that he has to take into account that two characters get into the boat (“them”): Peter and Jesus. Even if this is not explicitly stated, we must assume that the disciples have regained their faith. In the story of Jonah, where the sea is raging and the boat in peril, the sea calms down when the sailors begin to pray. Here, Jesus does not perform an exorcism to ask the sea to calm down, as in the story of the stilled storm (Mk 4:35-41 || Mt 8:18.23-27; Lk 8:22-25). This faith is proclaimed in the next verse. It is faith, then, that enables us to live the rest of the voyage “calmly”. We may think that the waves will continue to batter the boat, but the state of mind will be one of confidence that the boat's voyage will succeed, for the risen Jesus is with the community in this difficult battle against evil.

         “Then those in the boat prostrated themselves [before] him, saying: Truly, of God the Son you are”. It's remarkable that Matthew has left out Mark's finale to the story, in which the disciples are at a loss to understand, due to their lack of faith, a reflection of the Roman community in disarray in the face of persecution. For Matthew, the disciples have finally come to faith, and he presents us with their solemn profession. First, they prostrate themselves, a gesture of recognition of authority and veneration. Then they proclaim him “Son of God”, the messiah who has been faithful to God's will, and who now has authority over the forces of evil, beginning with death. This profession of faith is similar to that of the centurion and the Roman guards at Jesus' death, but Matthew insists on putting it into the mouths of the disciples long before Jesus' death. He wants his community to identify with this profession of faith, and asks each member to take it to heart. This is the essential condition for its survival, and will enable it to continue its long journey into the night.

         It's time to conclude. Our story began with the multiplication of the loaves, that memorable moment of intimacy with Jesus when he feeds us all. Matthew's audience saw it as the Eucharistic gathering. Now it's time to leave (ita missa est), time to face up to everyday life and experience both separation from the Eucharistic community, and separation from Jesus' sense of presence. And it's Jesus who forces them into this separation: it's time for mission, and mission is not optional. For the members of Matthew's community, these are difficult times of confrontation with their Jewish brethren, of communal tensions between conservators and liberals, of friction with the various community leaders. Will the ecclesiastical boat sink? The spectre of communal death frightens everyone. It's time to go back to our roots, to remember the word of Jesus, who assured us of his presence and support, and who, risen from the dead, can say like God: I am, and therefore is able to dominate, control and trample on evil. This road of life after the warm gathering of the Eucharist is also a difficult one for the leaders of the community, for if they do not have a faith to move mountains, they will drown in the forces of evil. Our story ends with a surge of hope and faith, proclaiming total faith in the risen Jesus, master of the forces of evil and death.

      3. Mt 5:13-16: You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world

         Having taken up the Q Document presenting Jesus' teaching on the Beatitudes, an exposé of the fundamental attitude expected of the Christian, Matthew now sets out to make explicit the whole program of Christian action in this great inaugural discourse of Jesus. This great discourse is aimed at both those who insist on a strict application of the Law and those who have abandoned it all. Remember that in Judaism, the emphasis is on orthopraxy (right action), not orthodoxy (right thinking). And Matthew, this Jew turned Christian, intends to present Jesus in this first great discourse as the new Moses, the new law.

         But before explaining the details of Christian action in concrete terms, Matthew makes a point of explaining its fundamental motivation: Christian action has a missionary function. To do this, he draws on material he finds in Mark in another context, on the Q Document (which seems to be a kind of ring-book of Jesus' sayings), and on other elements of tradition found in the first epistle of Peter and Justin, for example. And so he calls out to his community: “You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world; this is your identity, you cannot escape it”.

         Taking up the image of salt, which in ancient times could play a variety of roles (giving taste to food, preserving it, as well as serving as a fertilizer for cultivation with manure, and a catalyst for furnaces), he first targets those who have lost their Christian breath, if not their faith, and so, like salt that has lost its properties, they have become “crazy”. This loss of identity has consequences: as the salt is no longer needed and thrown out of the house, these Christians are threatened with excommunication, i.e., being thrown out of the community as “dead” Christians.

         After this negative warning, Matthew takes a position that at first glance seems more positive, with the image of the light of the world. For him, the entire teaching of Jesus, and in particular the Beatitudes, is the unique wisdom that the world needs and that can truly enlighten it. And Christians are the bearers of this light insofar as they live it out through their actions. To express this point, he turns to a passage from Isaiah (2:2), which gives us his vision of the messianic times when the city of Jerusalem will become the focal point of the nations, not only because it is situated on a mountain, but also because it is there that the house of God and his Law are to be found, and thus that light capable of illuminating the universe. But for Matthew, the messianic times have arrived, and the new Jerusalem is the Christian community, which has received the teaching of the Beatitudes and is the repository of this light for the enlightenment of the nations. At the same time, Matthew takes this text from Isaiah in a different direction: rather than being a celebration of the greatness of God's plan and of his people, he uses the image of the city on a mountain in a negative way: just as the city cannot go unnoticed, so the Christian cannot shirk his mission.

         After this negative approach, Matthew turns to a positive one, in which he clarifies his expectations. To do this, he uses the image of the lamp provided by Mark and the Q Document. The idea behind the image of the lamp is that it must be well located and clearly visible if it is to do its job. So he takes up the text of Mk 4:21 about the lamp that must not be put under a bushel, a sort of conical-shaped piece of furniture, a text that he connects with the image of the light and the city on a mountain, using the conjunction “nor” (“cannot be hidden nor...”) and the verb “to light” (Mark has “comes” to say: does a lamp come...?). And after mentioning where the lamp should not be, he uses the Q Document (of which Lk 11:33 is the best witness) to say where it should be: but on the lampstand. Finally, Matthew repeats the consequences mentioned by the Q Document, but is more explicit about the fact that those who are illuminated are the people in the house, and above all uses the verb “to shine” to bridge the gap with the conclusion that follows.

         After the development of this mini parable or comparison, comes its application or conclusion: thus (houtōs). For this part, Matthew seems to have recourse to a tradition echoed in the first epistle of Peter and Justin: “Then let your good works shine before men, so that when they see them, they may admire your Father in heaven”. Talk of glorifying or admiring God is not typical of Matthew. So we have to admit that he seems here to have reused a tradition that is also known to the author of the first letter of Peter and Justin. This allows him to affirm, firstly, that it is through his actions that the Christian shines and becomes a light for others, a rather Jewish attitude. Secondly, he makes explicit the fundamental motivation: to make God known, for it is He who has acted through them; to shine, to do good are not a way of self-promotion, but a way of revealing who God is.

         Who is intended by such an exhortation, which begins with a warning against losing one's identity, as with salt, and being excluded from the community, an exhortation which continues with the fact that one cannot shirk one's mission, like the city on the mountain, and that one must become visible through one's good deeds like a well-placed lamp in order to be seen and to enlighten others, so that humanity will be able to see God's merciful action in them? It's easy to imagine that it's the Christians in the community who have lost their impetus and misunderstand the role they can play. So, before illustrating what he means by good deeds (5:21 - 7:27), Matthew was keen to explain their importance and role.

         Of course, he is primarily addressing “lukewarm” Christians. But in the following verses (5:17-20), he addresses the “fundamentalists” of the community, those conservatives who hold to the letter of the Law.

