Today's is the third of the "to do" trilogy in Luke that lays out what to do to live a good life. In the first, two holy men protect their cleanliness and avoid an injured man while a Samaritan, a contaminated Jew, rescues him. In the second, Martha adheres to the letter of the hospitality law while Mary opens her heart, not her house. In the Third, today, Christ teaches how to pray--using the intimate "Abba" for "Father." Then he supports this intimacy by asking what a father would do and how he would respond to requests.
All of these ideas are worth a lot of discussion but the last idea is particularly interesting because Christ introduces a remarkably modern view of a possible explanation of the relationship of man with creation: irony. He asks if a father would respond to a child's request for bread with a stone, which can look like bread, or an egg with a scorpion, which withdrawn can look like an egg.
Christ is asking a very cynical modern question. What if the world is dispassionate, ambiguous. What if it offers life with one hand, death with the other, growth with decline, joy with sorrow--and nothing more. Worse, what if God is ironic, even spiteful, offering stone for bread. What if the search for meaning is an illusion.
Christ is raising the question to deny it. After all, even crucifixion is dwarfed by the love of God and eternal life.
All of these ideas are worth a lot of discussion but the last idea is particularly interesting because Christ introduces a remarkably modern view of a possible explanation of the relationship of man with creation: irony. He asks if a father would respond to a child's request for bread with a stone, which can look like bread, or an egg with a scorpion, which withdrawn can look like an egg.
Christ is asking a very cynical modern question. What if the world is dispassionate, ambiguous. What if it offers life with one hand, death with the other, growth with decline, joy with sorrow--and nothing more. Worse, what if God is ironic, even spiteful, offering stone for bread. What if the search for meaning is an illusion.
Christ is raising the question to deny it. After all, even crucifixion is dwarfed by the love of God and eternal life.
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