Text, Culture, and Ideology in Luke 7:1-10: A Dialogic Reading

 

David B. Gowler

Pierce Professor of Religion

Oxford College of Emory University

 

“Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction.” – Mikhail Bakhtin[1]

 

“Should I pretend that I do not hear the voices and see the plights of the ‘little people’ who cry out in biblical texts . . . ? Just what are some of us white male Protestants supposed to do when we hear the voices, sight the boundaries and see both the plights of the people on the margins and the flaws of people at the center of the New Testament texts we read?” – Vernon K. Robbins[2]

 

“. . . we can develop approaches that celebrate dialogue, that show interplays of closure and openness, and that encourage us to announce our agendas in public forum and to listen as people show us the implications, limitations, and biases of those agendas.” – Vernon K. Robbins[3]

 

I am delighted to contribute this essay in honor of Vernon Robbins. I have followed his work since the spring of 1979.  At the time, I was a chemical engineering major at the University of Illinois, and I enrolled in a New Testament class taught by Robbins. I learned much in that class, but perhaps the most important element of what I learned was how to begin to ask different questions about these texts, the historical Jesus, and early Christianity.  Indeed, that is an essential element of the genius of socio-rhetorical interpretation: It enables us to ask different and more relevant questions in our dialogues with these texts, with each other, and with ourselves. And, it seems to me, that Vernon Robbins epitomizes that open, dialogic character in his own life and work. It is in that same spirit, and with many thanks for his contributions to the discipline in general and to my work in particular, that I contribute this essay.

Robbins moved to Emory University, and it was over eleven years before our paths (inadvertently) crossed again. After a brief stint as a chemist, I entered graduate school and continued my New Testament studies. My initial scholarly publications during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s contained an integration of literary and cultural anthropological analyses that I called “socio-narratological criticism.”[4] My doctoral supervisor, Alan Culpepper, selected Robbins in the spring of 1989 as the external reviewer for my dissertation. Robbins read the manuscript and invited it to be published as volume one of the series Emory Studies in Early Christianity.[5] In his review of my dissertation, Robbins noted that he was also working at a similar methodological integration and sent me his 1991 article: “The Social Location of the Implied Author in Luke-Acts.”[6]

My essay in this volume is in honor of that (re)connection with Robbins, because I extend Robbins’s literary, social and cultural, and ideological insights in that 1991 article and focus specifically on the portrayal of the centurion in Luke 7:1-10. In addition, I will build on Robbins’s insight that ideology plays a critical role in the construction and interpretation of texts[7] and will utilize aspects of Robbins’s rubric of “textures”[8] to explore the dialogues between text, culture, and ideology in Luke 7:1-10.

 

Prelude: Dialogues between Literary and Social Analysis in Robbins’s Work

 

Robbins’s use of literary modes of analysis in his socio-rhetorical interpretation became much more explicit in the late 1980’s,[9] most notably in his provocative and creative merger of literary and social forms of analysis in “The Social Location of the Implied Author of Luke-Acts.”[10] For Robbins, a “social location” is a position in a social system that reflects a worldview: “a perception of how things work, what is real, where things belong, and how they fit together (306).[11] Since language signifies social functions, it is constitutive of social communication whose intratextual functions presuppose extratextual systems of social interaction. Every text is a socially symbolic act and assumes certain social and cultural norms.[12] Or, as Mikhail Bakhtin notes, “the situation enters into the utterance as a necessary constitutive element of its semantic structure.[13] Thus Robbins believes that language is produced out of social interaction among people; there is not simply a speaker/writer; speaking/writing presupposes the presence (real or assumed) of a hearer/reader. From a Bakhtinian perspective, this means that the author/speaker’s orientation toward the reader/hearer is an orientation toward a specific conceptual horizon. The dialogue between the conceptual world(s) of the author/speaker and the reader/hearer establishes a series of complex interrelationships, consonances, and dissonances, and therefore enriches it with new elements. So discourse is oriented toward the person(s) addressed; it is oriented to what that person(s) is. The author/speaker strives to get a reading/hearing of his/her word and the conceptual system that helps to determine his/her word. In doing so the author/speaker must be oriented toward the conceptual horizon of the reader/hearer, enters into a dialogical relationship with certain elements of the (real or assumed) readers/hearers, and in this way various points of view, conceptual horizons, and social “languages” interact with each other.[14] In a similar dialogic fashion, Robbins’s socio-rhetorical interpretation always includes an analysis of the interrelations among the author, the text, and the reader. So interpreters must recognize the historical, social, cultural, and ideological relations among people and the texts they read and write.[15]