3. Luke
   1. Community features

      Where the Gospel according to Luke was written (on this subject, consult R.E. Brown, Gospel according to Luke, in Introduction to the New Testament and my paper Where was Luke's Gospel written? of which I have taken up several elements in the following presentation)? According to external data, Luke was a companion of Paul, and this suggests that his two books, the Gospel and Acts, were addressed to the churches born of the Pauline mission. But a more precise clue comes from a prologue to Luke's Gospel, described as anti-Marcionite and dated between 150 and 255. It reads:

      "This is a certain Luke, a Syrian from Antioch, a physician, a disciple of the Apostles; later he followed Paul to his martyrdom. Serving the Lord without fail, he had no wife, he bore no children, he died in Boeotia, full of the Holy Spirit, aged eighty-four. So, as gospels had already been written, by Matthew in Judea, by Mark in Italy, it was by inspiration of the Holy Spirit that he wrote this gospel in the regions of Achaia; he explained at the beginning that others (gospels) had been written before his, but that it had seemed to him to be of great necessity to set out for the faithful of Greek origin a complete and careful account of events..."

      This Greek preface to Luke's Gospel was found in 10th-century (or 12th-century) manuscript 91 in Athens and was edited by H. von Soden (Die Schriften des N.T. t. 1, Berlin, 1902-1910, p. 327). So Luke's Gospel would have been written in Achaia, in southern Greece. What is the largest city in Achaia? Corinth.

      Let's now use the internal data of the Gospels to clarify the features of this community. A careful reading will enable us to identify certain characteristics of this Church. These characteristics will be compared with what is revealed in Paul's letters to the Corinthians.

      1. The economic situation

         Of all the evangelists, Luke is the only one to present various parables on the relationship between rich and poor: the parable of the foolish rich man (12, 13-21), the clever steward (16:1-13), the bad rich man and Lazarus (16:19-32), and Jesus' exhortation to invite the poor rather than the rich to a meal (14:12). Think, too, of the distinctive coloring of his Beatitudes (6:20-26), his version of the parable of the guests who steal away and are replaced by the poor (14:15-24), and the story of Zacchaeus, the rich man who gives part of his fortune to the poor (19:18). Such insistence is not gratuitous.

         This community appears to be grappling with a problem of economic disparity. There are rich people (“Woe to you rich people...”) and poor people (“Blessed are you poor people”). The rich find it hard to loosen their purse strings and share: “Fool, this very night, your soul will be taken from you. And what you have hoarded, who shall have it?” (12:20) This even leads to conflicts between brothers, since recourse to the courts is necessary: ‘Master, tell my brother to share our inheritance with me...’ (12:14). Literary criticism reveals that the parable of the rich fool was originally intended to include only vv. 16-20. So what did the writer add? “From the crowd someone said to him, 'Master, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.' Jesus said to him, 'Man, who made me judge or sharer over you?' He said to them, 'See and beware of greed, for in abundance a man's life is not in dependence on what belongs to him'” (vv. 13-15). We're talking about conflicting interests between brothers, over an inheritance, which presupposes the possession of a certain amount of property. We could add the story of Zacchaeus (19:1-10) to this inquiry: what relevance would the figure of a rich man who knows how to give to the poor and make amends for injustices committed have if it did not target a community marked by tensions between rich and poor?

         Such a portrait is consistent with what we learn from Paul's letters to the Corinthians. Corinth is a city with two seaports: Cenchrea to the east, on the Ionian Sea, open to ships from Egypt and Asia, and Lechaeon to the northwest, on the Adriatic Sea, open to ships from Italy, Spain and the western Mediterranean basin. It's a prosperous city. Sailors passed through while ships were pulled on logs or carts across the six km separating the two seas (the Corinth Canal obviously didn't exist at the time). Trade was intense. It was a young city (rebuilt in 44 BC), offering a wealth of opportunities. As a result, many adventurers arrived from Asia and Egypt to make a quick buck. It was the California of the time.

         What was the economic situation of the Christians? The data we have suggests that a number of them were wealthy. For example, Erastus, the city treasurer: according to an inscription found at Corinth, the paving around the theater is due to his generosity. Crispus, head of the synagogue, must have been well off to hold such a position. Gaius, who could accommodate the entire Christian community, must have owned a very large house, which implies considerable financial means. The same can be said of Stephanas and Jason. Priscilla and Aquilas can probably be classed in the same category, since not only would they welcome Christians into their homes, but they would also travel quite easily, which suggests a certain financial capacity. As for Phoebe, she could be put in the same category, if she travels on business and can be patroness of Christians. We have confirmation of the financial situation of part of the community through the initiative it took in collecting for the poor of Jerusalem (2 Cor. 8:10); this project was financed out of superfluity.

         At the same time, the community is finding it difficult to loosen its purse strings and follow through on its project. Paul has to go back to them to shake off their torpor and tell them: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap, and whoever sows widely will also reap” (2 Cor 9:6). Similarly, tensions between rich and poor were one of the community's major problems. The splits Paul noted in the Eucharistic gatherings primarily pitted two economic classes against each other: there were those who could arrive early, offering abundant food (but which they shared only with people from their own social milieu), and those who had to toil until sundown and could bring only their meager provisions for the common meal (1 Cor 11:17-34); true sharing was not experienced.

         Does this not reflect the economic environment of Luke's Church? Doesn't the parable of the rich man and Lazarus take on an interesting dimension in the context of Paul's denunciation of the scandal of Eucharistic gatherings? Similarly, Jesus' words: “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, invite neither your friends, nor your brothers, nor your relatives, nor rich neighbors..., but invite the poor, the crippled...” (14:12), became very relevant in the Corinthian context. For Luke, Zacchaeus is certainly the model of a Christian who knows how to make good use of his riches. Conversely, Luke's Jesus says: “Blessed are you who are poor...” (Lk 6:20).

      2. The social situation

         Another characteristic of Luke is his concern for the marginalized and sinners. He could be called the evangelist of compassion and conversion. In this respect, chapter 15 is very eloquent, with its evocation of the sheep found, the drachma found and the son found. The story of the forgiven sinner (probably a prostitute) (7:36-50), the parable of the Good Samaritan (10:29-37) and that of the Pharisee and the Publican (18:9-14) are all part of this approach. Whether it's the son who leaves his father, the prostitute, the Samaritan or the publican, or the good thief, each time we are referred to people on the bangs of Jewish society. What, then, is the evangelist's intention in offering these unique New Testament pericopes? Is it not because some of his audience or readers can relate to them? Also, whereas Matthew's Jesus invites us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, Luke's Jesus says: “Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful” (6:36).

         How can we describe the Lucan community? It's easy to imagine a motley crew of civil servants (18:13), social climbers (12:19), poor people (14:12), foreigners (10:33), businessmen (19:13), prostitutes (7:37) and debauched people (21:34). The worries (merimna) of life seem to characterize a certain number of people, since Luke returns twice to the subject (8:14 and 21:34, which is his own).

         What's more, no other evangelist gave such a prominent place to women. Suffice it to mention some of the great figures in his Gospel, such as Mary and Elizabeth, Martha and Mary. He alone mentions female disciples who support Jesus with their possessions (8:1f). On the road to Calvary, a group of women follow him, beating their breasts and lamenting him (23:27); this last point is all the more interesting as the male disciples are absent. Is the loving, forgiven sinner not a woman? Luke's Jesus goes so far as to claim a feminine role: “For which is greater, he who sits at table or he who serves? But I am among you instead of the one who serves” (22:27). Luke even occasionally adds a parable featuring a woman to the one featuring a man: the mustard seed (13:18) and the leaven in the dough (13:20); the shepherd who lost his sheep (15:1) and the woman who lost her drachma (15:8). In the courtyard of the high priest, it is first a woman who challenges Peter and to whom he replies: “Woman, I do not know him” (22:57), then two men to whom Peter replies in turn: “Man, I am not” (22:58,60). How else to explain such preoccupation if not by the remarkable presence of women in the community, and perhaps even by a debate over the place they should occupy. For example, the story of Martha and Mary presents two roles, serving tables and listening to the Word, and thus brings into play two types of community involvement and the debate that surrounds it.

