Luke 8: Jesus and the Women

The chapters in Luke are long.  In reading, they feel longer than most of the chapters in the other Gospels.  That means there is a lot that could be commented on in each chapter.  I imagine it would be possible to preach five or six sermons at the minimum on most of the chapters in Luke's account of Jesus' ministry.  Yet for all there is to say on each chapter, I couldn't get past the opening words of Luke 8.  Luke 8:1-3 says: "After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, ² and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; ³ Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means" (NIV, 1984).

These verses raised a lot of questions in my mind.  Why does Luke mention these women?  Why does he mention them here as opposed to at some other point in the Gospel?  How would Luke's readers have felt about Jesus and His disciples traveling around with these women?  Would they have seen this as normal or would they have seen it as scandalous?  How did the people of Jesus' day (in a different place and different generation than Luke's audience) regard the presence of these women with Jesus?

It seems almost certain that the people of Jesus' day would have regarded the presence of women among a traveling rabbi and his disciples scandalous.  Women had a highly circumscribed role in first- century, Jewish society.  I have read accounts that suggest that men and women could not even have a general conversation in public (if true, that is a convention that is broken in the Gospels several times).  Certainly, men and women sat on opposite sides of the room in the Jewish synagogue.  Even at "church," there could be no intermingling of the sexes.  It seems hard to deny that the presence of women in Jesus' entourage must have raised some eyebrows or worse.  Yet, there is one thing I find interesting here.  Jesus is never accused by His enemies of being less than circumspect in His relationship with women. If Jesus' travel with these women was so scandalous, wouldn't His enemies the Pharisees and Sadducees and teachers of the law have commented on this fact?  The Gospels show us that these groups weren't averse to creating false charges to get Jesus in trouble.  These groups tried to set up traps that might cause Jesus to stumble and to alienate the populist following He had developed.  Wouldn't they have accused Jesus of immorality if they really though this violated some cultural virtue?  Perhaps this wasn't the scandal that some would think.

Assuming that Luke is writing to a Roman audience, Jesus' actions would have hardly seemed scandalous.  It was not unusual for wealthy women in the Ancient Mediterranean to act as patrons for noble and charitable causes.  While it was unusual for women to have wealth at their disposal, when they did they freely supported noble and worthy causes.  For Luke's audience it may have spoken well of Jesus that He had women who gave to His support and the support of His disciples.  Perhaps in their cultural context, Luke's readers would have seen the support of these wealthy women as a validation of Jesus' ministry and work.

I think my point here is simple.  This is a fascinating passage that raises a lot of questions that we can't answer.  Yet, this is a passage that is often given great significance by those on all sides of the debate over women's roles in the church.  I can see how this passage would support both those who want to argue for an expanded role for women and those who want to argue for a more "traditional" stance.  Perhaps we should just let the passage speak to us in a simpler way.  How was Jesus able to undertake His ministry?  How were He and His disciples able to preach full time, traveling all over the Judean and Galilean countryside without any visible way to support themselves?  Luke 8 gives us the answer.  God raised up givers.  These women gave out of tremendous gratitude for what Jesus had done for them (being healed of demons).  And Jesus has done tremendous things for us as well.  Will we give to support His disciples?  Will we give that the Kingdom of God might be proclaimed?