At this stage (1991) Robbins’s “narrative discourse model” had not yet reached the sophistication of his approach in Tapestry.[16] In this essay Robbins explores aspects of the “implied author,” the “singular consciousness which the reader constructs from the words of the text . . . the static overarching view of a text that a reader might develop from multiple readings” (311). As Robbins notes elsewhere, words in texts “imply” authors, and the “implied author” is the kind of author that a reader constructs on the basis of the words in a text.[17]

Robbins then identifies nine “arenas of the social system”[18] and explores aspects of the implied author’s social location through brief examinations of each arena. Several of these arenas are fruitful for a reading of Luke 7:1-10. Luke-Acts, for example, uses “previous events” as a means of establishing and maintaining sets of relationships among various kinds of Christians, Jews, and Romans (331).[19] Aspects of the “Technology” arena indicate that the implied author is perhaps best described as “technical writer,” a social location that reveals an appreciation for the work of people in the artisan class—unlike the disdain held for such work by members of the elite (319). So the social location of the implied author is near the artisan class, not among the elite or peasants. In the arena of “Socialization and Personality,” Robbins argues that the social location of the implied author is one where the implied author finds it advantageous to seek to communicate with person(s) of some prestige in Roman society (“Most excellent Theophilus”) and adopts a (slightly lower) subordinate stance of respect in relation to those of some prestige (322). The communication is thus upward rather than downward to peasants (323). In that light, the implied author finds it important to place Jesus within the social sphere of reading culture—reading literacy within Jewish culture (325; Lk 4:16-22). Yet the implied author also wants to portray a bicultural stance—grounded in Jewish culture but competent in Greco-Roman culture. So the arena of “Foreign Affairs” indicates that the implied author wants the “foreign affairs” (of Christianity) to find an accepted place within the affairs of Rome (326-327). Central to this emphasis is the implied author’s basic ideology that God ordained a place for the “foreign affairs” of Christianity within the affairs of the Roman Empire. Here Robbins begins to understand—what most others have missed—that Luke-Acts has a more aggressive ideological stance than just merely being an “apologia” for Christianity that seeks to demonstrate that Christians are not guilty of illegal activity. The implied author is indeed so confident in God’s action that the text reflects a social location in which Christians are equal with Pharisees, have confidence in relating with the leaders of the Roman Empire, and they seek their (rightful, in their view) home within that empire (see below).

This leads to the final social arena, that of the Political-Military-Legal System. A number of the upper-level representatives of the Emperor appear. Most of these officials—whether prefect, proconsul, or king—take no legal action against individual Christians (even Pilate stresses the innocence of Jesus), but “most exhibit some social distance from Christianity” (329). More important for Luke 7:1-10, however, is the portrayal of centurions in Luke-Acts. They are favorably related to Jesus and the later apostles; Robbins postulates that Luke-Acts was produced in a social location where a number of centurions are members of the Christian community (Lk 7:1-10; 23:47; Acts 10:1 – 11:18; Acts 27:3, 42-43).[20] For the implied author, Christianity has a “comfortable place within the Roman political-military-legal system, albeit with a deep uneasiness over this “at homeness” (there is also a social location of “imprisonment” especially in Acts; 330).

Robbins furthers these insights in his essay, “Luke-Acts: A Mixed Population seeks a Home in the Roman Empire” (cited above). In this article, Robbins’s underlying thesis is that Luke-Acts is a narrative map grounded in an ideology that presents an aggressive “strategy of territoriality” (202). The narrative’s strategy is to support Christians who were building alliances with local leaders throughout the eastern Roman Empire. The narrator assumes that this region of the empire is an appropriate “workplace” for the emissaries of God. Christianity functions in the domain of the Roman Empire, works symbiotically with it, and Roman law, rightly understood, also works congruently with Christianity and protects its “right to pursue the project started by Jesus” (202).

Robbins correctly observes the narrator’s focus on aspects of power, especially the narrator’s recognition that the locus of power resides in the military and legal structure of the Roman Empire (204). So the narrator’s strategy[21] is to yoke Christianity to Rome’s success by showing—the inverse of Rome’s expansion—the expansion of Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome (205). The narrator aggressively makes the case that the power structure of Christianity works symbiotically with the power structure of Rome. But, for the narrator, the power that brings Paul to Rome is the God of Israel. Therefore one of the defining issues for Luke-Acts is the relation of the power of the emperor to the power of God (207).