         This social portrait corresponds to what Paul reveals about the Corinthian community. We're looking at a city of 500,000 or 600,000 inhabitants, made up of former soldiers of the Roman army, investors, merchants and craftsmen from all over the Empire, and, of course, natives. The Jewish colony had its own “Freedmen's Synagogue”. Slaves could make up two-thirds of the population. So we're dealing with a highly composite environment, with a constant coming and going of the population, which in a young city invariably leads to cultural mutations. This can be seen in the situation of women. For example, in the Isthmian games, women are present in two competitions: the 200-meter race and the chariot fights. Such mutations lead to social instability.

         What we know of the composition of the Christian community reveals a wide variety of origins and cultural backgrounds. Let's start with names. The epistles give us both Latin and Greek names: Titius, Justus, Aquilas, Prisca, Fortunatus, Gaius on the one hand, and Stephanas, Jason, Phoebe on the other. Some Christians are of pagan origin (1 Cor 8:7; 12:2), others of Jewish origin (2 Cor 11:22; Acts 18:8). The mention of slaves is explicit (1 Cor 7:21-33). Who are these weak, despised and unborn people of whom Paul speaks? Perhaps slaves or freedmen. On the other hand, we do find some notables, like Erastus, the city treasurer (Rom 16:23), or Crispus and Sosthenes, synagogue leaders (Acts 18:8,17). A word about the status of women. What we have seen for Corinthian society as a whole is reflected in the Christian community. A certain emancipation is noticeable. Paul's concern about the veil undoubtedly stems from a desire to break free from traditional customs, and thus reject the narrow place given to women (1 Cor 11:2-16). Women also took part in assemblies, at the risk of offending the sensibilities of some participants (14:33b-33).

         In a cosmopolitan city, there are always those left behind. Saint Paul writes: “There are not many among you who are wise in the eyes of men, nor many who are powerful, nor many who are of good family” (1 Cor 1:26). The apostle to the Gentiles must convince those who do not seem to have prestigious charisms that they have a place in the community; he uses the image of the body and its members (1 Cor 12:12f). He even speaks of the “weak” who are in danger of perishing, or who have already left the community, victims of the scandal of the strong (8:1-13). This is why he proposes a rule of conduct: “Therefore, if any food would cause my brother to fall, I will forsake eating meat forever rather than cause my brother to fall” (8:13). It's a way of inviting concern for the weaker brother.

      3. The theological world

         We can easily analyze the theological world of Luke's Gospel, in particular how he presents Christ and the role he gives to the Holy Spirit. But it's a little more difficult to relate these theological elements to the specific situation of his Church. Let's give it a try.

         1. Jesus as prophet

            More than any other evangelist, Luke emphasizes Jesus' prophetic mission; he gives Jesus the title of “prophet”, particularly in his own passages, such as 13:31-33; 7:16,39. Thus, immediately after his baptism, Jesus inaugurates his preaching by taking on Isaiah's prophecy: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me...” (4:18ff). Throughout his mission, he will identify with the role and fate of the prophets (cf. 13:33), particularly Elijah (cf. 4:25). And conversely, his audience will perceive him as a prophet: “A great prophet has arisen among us” (cf. 7:16,39; 9:19). We can assume that Luke's language resonated with his community.

            Let's look at what Paul reveals about the Corinthian community. Many of the problems Paul faced there seem to stem from the influence of mystery religions, which emphasized knowledge and revelation to initiates, neglecting the ethical part of the Christian life. And mystery religions encouraged ecstatic experiences. So it's hardly surprising that Corinthian Christians were so keen on prophecy and speaking in tongues: they were looking for extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit. Yet being a prophet was one of the three great roles established in the community, along with that of apostle and teacher (1 Cor 12:28-29). And these prophets were often those who were sent on mission to preach in the various communities. Thus, the prophet Jesus on mission under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was the model for the prophet of the Christian community.

         2. Jesus as Lord

            Luke, along with John, makes the greatest use of the title “Lord” to designate Jesus: Mt = 26; Mk = 3; Lk = 40; Jn = 44; Acts = 53. It's a term very well known in the classical Greek world, where it designates “the one who is master of, who has authority”, i.e. the master, the householder, the legal representative, the guardian. This is the term chosen by the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew ădōnāy, used to avoid pronouncing the proper name YHWH. It is therefore a generic term that sometimes designates God, sometimes Jesus, sometimes an owner, sometimes any person (the equivalent of our “sir”). Luke, belonging to the Greek world, uses this word abundantly, and especially absolutely with the article, to designate Jesus during his public life: “When the Lord saw the (widow), he was overwhelmed the Lord” (Lk 7:13; see also Lk 7:19; 10:1.39.41; 11:39; 12:42; 17:5.6; 18:6; 19:8.31, 34; 22:61; 24:3.34).

            In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul indicates that this term is widely used to indicate divinity: “For though there are so-called gods in heaven and on earth - and indeed there are many gods and many lords - yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we are, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things exist and through whom we are” (1 Cor. 8:5-6). And it is under the title of “the Lord” that Paul most often refers to Jesus in this letter to the Corinthians (e.g. “If anyone wishes to be proud, let him put his pride in what the Lord has done”, 1 Cor 1:31).

         3. Jesus as Savior

            Luke is the only one of the synoptics to give Jesus this title and to use the word “salvation”? As for the verb “to save”, he is the one who uses it the most (Mt: 15 / Mk: 15 / Lk: 17/ Jn: 6 / Acts: 13), so we can guess at a context in which there was a desire for salvation, or at least, a context in which saviors were proposed.

            In the Greco-Roman world, emperors were described as benefactors who gave people a zest for life, as evidenced by the decree of proconsul Paulus Fabius Maximus, dated 9 BC, which attributed an almost salvific role to the emperor Augustus. Indeed, emperors like to be described as “benefactors of mankind” and their birth as “the beginning of good news”.

            So it's understandable that, in Corinth, giving Jesus the title of “Savior” was a source of competition for the emperor. But for the Christian, the real Savior was the risen Jesus, not the emperor.

         4. The suffering servant

            “Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things in order to enter into his glory” (24:26), says Jesus to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Behind these words we perceive a particular orientation of Luke's catechesis. Not only does he use the word suffer (paschō) a little more than the others (Mt: 4 / Mk: 3 / Lk: 6 / Jn: 0 / Ac: 5), but he is the only one to use it absolutely, without complement or adverb, as at the beginning of the Last Supper narrative: “I so longed to eat this Passover with you before I suffered” (22:15; cf. 24:46; Ac 1:3; 3:18; 9:16; 17:3). This theme of suffering as an obligatory path to glory will recur in his Gospel like a refrain; it helps us to grasp the character of Jesus. This insistence even leads Luke to eliminate mention of the resurrection in the 2nd announcement of the passion.

            Now, in Corinth, there was a group of people, no doubt influenced by mystery religions, who favored knowledge over ethical living, because this knowledge gave them great freedom. Thus, in their religious world, they put the emphasis on Christ's resurrection and new life, forgetting the path by which this resurrection came about. What does Paul do? "No, I wanted to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Doesn't Luke's insistence on the suffering figure of Christ make sense in such a context?

