Luke 17 & 18

Read Luke 17 & 18 and meet in your Good Soil Group by Sun, Mar 11.

Remember: Formation, not information. Luke and Acts invite us to live differently than the world around us. Focus on the seeds of trust, hope, and compassion God is planting.

Reading

As you read, here are a few things to notice, in addition to everything you notice naturally.

Don’t over-complicate Jesus’ message in these chapters. It’s simple: “What is impossible with people is possible with God. Be persistent and humble.” What’s complicated is what we bring to reading it.

One way to take an inventory of what we bring to reading the Bible is to consider our social location. Without hesitation, most of us would agree that our “personal location”—our unique personality and life experiences—shapes how we hear the Bible.

“Social location” takes this idea a step further. Would you agree there are aspects of who we are that are not unique to us individually but that we share with groups of other people? Think about how people of the same gender, race, economic class, or country of origin share certain “traits, values, worldviews, and patterns of behavior.”

Taking an inventory of these things is what social location is about. It means thinking through how our place in society and the world influences what we hear in, say, the parables of the ten lepers or the rich ruler. It offers another way to understand what Jesus may be saying to us, of all people.

And for many, it offers more. In Romans, Paul says, “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Attention to our social location can help us break through the narrowing walls this world puts between people, so we can hear God speaking in a broader and richer way.

Dr. David Rhoads was one of my New Testament professors. He wrote an article about understanding social location. This is what he says about its value:

I used to do an exercise in which I would ask students to tell me my biases simply by looking at me visually standing before them in the classroom. They were a pretty homogeneous group. Almost invariably they would name only those things that made me different from them. I was a male; I was older than they were; I had a beard; I was a teacher; I wore a sport coat; and I wore glasses. They looked and looked for other things, but they could not see the things that reflected themselves. I needed to point out: I was white; I was European American; I spoke English; I was well fed; I could afford to wear good clothes; I was healthy; I was without disabilities; I had a watch (Western view of time); and so on. Then I would begin to elaborate on some of the biases that would inform “my” and “our” biblical interpretations in distinction to people from other social locations.

Unless we (in dominant positions) examine ourselves and think about our differences in relation to others, we will not see what we as a dominant culture or group take for granted.

Jesus said, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:14). Social location matters because it’s about whom society exalts and whom society humbles. Each of us individually are both exalted and humbled because of our social location but never equally. Understanding how we fit in society can open whole new possibilities for understanding scripture and shed fresh light on what Jesus is saying to us here and now.

Meeting

Getting to Know Each Other (10 min): You might take some time before your meeting with this social location self-inventory. Then, ask each other what that exercise was like for you?” or “Did you learn anything about yourself or scripture?”

Talking about Luke (20 min): Here’s some good starting questions for any week, “What did God do in these chapters? What did people do?” You also might ask each other, “What in these chapters did I welcome? What did I resist? How was Jesus freeing me as I read?”

Praying (15 min): Start this time by asking, “Who or what do we have to pray about today?” Don’t censor yourself. Nothing is too big or too small to pray about. And no one is beyond God’s care. If nothing else, pray for each other and for all of the other Good Soil groups that God will open us to the seed of God’s Word.

After Reading & Meeting

Check back on this website, for art and more. Ask Pastor a question. Leave a comment and let us know how the Spirit is moving with you!