Here is where stories about Roman centurions play a key role (e.g., Lk 7:1-10; Acts 10). God’s power can be transmitted in the same way as the power of Rome, an argument that is strategically placed on the lips of the centurion (via his “friends,” Lk 7:8). Robbins notes that it is also important that this centurion—in the territory over which the Roman emperor reigns—has needs that the Roman emperor cannot fulfill. Jesus, as the broker of God’s blessings fulfills that need, and the centurion, a broker within the power structure of Rome becomes a client of the God of Israel and the broker of that God—Jesus. So the centurion stands in obligation to Jesus just as the Jewish elders stand in obligation to the centurion (he served as a broker of the emperor’s blessing to them by “building them a synagogue” (Lk 7:5).[22] So the Roman centurion, a representative of the power structure of Rome, accepts and is indebted to the power structure of the God of Israel (209).[23] Since God is the one who overseers the symbiotic relationship between these two structures of power, the narrator implicitly argues that the power structure of God is pre-eminent.

 

Luke 7:1-10: Texts and Context in Dialogue

 

I am not a specialist in socio-rhetorical interpretation, and my own approach to these narratives is not Robbins’s approach, but we share the same interdisciplinary philosophy. In fact, I can peruse my work over the past few years and clearly see how the “Five Textures” delineated by Robbins are incorporated in various ways in my work and how some of these textures need to be more fully integrated in my approach.[24] Robbins’s socio-rhetorical interpretation is a comprehensive attempt to provide a programmatic model to establish and facilitate an arena where these differing approaches—such as the myriad of approaches currently found in New Testament studies—can be in dialogue with each other.[25]

Robbins’s Five Textures are not discrete categories; neither will be my dialogue with them. My analysis of the inner texture of Luke 7:1-10 will lead to insights that I will explore in my analysis of the intertexture. But these textures are continually in dialogue, so my analysis of intertexture will inherently lead to additional insights about the inner texture. Similarly, my analyses of elements of the inner texture and intertexture will lead to insights about elements I should explore in the social and cultural texture. But my analysis of the social and cultural texture will also lead to new insights about the inner texture and intertexture of Luke 7:1-10. So it goes also, with my analysis of the ideological texture: Like the warp and woof of a tapestry, the textures are mutually dependent and inherently interwoven; they reinforce and build upon each other.

 Jesus and the centurion never meet in this intriguing story (as they do in Mt), but the narrative nevertheless juxtaposes them in fascinating ways. As we will see, the story compares/contrasts two empires—that of Rome and that of God. The centurion is a retainer—an agent and enforcer of the redistribution system of the Roman Empire in which the retainers enable and facilitate the transfer of goods from the non-elite to the elite. Jesus, according to the narrator’s ideological (conceptual) point of view, is a broker/mediator of the blessings of the kingdom of God (God = patron; Jesus = broker; people = clients). So the narrative juxtaposes two people with different but analogous social roles: both are in positions of authority, whether in the Roman Empire or God’s empire. The centurion acknowledges and Jesus demonstrates the supremacy of God’s empire. God’s empire can accomplish what the Roman Empire can only claim to accomplish.[26] The story also brings together two ethnicities—Jew and Gentile—and begins to clarify the relationship between the two groups (cf. 1:54-55, 67-79; 2:28-32; 4:16-30; 7:9).

 

Inner Texture of Luke 7:1-10

 

The character Jesus dominates the narrative of Luke. Beginning with Luke 4:1, he is the center of interest, is at the center of all exchanges, and, until the passion narrative, is in charge as the main actor. Since Jesus is the hero of the story, the narrator expects readers to evaluate other characters in Luke according to their responses to Jesus—or, in Acts, to one of his followers. Many characters belong to a group (e.g., the Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests) and can be evaluated—in varying degrees of complexity—together.[27] Numerous other minor characters flit across the stage of Luke and Acts and are more difficult to define or delineate. It remains to be seen how the centurion in Luke 7:1-10 correlates with the portrayal of other centurions in Luke and Acts, but it is clear that this centurion, like all characters in Luke, directs one’s attention to the main character, Jesus. All characters serve to set off, contrast with, dramatize, and engage Jesus, thus highlighting his identity. The narrator provides a number of divergent characters so that they can either draw out aspects of Jesus’ character and/or provide alternative responses to Jesus; the narrator’s ideology is clearly seen by the way in which it is clear which responses are seen as “appropriate” or “inappropriate.”[28]