         5. The righteous innocent

            He paints this portrait of Jesus by drawing on the image of the suffering servant, as can be seen from this explicit reference: “For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me: He was numbered with the criminals” (22:37), a reference to the suffering servant of Isa 53:12 (“he allowed himself to be numbered with the evildoers”). In his passion narrative, Luke avoids the sacrificial language found in Mark and Matthew, but presents Jesus as the righteous innocent who died a martyr's death out of faithfulness to his mission.

            Such an elimination of categories linked to the sacrifices of the Jerusalem temple and their expiatory value can be explained by a non-Jewish context, where the experience of a sacrifice for the sins of the people does not exist. This was the case in Corinth. On the other hand, they had experience of the courts and knew what it meant to condemn the innocent.

         6. The Holy Spirit

            Luke can be described as the evangelist of the Holy Spirit, and the main protagonist of the Acts of the Apostles is the Holy Spirit: Mt = 12 / Mk = 6 / Lk = 17 / Jn = 20 / Acts = 58. The Holy Spirit is at the origin of the mission of Jesus and the Church; he inspires Elizabeth, Zechariah and Simeon to prophesy; he is the gift to be asked for in prayer (11:13). The Acts of the Apostles attest even more strongly to the charismatic atmosphere: there's the speaking in tongues and the extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit on the three Pentecost days (2:13; 8:18; 10:46) and when Paul laid hands on the Baptists in Ephesus (19:6). Beyond Luke's catechesis, aren't we back in a community situation?

            This is confirmed by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. Note that ecstatic experiences were encouraged in mystery religions. So it's hardly surprising that Corinthian Christians were so keen on prophecy and speaking in tongues: they were looking for extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit. So Paul had to curb their enthusiasm: “I am willing that you should all speak in unknown tongues, but I am even more willing that you should pass on messages received from God” (1 Cor 14:5). He devotes two chapters (chs. 12 and 14) to the manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

      4. The Christian life

         First of all, the 3rd Gospel could be defined as the Gospel of constancy and perseverance (hypomonē). The Christian faith is lived out day by day: “Give us the bread we need for each day” (11:3); “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him... take up his cross daily...” (9:23); “But stay awake and pray at all times...” (21:36); it was “for forty days” that Jesus was tempted by the devil (4:2). Similarly, Christians are invited to persevere despite obstacles: “Jesus told them a parable about the need for them to pray constantly and not to lose heart” (18:1); “By your perseverance you will gain life” (21:19). Such insistence signals the existence of a problem.

         We are also familiar with Luke's radical approach to the demands of following Christ. He is the only one to say that we must leave everything, renounce everything: “Bringing the boats ashore, the disciples left everything and followed him” (5:11; cf. 5:28; 18:22). This renunciation primarily concerns material possessions: “Whoever among you does not renounce everything that belongs to him cannot be my disciple” (14:33).

         All this gives Luke's Gospel a rather ascetic air. This is how we usually interpret the renunciation of his wife, which he alone mentions: “If anyone comes to me and does not prefer me to his father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, and even to his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (14:26; cf. 18:29).

         Can such insistence be explained in the context of Corinth? The city of Corinth, like any seaport, was renowned for its prostitutes. Even if one doubts the claim that there were more than a thousand sacred prostitutes on the acrocorinth, in the temple of Aphrodite, it must nevertheless be acknowledged that the “oldest profession in the world” was practiced there. Christians were not immune to the atmosphere of such an environment, and various moral problems affected the community. There is, of course, the case of the man who lives with his mother-in-law and whom Paul asks to excommunicate (1 Cor 5:1-13). But there is also the frequenting of prostitutes, to which some saw no harm, on the pretext that everything is permitted under Christian rule and that what concerns the body is not important (1 Co 6:12-20). On the other hand, other Christians seem to be developing an ascetic mentality. This, at least, is what chapter 7 suggests, beginning with a question posed by some: “Is it not good for the man to abstain from the woman”? Paul answers with a “yes, but”. Although he values celibacy, he does not do so for ascetic reasons. That's why he asks those who don't have this charism to live normal relationships with their spouses.

         Isn't this the same world that looms large in Luke's writing? Luke's position is rather complex. On the one hand, his welcome for the prostitute is remarkable: “For this I tell you, her sins, her many sins, are forgiven her, for she has shown great love” (Lk 8:47). He values this woman's capacity for conversion. John's pericope on the adulteress, with its Lucan characteristics (Jn 8:1-11), could be added to this inquiry. On the other hand, Luke presents the following of Christ as a radical reality. We are familiar with his views on the renunciation of riches. We also know how often he returns to the theme of conversion (Lk 5:32; 13:1-9; 15:11-32; 24:45-48).

         On the other hand, the Corinthian context could offer another meaning to Luke's request to renounce his wife. Why shouldn't this renunciation be understood in the context of mixed marriages, as mentioned in chapter 7 of First Corinthians? Paul proposes this solution: “But if the unbelieving party wants to separate, let him separate” (7:15). So, in a conflict situation, the Christian must be ready to let his or her spouse go if, because of his or her faith, reconciliation is no longer possible. You can never renounce your faith. Jesus' words in Luke are aimed at such conflict situations, where a choice has to be made. From then on, the evangelist would no longer be the promoter of an ascetic trend, but rather of a scale of values that could guide a Christian's choices and decisions.

         Reading what the Epistle to the Corinthians has to say about this charismatic church, one suspects that a somewhat superficial, fickle spirit reigned there, seeking strong emotions and spectacular gifts. They were quick to take initiatives, but had difficulty bringing them to fruition, as shown by the collection for the saints in Jerusalem. Paul had to return to the subject several times: “Complete the collection” (2 Cor 8:11). Rhetoric and fine speeches were also highly prized. That's why Apollos was so successful with the Corinthians. Paul refused to play this game: “I have not come to proclaim to you the mystery of God with the prestige of words or wisdom” (1 Cor 2:2). He even calls the Corinthians superficial, unable to bear solid food (1 Cor 3:2). These enthusiasts, with their emphasis on the gift of new life, were forgetting the path that leads to the glory of Christ, and Paul reminds them that he only wanted to know one thing in their midst, the cross of Christ (2:2).

         Isn't Luke faced with a similar situation? For he develops the idea that it is in daily life, by taking up one's cross day after day, that the Christian faith is lived out. He also speaks of constancy and perseverance: “By your constancy you will save your lives” (21:19; cf. 8:15). The parable of the iniquitous judge and the importunate widow certainly seeks to respond to the problem of the delay of the parousia. The problem seems important, since Luke concludes: “But will the Son of Man, when he comes, find faith on earth?” (18:8). This problem is touched on again in the parable of the mines: “As the people listened to these words, Jesus added a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and they imagined that the Kingdom of God was going to manifest itself immediately” (19:11). Because of this context, the parable of the mines becomes an invitation to settle for the long term. Luke's catechesis thus promotes values that are the opposite of the attitude of some of the Corinthians. The words here are less violent than in the case of the riches, but they are just as critical, and just as much aimed at changing the readers' behavior.

   2. Pericope readings in the context of this community
      1. Lk 10: 1-20: Choosing and sending the 72 disciples

         This pericope is unique to Luke. Whereas in ch. 9 he repeats what Mark wrote and describes the sending out of the 12 disciples on mission, in ch. 10 he presents the sending out of a new group. Why does this happen?

         We know that Greece in general, and Corinth in particular, was evangelized by Paul, with the help of Timothy, Barnabas and Silas, and not by the Twelve. They were among the 72 chosen by the Lord and sent out two by two. By the time Luke wrote his gospel, the good news had reached the whole Mediterranean basin as far as Spain, i.e. the whole known world at the time, and thus the 72 nations mentioned in the book of Genesis. So all Christians in these regions can be assured that their missionaries were truly sent by Jesus, just as he sent the Twelve to the Jews, even if they were not sent by the historical Jesus, but by the risen Lord; and to assure himself of this point, he uses the verb “to appoint”, the same verb for the choice of Matthias to replace Judas among the Twelve, as well as the verb “to send” to make them “sent” or “apostles”. And since much of Jesus' ministry took place in the Galilean countryside, Luke insists that it is now to the cities, a typical Greek setting, that the 72 are sent, as was the case with Paul going to Thessalonica, Philippi, Athens and Corinth.

         As with the sending out of the Twelve, where Jesus gave his instructions, Luke accompanies this sending out of the 72 with instructions, which he introduces with an expression typical of him: “he said towards them” (lego pros autous). For these instructions, he draws heavily on the Q Document, first to justify a second dispatch after the sending of the Twelve: “The harvest is many, but the laborers are few. Pray, therefore, to the Lord of the harvest, that he will send out his workers into the harvest”. After justifying the need for a second sending, Luke finds it important to present the environment of this mission, and so chooses another text from the Q Document, a warning about the hostile environment that awaits the missionary: he will be like a lamb in the midst of wolves. What does Luke have in mind with this phrase? Such an environment describes what Paul experienced, particularly in Corinth, where he faced opposition from some, to the extent that he had to postpone a visit and write “a letter in tears” (2 Cor 1:12 - 2:13) following serious offenses by some. And for the whole of his missionary work, he reveals that five times he received the thirty-nine blows, three times he was scourged, once he was stoned, and he had to face the dangers of brethren of his own race, dangers from pagans, dangers from false brethren (2 Co 11:23-27).

         After this introduction to the mission, Luke begins the instructions, starting with the one on how to travel: without money, without provisions, barefoot, without stopping because the mission is so urgent. Luke was certainly aware that few missionaries traveled without shoes. But for him, all this has a symbolic value: you have to travel poor to be consistent with the message, especially when you think of the Beatitudes, or all those poor slaves in the Corinthian community. Most missionaries lived off the hospitality of Christian communities. Paul also benefited from this hospitality, even if he insisted on continuing his trade as a tent-maker so as to be as little a burden on others as possible. In his presentation, Luke makes an amalgam of traditions, the one that comes to him from Mark, the one from the Q Document, which he sews together with his own vocabulary.

         Whereas Jesus preached in the synagogues, and Paul spoke to the Jews in the synagogue, in the Church's time, the mission is carried out first and foremost in the home. That's where the community gathers, where catechesis takes place. So the instructions to missionaries concern the home. Here, Luke distances himself from Mark, who does not mention any words to be addressed to the home, and from Matthew, who asks us to first assess whether the host is able to accept the word : in his view, from the outset, the missionary takes the initiative in immediately offering the peace of the Gospel, which is in fact the Holy Spirit; this echoes his experience with the first Christian communities, where the gift of the Holy Spirit very often precedes baptism, as in the story of the centurion Cornelius who welcomes the Gospel (Acts 10:1-48). But it's a gift that can be accepted or refused. If the home is open to this gift, then it becomes a place of residence for the missionary, and even for the Christian community. We have here an echo of a common practice in the early Church concerning itinerant preachers, from which Paul himself may have benefited. For Luke, this ancient practice goes back to Jesus.

         After the instructions on hospitality in the home, Luke now turns to the city. Why does he do this? Because the instructions for sending out the Twelve speak only of houses, never of cities. It's possible, then, that the setting for the sending out of the 72, which is the Greco-Roman environment, an urban setting, is one in which the various churches are defined primarily by the city in which they are located: the Church of Corinth, the Church of Ephesus, the Church of Laodicea, the Church of Philadelphia, and so on. For Luke, it's normal to talk about mission to a city, and this gives him the opportunity to update traditional instructions on mission. In addition, he probably wanted to integrate into his narrative the traditions about cities' refusal to welcome evangelical missions. However, as he likes a fine balance in composition (for example, when one parable features a man, he adds another with a woman), he chose to precede these traditions on the refusal of certain cities with a composition on the welcome by cities, to achieve a balance between welcome and refusal. Thus, he would have composed v. 8 and 9, reusing what he said about the mission at home (eating and drinking what is offered) and adding what is in fact a summary of Jesus' ministry: healing the sick and announcing that this is the sign that God's reign has come near.

         Having said this, Luke can now turn to the situation of towns that refuse to accept the preaching of the Gospel. He has several traditions in front of him, starting with Mark's tradition of the house that rejects the missionary, a tradition he has already used for the sending out of the Twelve (9:5): shaking the feet, to signify that relations are cut off with this house. But he also has the Q Document in front of him, which clearly addresses the question of rejecting a city. So he sews these two traditions together, using his own vocabulary as a stitch. From Mark 6:11, he picks up on the case where the missionary is not received: we must not insist, we must go from there and remove what remains of the place from under his feet, to indicate the breakdown of the relationship. From source Q, he takes up the similar instruction to leave the city towards the public square, at the front gate, and there wipe away the dust of the city stuck to his feet. Q Document ends with the warning that the city that refused the gospel mission will face God's judgment, as was the case with Sodom, which perished under fire. To sew it all together, he adds an introduction about entering a city (“in whatever city it may be you enter”), and inserts, between the instruction about breaking off relationships and the warning of final judgment, this phrase: “nevertheless know that the kingdom of God has drawn near”. Why this insertion? Despite the refusal of certain cities, the proclamation of the Gospel continues, and nothing can prevent the coming of the kingdom. Luke may have had in mind Paul's failure in Athens, where he was mocked (Acts 17:32-33), but which was followed by his resounding success in Corinth (Acts 18).

         Having before his eyes a text from the Q Document on the curses addressed to the Jewish cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, which are compared to the pagan cities of Tyre and Sidon, as well as to the city of Capernaum, which will experience Sheol at the Final Judgment, Luke finds it appropriate to insert them at this point in Jesus' discourse concerning the cities that refuse the evangelical mission. Why is this so? Addressing Christians of Gentile origin, it allows him to make an important point: just because some people, particularly Jews of Jesus' time, witnessed his healings, doesn't mean they're any better able to become believers. The proof: Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. And this allows those Christians of pagan origin in Corinth, Philippi or Ephesus to identify with Tyre and Sidon, for they have truly changed their minds and accepted the evangelical mission. We may have noticed that Luke's working method respects his sources as they are. The text in Q Document is addressed directly to the cities concerned. However, Luke inserts this text in a speech addressed to the 72, when he should have composed a suture text to make the transition, such as: “Tell these cities (which refuse to receive you) what I said to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida: ‘...’”. On the contrary, Luke inserts the text from the Q Document as it stands, creating a break in style and relegating it to the role of a foreign incise.

         With the fate of the cities that refuse the mission, it's time to conclude Jesus' speech. Another text from the Q Document provides him with the words to emphasize the importance of the missionaries' role as messengers: “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me, rejects him (God) who sent me”. In other words, the position taken towards the missionary is a position towards God.