The primary issue at hand—especially early in the narrative—is the identity of Jesus, and the narrator effectively paints his portrait. Direct definition clearly identifies Jesus as “Lord” (1:43, 76), “Son of the Most High” (1:32), “Son of God” (1:35), “Christ” (2:26-32), and various other positive evaluations (e.g., 2:40, 46-47, 49, 52; 3:15-17). These statements are made by characters whom the narrator presents as reliable and authoritative. Simeon, for example, is “righteous and devout . . . and the Holy Spirit was upon him” (2:25). Indirect presentation also portrays Jesus in a positive way,[29] and the ultimate voice of authority in Luke’s narrative world (God’s voice) declares that Jesus is “my beloved son” (3:22).[30] Some characters do not understand, and the various questionings of Jesus’ identity is but one example (e.g., 4:22, 36; 5:21; 7:19, 49; 8:25; 9:9, 18). Other characters (e.g., the centurion) have some insight into Jesus’ identity, and readers (if they concur with the narrator’s ideological point of view) can either knowingly nod in approval at their (sometimes limited) insight or shudder at the demonic powers who face their hero (e.g., 4:3, 34, 41; 5:5, 8, 12; 7:6-8, 16; 8:28; 9:20). Chapter 7 of Luke continues and in fact heightens this interest in the identity of Jesus. Readers encounter (a) friends of a centurion who address Jesus as “Lord” and report that the centurion considers himself not worthy for Jesus to enter his house (7:6); (b) the narrator continues to label Jesus as “Lord” (e.g., 7:13); (c) Jesus is designated as “a great prophet” by “all” in a large crowd from Nain, and the word spread throughout all Judea and the surrounding country (7:11-12, 16-17); (d) John the Baptist seeks to learn Jesus’ identity, and Jesus responds by echoing his sermon in Nazareth and reporting that John was the one who was to prepare the way for him (7:18-23, 27); (e) Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man” who is labeled a “glutton and drunkard” by his opponents (7:34); and (f) the story of Jesus in the home of Simon the Pharisee illustrates that not only is Jesus a “great prophet” (cf. 7:16, 39) but that Jesus is much more than a prophet: Although Simon refers to Jesus only as “teacher” (7:40), Jesus, according to the narrator’s ideological point of view, has the authority to act in God’s place (as God’s “broker” of heavenly blessings) and to pronounce the forgiveness of sins (7:48).

 The earlier sections of Luke also prepare readers for a conflict that occurs as the good news of God encounters opposition from a recalcitrant humanity. Signals of such conflicts reverberate throughout the narrative, beginning with the infancy narratives. The narrator intersperses the themes of reversal (e.g., 1:52-52), Israel’s salvation (1:32-33, 54-55, 68-79; 2:25, 30-32, 38), with the incorporation of Gentiles in God’s plan (e.g., 2:30-32, “all peoples” and “a light of revelation to the Gentiles”). Simeon’s oracles are the most revealing in this respect (2:29-35). They give the first indication of the tension that will characterize the whole narrative(s) of Luke and Acts: the revelation of God and its rejection or acceptance by the people.[31] The interaction of Jesus’ prophetic announcement of God’s kingdom and the various responses to that message provide the primary narrative tension in the text. This interaction reverberates in Luke 7:1-10. Note, for example, that the centurion, at this stage of the narrative (7:1-10), is the only non-Jew to gain the approval of both Jesus and the narrator because of his “faith.” 

After Simeon’s prophecy explicitly foretells the conflicts ahead, signs of conflict soon appear in the narrative during the episodes prior to Jesus’ public ministry (3:1 – 4:13). The preaching of John the Baptist (3:7-9, 16-17) prepares the way in more than one respect: “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (3:6, cf. Simeon in 2:30-32). John warns those of Jewish descent not to trust solely on their ancestry, and he also explains to soldiers what the implications are for them to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (3:8, 14).[32] The encounter of Jesus and the devil also sets the stage for the conflicts that Jesus will continue to endure, although the fulfillment of prophecies in the narrative attempt to guide readers to the belief that Jesus will continue to triumph over the opposition.