         As soon as the speech is over, the 72 already return from their mission, a sign that Luke intends to make section 10:1-20 a unit. The 72 address Jesus as “Lord”, a sign that we are in the time of the Church. What do they learn from their mission? The most extraordinary thing: the healings, seen as a casting out of demons. For Luke, this is part of the Christian mission: Peter and John healed (Acts 3:6-9), Paul performed miracles (Acts 19:11). And all this is a sign that the kingdom of God is drawing near, and that the kingdom of evil is falling. To express all this, Luke uses an ancient image of the Jewish world, borrowed from the apocalyptic world, where Satan is cast down from heaven, a sign of the end of his empire. He then goes on to explain the missionaries' ability to heal: it's a delegation of Jesus' authority over evil, which is why everything is done “in the name of Jesus”. It's hard to know where Luke got the image of authority over snakes, scorpions and the enemy (Satan), perhaps from an ancient oral tradition. Finally, there's one last thing the missionaries need to know: the source of their joy and pride is not this power over disease, but the fact that they've been chosen to be part of God's world, and to receive revelation about God's identity. So Luke concludes this discourse with a very old expression about the names that are written in the heavens, and will follow this discourse with a scene about revelation to the very young.

         So what is Luke's intention in these 20 verses? It's always the same intention, spelled out at the very beginning of his Gospel when he addresses Theophilus, telling him that his story is intended to help him “recognize the solidity of the teachings you have received” (Lk 1:4). With 10:1-20, we're primarily concerned with the validity of missionary practices in the Greco-Roman church of the '80s. Everything that was done then was basically traced back to the historical Jesus and covered by his authority. So, even if the setting is no longer the Palestine of Jesus' time, there's no real difference.

      2. Lk 6:39-45: Don't judge: assess the tree by its fruit

         The evangelist has just finished composing the scene in which Jesus, after spending the night praying on a mountain, chooses twelve apostles for himself (Lk 6:12-16), a scene based on Mark 3:16-19. Jesus is thus ready for a new stage in his ministry, the first having taken place while Jesus was without a disciple and after he had presented the meaning of his mission to the synagogue of Nazareth. As he did for the first stage, Luke is keen to have an inaugural speech for the second stage. Taking Mark 3:7-11, where a large crowd from all over comes to hear him, after mentioning that Jesus is no longer on the mountain, but in a flat place, Luke plucks a loose leaf from the Q Document binder in a section focused on the Christian life, a loose leaf on the beatitudes, mentioning that Jesus is addressing his disciples, knowing that this will be interpreted as a discourse addressed to the Christian community; Indeed, in this second of Jesus' great discourses, Luke wants to focus attention on the Christian, on his life, on what is expected of him: “Blessed are you who are poor... Woe to you who are rich”. You can imagine the impact of these words in Corinth. After the text of the beatitudes, Luke adds another loose leaf, perhaps related to the beatitudes, on the love of enemies, on the exhortation not to respond to evil with evil and to give to those who ask, in short to be merciful like God. Once again, we can imagine the impact in Corinth, when Christians could settle their commercial disputes in court. Still digging into this section on Christian action in the Q Document binder, Luke now adds a flyleaf exhorting us not to judge in order not to be judged, and reminding us that we'll be judged the way we've judged others. One imagines that this exhortation applied particularly to the highly conflicted community of Corinth. At Christian gatherings, there must have been a lot of finger-pointing at a brother or sister who had something to reproach. So Luke decides to emphasize this point. How does he do it?

         Luke uses what he calls a parable - in fact, various images - to illustrate what is involved in judging others. From the Q Document binder, he chooses a flyer about a blind man leading another blind man, because conflict often arises under the pretext that we want to give the other person good advice, i.e. guide him in the right direction. We can then be a blind man who wants to guide another blind man. But Luke doesn't just want to accuse people in conflict of being blind, he wants to propose a way out of blindness. And so he finds another loose leaf on the disciple-master relationship, one that aims for the disciple to become like the master. In this context, the disciple who has been associated with the blind man guided by the master, the one who sees, can in turn become a master. To shed light on what this training involves, Luke chooses another loose leaf from the binder around the image of the twig and the beam; indeed, the aim of this training is to learn how to discover the beam that prevents us from seeing our fellow man clearly and guiding him like a master. But how do we discover this beam? Luke, who repeatedly speaks of conversion in his gospel, knows that it is only through personal transformation that we can see this beam, because the way we look at others depends on who we are. So, in his Q Document binder, he chooses a loose leaf around the image of the tree and its fruit. This helps his audience to understand that the fruit that is judgment proceeds from the tree that is the person, and just as the good or bad tree produces different fruit, the good or bad man produces different judgment. But Luke adds the word heart (“from the good treasure of his heart”) to the text of his loose leaf about the good man who utters from his good treasure the good, because for him all human behavior depends on this heart, and it is there that the word of God that transforms it can reside. Having said this, Luke can now conclude, and he does so by choosing another loose leaf that has the capacity to sum it all up: “For out of the abundance of a heart speaks the mouth of a person”. So, all these judgments made about others are a reflection of the heart, i.e. of a person's innermost being.

         How was such a word received in Corinth? In Christian gatherings, did people begin to restrain their judgment and stop pointing fingers? Like today, we can guess that the impact was limited, since more than ten years later, conflicts in the Corinthian community were still notorious, as we see in Pope Clement's letter in the year 96. But we can affirm that, as today, there were people in Corinth whose hearts were transformed by this word, and who left their blindness to become teachers who could guide others.

      3. Lk 15:1-32: Recovering what has been lost

         To understand Luke's intention, we need to pay close attention to the context in which he places these three parables: the Pharisees and scribes criticize Jesus for welcoming the marginalized and sharing his table with them. The three parables answer the question: Why?

         If the first addressees of Luke's Gospel were the Christians of Corinth, then this question takes on its full meaning. Remember that Corinth was a seaport, with a motley crew of people from different backgrounds, including former soldiers in the Roman army, investors, merchants and craftsmen from all over the Empire, and, of course, the natives. The Christian community was a reflection of the city, as can be seen from Paul's two letters to the Corinthians. Who were the “Pharisees” and “scribes” of the community? There were certainly Jewish Christians, as evidenced by the presence of Crispus, the synagogue leader: it's possible that they resented these converts from paganism, whose morals they abhorred. What's more, since there were many economic disparities, we can imagine that the better-off were rather conservative and probably had a hard time tolerating the presence of slaves at the Eucharistic sharing. Paul echoes their scandalous attitude (1 Cor 11:17-34).

         For the first two parables, those of the lost sheep and the lost drachma, Luke dips into this “Q Document” binder, as did Matthew. But whereas the two stories in the Q Document probably ended with the shepherd finding his sheep and the woman finding her coin, Luke lengthens the first story with the rejoicing at home, and the second story with the calling of friends and neighbors to come to the feast. The allusion to the Eucharist is clear. This is the way we should look at this motley community. The phrase “more joy in renewing a relationship with a single deviant or sinner or outcast than with all those who don't need to change their lives” may seem surprising. But the phrase is probably intended to be ironic. For Luke, the Christian life is fundamentally a constant journey, and we are all called to change our lives every day. The temptation is to create a distance between ourselves and the “others”. The Eucharistic gathering affirms one thing: we're all in the same boat.

         When the parable of the father and his two sons was told in Corinth, who could the audience identify with the two sons? Let's not forget that the younger son is the one who runs away from home to lead a dissolute life in a foreign land. So it's possible that in the figure of the cadet we saw some young members of the community who had come from paganism, some of whom were still frequenting pagan banquets (see 1 Cor 8 on this problem) and whose social attachments were still deep-rooted; some of them may have distanced themselves from the Christian community, and after a while perhaps expressed a desire to rejoin it. At the other end of the spectrum, the eldest may have been identified with the elders of the community, some of whom undoubtedly came from Judaism and constituted the most conservative members. One can imagine the tensions that could arise at the Eucharistic gathering. While the Eucharist is a moment of thanksgiving and rejoicing, how could one rejoice with people who had recently frequented not only pagan banquets, but also the prostitutes of the temple of Aphrodite (see 1 Cor 6:15-20)? Luke's answer is clear: “But you had to celebrate and rejoice that your brother, who had died, had come back to life, who had been lost, had been found”.

4. John
   1. Community features

      To whom does John address his Gospel? According to tradition, this community is located in Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey. But biblical scholars such as R.E. Brown (see Gospel according to John, in Introduction to the New Testament), and M.E. Boismard from the Biblical School of Jérusalem paint a more complex picture of this community, which first formed in Palestine before migrating to Ephesus (see the presentation on the evolution of this community in his book: The Community of the Belove Disciple). This portrait is based above all on the testimony of the Gospel itself and the three Johannine letters. Let's take a closer look.

      The man referred to in the Gospel as the “beloved disciple” was a Palestinian, probably from Jerusalem (Jn 18:15: “... he was known to the high priest”). He was probably first a follower of John the Baptist, like Peter and Andrew, before following Jesus. He was part of a wider group of disciples than the Twelve, including former followers of John the Baptist. After Jesus' death, this group was joined by anti-Temple Jews who converted in Samaria (see Jn 4 and the story about the Samaritan woman and the Samaritans). They understood Jesus essentially in the Mosaic context (as opposed to the Davidic context): Jesus had been with God, whom he had seen and whose word he had brought into this world. Acceptance of this second group catalyzed the development of an elevated, pre-existence Christology (seen against the background of divine Wisdom; see Prologue) which led to debates with Jews who thought that Johannine Christians were abandoning Jewish monotheism by making Jesus a second God. Horrified, the Jewish authorities had this group expelled from the synagogue. All this contributed to the Johannine community developing great hostility towards the “Jews”, whom they considered “sons of the devil”, as well as contempt for those who did not break with the synagogue (see Jn 9:21-23).

      Perhaps as a result of conflict with their Jewish brethren and persecution on their part, the community or part of it left Palestine for the Diaspora to teach the Greeks, perhaps in the region of Ephesus, which would highlight the Hellenistic atmosphere of the Gospel and the need to explain Semitic names and titles (e.g. Rabbi, Messiah). This form of exile leads the community to see not only the Jews, but the world in general as opposed to Jesus, and to see itself as not of this world, a world under the power of Satan, the Prince of this world. And even in its relations with other Christians, the community rejected some of them as having such an inadequate Christology that they were really unbelievers. All this contributed to a form of isolation or autarky, far removed from the Church structure that developed in Antioch, for example, with well-defined roles. They prefer to rely on the breath of the Spirit and insist on relationships of fraternal charity, seeing this as a superior approach to the rest of the Church represented by Peter (see the scene of the empty tomb in Jn 20:1-10). Unfortunately, the one-sided emphasis on the divinity of Jesus and the need for mutual love as the only commandment opened the way for some in the next generation, who knew only this Gospel, to develop a radical and exaggerated Christological vision of Jesus' life, in which he was no longer a human figure.

      The first two Johannine epistles reveal that the community will experience a schism and split in two. On the one hand, there are those who, like the author of the letter, emphasize Jesus' humanity (having come in the flesh) and ethical behavior (keeping the commandments). And on the other hand, there are those who so exaggerate Jesus' divinity that they no longer see the importance of his human life and, in their own behavior, of maintaining moral probity: it's only important to believe in Christ, and that's enough; all this will be the source of a form of Docetism (Jesus wasn't like us, but only pretended to be) and Gnosticism (a totally knowledge-based approach). Unfortunately, there was no sufficiently authoritarian structure in the Johannine community to enable the letter writer to discipline secessionists who were actively seeking new adherents; he could only exhort those who were perplexed about the truth to test their minds.

      The third Johannine letter tells us that the disintegration of the Johannine community led the group that emphasized the life of Jesus and the importance of brotherly love to set up a form of pastoral structure and to draw closer to the great “Catholic Church”; the community could no longer simply live in trust in the Spirit as sole teacher, and certain structures of authority became necessary. As John 21:15-17 testifies, Peter's authority was pastoral (“feed my sheep”), but based on love (“do you love me?”). This development eventually brought some Johannine Christians into the wider Church and preserved the Johannine heritage.

   2. Pericope readings in the context of this community
      1. Jn 6:41-51: bread from heaven

         Our pericope (vv. 41-51) is part of what is commonly known as “the discourse on the bread of life”, which follows the multiplication of the loaves and takes place in the synagogue at Capernaum, a discourse that takes the form of a synagogue homily from v. 35 onwards. This scriptural quotation is Exodus 16:4: “the fathers who ate the bread from heaven in the desert”. When we come to v. 41, the homily comments on the expression “come from heaven” in Exodus 16:4, which is equivalent to “come from God” or “sent from God”. It is at this point that John inserts the objection common in Jewish circles: how can he come from God, he who was born like everyone else of a father and mother we know well. This objection is typical of the religious world's perception of divine reality as something apart, different, far from our usual reality, belonging to the world of the sacred. Thus, Jesus cannot be a familiar human being and yet be bread from God. This objection is taken up again later: “But we know where he comes from, whereas when the Christ (or Messiah) comes, no one will know where he comes from” (7:27). What follows is Jesus' response, as expressed through the pen of John.

         It's a two-part response. First, no one can accept his affirmation without the openness proper to the special gaze of faith. And this faith is the work of God, who transmits his word into the human heart, i.e. his values and his way of seeing life, so that everyone who welcomes this word spontaneously welcomes everything Jesus says and does, because they are the same values and the same way of seeing life. And since no one can see God, Jesus is the only evidence on what God thinks and asks. Paradoxically, God is only accessible through the familiar and known world represented by Jesus, and not through exoteric channels of any kind.

         Secondly, anyone who accepts in faith the bread of Jesus' word discover that it is a source of life, rather like Peter who exclaimed: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (6:68). And this life cannot die. The conclusion of the homily then picks up on the opening quotation from Ex 16:4: since the ancestors who ate the bread of heaven have died, it is truly Jesus who is the true bread of heaven, the true source of this life that cannot die. In this, he is the sign the crowd is asking for, a greater sign than that given by Moses.

         V. 51 begins a new reflection, with the Eucharistic gathering in the background. Here, John presents his version of the Eucharistic institution, which the synoptics place at Jesus' last supper: by eating this bread in faith, the Christian welcomes that life which presupposes the gift of his life by Jesus through his physical death; this life has a timeless and universal significance, for it is a life forever, and is offered to the whole world.

         This pericope reveals a community situation. Firstly, it takes the form of a synagogal homily, an indication of the Palestinian origins of the evangelist and part of the community. According to A. Guilding (The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship, 1960), echoed by R.E. Brown (The Gospel According to John, I, p. 279), the synagogue liturgy had a three-year cycle, and for year 2 Exodus 16 was read as the first reading, and the prophet Isaiah as the second, the two books cited in Jesus' homily, four weeks after the Passover feast. The author of the gospel seems to have assembled homily fragments of ancient origin.

         The pericope echoes the high theology of the community, i.e. a theology that emphasizes Jesus' kinship with God: “only he who comes from God has seen the Father”. For this community, Jesus has a unique experience of God, and it is for this reason that he is able to help us discover him.

         At the same time, John's gospel tells us of the lively discussions the believers in the community had with the Jews around them, who said: “Isn't this guy Jesus, the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know?”. And it's understandable that this Jewish community, which has always fought to defend monotheism, should be shocked by the affirmation of Christian theology, which seemed a return to polytheism. The gap between the Christian and Jewish visions is such that the evangelist does not hesitate to say: only the inner movement of God in the human heart gives access to the Christian vision.

         We also sense that we are in the Hellenistic milieu of Ephesus, where the language of Wisdom was familiar. For the bread Jesus offers to eat is first and foremost that of his Wisdom, so that those who open themselves to God receive his teaching. The influence of passages such as Sir 24:21 (“Those who eat me will still be hungry, and those who drink me will still be thirsty”), Prov 9:5 (“Go, eat of my bread, drink of the wine that I have mixed”), Sir 15:3 (“she will feed him with the bread of understanding, she will give him drink of the water of wisdom”) is clear to see.

         Finally, while the theme of the “bread of life” refers primarily to the revelation brought by Jesus, a secondary theme is also present, that of the Eucharistic gathering of the community. For the story began with the multiplication of the loaves, a clear evocation of the Christian Eucharist, and now Jesus identifies with this bread of life, which he links to his flesh and invites us to eat. For Christians, the scene of the manna in the desert was associated with the Eucharist. Thus, for the Johannine community, it was during the Eucharistic gathering that the Christian was strengthened both by Jesus' wisdom and by his life given as food.

      2. Jn 15:26-27; Jn 16:12-15: the testimony of the Paraclete; the Paraclete as a guide for disciples

         Our pericope is part of Jesus' great farewell discourse at his last supper. The Catholic liturgy has put together two pericopes that refer to the Paraclete. After speaking of his departure, Jesus warns his disciples that they will face a hostile environment. But they need not worry, for they will receive the support of the Holy Spirit, presented as the Paraclete, who will enable them to bear witness in this great trial that the world is putting them through. At the same time, this Paraclete will guide the disciple into an ever deeper understanding of what Jesus has said and done.

         Jn 15:26-27 speaks of the confrontation to which the Johannine community was subjected, particularly by Jewish groups who excluded Christians of Jewish origin from the synagogues. There is even talk of persecution and trials. In this context, the evangelist reminds them that Jesus has assured them of a support, an advocate of sorts, sent by God, who will give them the same strength that was in Jesus during his trial.

         The emphasis changes with Jn 16:12-15. We find again the communal emphasis on knowledge, expressed by the word “truth”, a major theme in John. But this knowledge is not philosophical, but is that revealed in Jesus, and is therefore fundamentally a revelation about God. This knowledge is so profound, and in some ways so counter-intuitive, that it takes time to make its way into the believer's being. John attributes this slow work in the believer's being to the same Paraclete who, this time, rather than playing the role of advocate, plays the role of guide. But basically, it's the same divine breath coming from the Father and the Son.

      3. Jn 10:1-10: the shepherd's parable

         If the Gospels contain so many parables, the credit probably goes to Jesus himself, who seems to have had a talent for storytelling, even if it's virtually impossible to demonstrate that any of the parables (on the subject, see J.P. Meier) can be traced back to the historical Jesus. From the allegories of the shepherd and the sheep in ch. 10 of the fourth gospel, we can imagine some of Jesus' parables: it would be surprising if it were otherwise in the pastoral culture of 1st-century Palestine, where flocks of sheep were part of daily life. Here, in the pericope Jn 10:1-10, the evangelist has put together two parables, first that of the shepherd and the bandit (Jn 10:1-3a), which presupposes that the sheep were gathered in front of the house in an enclosure made of stones topped with brambles and a fence to get in, then that of the shepherd who brings his sheep out of the pen with his voice (Jn 10:3b-6), two parables that he followed with an allegory to explain their meaning.

         If these two parables date back to the historical Jesus, what significance did they have? According to the evangelist, the audience was made up of the Pharisees (Jn 9:40-41). We can therefore guess that it is they who are primarily targeted by the bandit in the parable, and through him the religious authorities, in particular the chief priests. For, according to Ezek 34, Jer 23:1-4 and Mic 4:6-7, the religious authorities have failed in their duty to care for the people entrusted to them by Yahweh. The image of entering the enclosure other than by opening the gate evokes a form of violence, probably the violence of the many religious laws. In contrast, Jesus presents himself as the true shepherd who cares for his flock and gives them the food they need. An evangelist like Matthew says similar things when he put into Jesus' own mouth, in reference to the many laws imposed on the people: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you relief” (Mt 11:28).

         According to M.E. Boismard, the Gospel according to John was first published around the 60s, when Palestine was in turmoil with the revolutionary movement of the Zealots who wanted to liberate the country from the Romans, leading to the intervention of the Roman army and the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. Palestinian Christians seem to have refused to join the rebellion. According to Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History 3, 5, 3) and Epiphanius (Panarion 30, 2, 7), some of the Christians fled to the town of Pella near the eastern bank of the Jordan, in the Palestinian Decapolis, present-day Jordan. But it may well have been around this time that the Johannine community opted to settle in Ephesus, in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). In this first edition of the Gospel, the author would have brought together two traditions on Jesus' parables around the theme of the shepherd and the sheep. Given the political context, the character of the bandits could be associated with the rebels who wanted the Christian community to join the rebellion and used violence to coerce them; the rebels had no real concern for the members of the community, but simply sought to use them for their political ends. Conversely, the leader of the community, perhaps the beloved disciple, who cares for everyone, makes the choice to leave and lead this community into the Greek environment of Ephesus; the community agrees to follow him, because they know he cares for them and knows each of them. And so the evangelist adds this conclusion or explanation to the parable: “I am the shepherd of the sheep. All those who came [before me] are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them.”

         Some thirty years later, around 90 or 95, according to M.E. Boismard, the gospel received a new edition after the community had been established for some time in Ephesus. The context had changed. Firstly, the Jewish Christians had been expelled from the synagogue for good. Secondly, tensions had arisen within the Christian communities themselves. First of all, there was the Judeo-Christian movement, which had confronted Paul and which still seems to be alive and kicking: they argued that, even if you were a disciple of Jesus, Jewish practices such as circumcision, dietary restrictions and some of the Jewish laws were still in force. But above all, there are those who emphasize the knowledge and divinity of Jesus, neglecting his humanity and the demands of ethical behavior in everyday life. As a result, the parable's enclosure becomes one in which several flocks live together; the Christian family has become plural, and the gatekeeper must identify the true shepherd. And the shepherd does not call all the sheep, but only those that belong to him, i.e. those who have remained faithful to the teaching of the beloved disciple. The flock that follows him considers the other leaders to be impostors. It was probably in this last edition of the Gospel that the author amplified the conclusion/explanation as follows: “I am the gate: if anyone enters through me, he will be set free. He will walk and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, slaughter and destroy, but I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” In contrast to the parable, the gate in the explanation of the parable is no longer associated with the doorkeeper who opens access to the good shepherd, but is associated with Jesus himself, and becomes the symbol of the path to follow to find the right food. We can easily guess that the evangelist intends to affirm that only the authentic teaching of Jesus, probably transmitted by the beloved disciple, is a path of life, i.e. one that leads to God and enables us to truly be his sons and daughters, whereas the teaching of Judeo-Christians and those who stray into a form of Gnosticism leads to spiritual death.