Luke 4:16-30 is by far the most important scene that prepares readers for Luke 7:1-10. This episode contains the inaugural statement of Jesus’ mission and is a microcosm of the entire ministry of Jesus. Almost every scene in Luke and Acts can be related to this scene, especially the Galilean ministry (4:14 – 9:50).[33] Jesus offers a proclamation of release (4:18-21), and the narrator then sets out to demonstrate that Jesus is indeed doing what he was sent to do, according to that programmatic declaration in the Nazareth synagogue, such as bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, liberty for the oppressed, and the acceptable year of the Lord. Some of the activities related to this message that occur during the Galilean ministry include: casting out an unclean demon from a man who was a captive to and oppressed by that demon (4:31-37); the healing of many people (4:38-41); the cleansing of a leper, releasing him of his disease (5:12-16); the healing of a paralytic (oppression) (5:17-26); the healing of a man with a withered hand (6:6-11); preaching to the poor and hungry (6:20-21); the healing of a centurion’s servant (7:1-10); the raising of a widow’s son at Nain (7:11-17); announcing the forgiveness of sins of a sinful woman (7:36-50); and other episodes in Luke (e.g., 8:26-33, 40-56; 9:37-43; et al.).

In fact, if readers recognize the implicit assumptions in the narrative that illnesses have social consequences in the ancient Mediterranean world, then it is possible to cluster all of Jesus’ healing activities into this proclamation of release.[34] People assaulted or possessed by unclean/evil spirits, for example, can be properly described as oppressed or held prisoner by demons[35] (note how the spirit/demon in Luke 9:38-39 “seizes” the child, “convulses” him, “mauls” him, and will “scarcely leave” him).

News of the healings performed spreads through “all the surrounding country” (4:14-15). In Luke 4:23 readers learn (for the first time) that Jesus had already performed miracles in Capernaum, although the narrator chooses not to relate them directly. But the narrator does decide to reveal (additional) healings in Capernaum directly after the Nazareth “sermon” (4:31-40). Jesus heals a man of an unclean demon in the Capernaum synagogue (4:31-37), and “a report about him began to reach every place in the region” (4:37). Jesus also heals Simon’s mother-in-law of a “high fever” (4:38-39) and heals “any who were sick with various kinds of diseases” (4:40-41). So, by means of these references to these previous healings in Capernaum, the narrator prepares readers sufficiently for the centurion’s knowledge of Jesus and his healing activities (7:3).[36]

But the narrator continues to portray rejection as well as acceptance of Jesus and his message. Conflict reappears in the five controversy stories of Luke 5:17 – 6:11. The chiastic pattern of this section also contains a progression of hostility, with 5:33-39 as the hinge that stresses Jesus’ identity as the new agent of God’s saving action.[37] The progression in the narrative is clearly seen in the reactions to Jesus’ words and deeds: All “glorified God” at the end of the first controversy story (5:26). The next three controversies do not contain reactions from any opponents to Jesus, but Luke 6:11 gives a negative response: The opponents of Jesus are “filled with fury” (anoia).

Tension thus is heightened by these differing reactions to Jesus, but it is not only Jesus’ actions of healing that illustrate the programmatic statement in Luke 4:16-30; it is also his words. The teachings of Jesus included in the Lukan “Sermon on the Plain” (6:20-49) are strategically placed just before the story of the centurion in Luke 7. This “sermon,” prefaced by healings and exorcisms in 6:17-19, illustrates the nature of discipleship—those beliefs, actions, and attitudes that must characterize those persons in the community of the kingdom of God. This sermon illustrates once again the absolute necessity for words and deeds to coalesce: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord” and do not do what I tell you?” (6:46). The three exemplary stories of Luke 7 (1-10; 11-17; 36-50) reinforce this connection,[38] as does the interlude of John the Baptist’s question and Jesus’ response (7:18-35).

A dialogic reading of Luke 7:1-10 must await further texts and contexts, but the story—which includes Jesus, the centurion, the centurion’s doulos/pais, the Jewish elders, and the crowd—may be outlined in this way:

7:1 – Setting: The transition from sermon to action and from the “plain” to Capernaum

7:2 – Introduction: A description of the situation of the centurion’s doulos/pais

7:3 – First delegation of Jewish elders “sent” by centurion with request for healing (indirect discourse)

7:4-5 – Speech of Jewish elders praising the centurion as “worthy” (related in direct discourse)

7:6a – Jesus responds and travels “not far” from the house

7:6b – Second delegation of friends “sent” by centurion

7:6c-8 – Friends relate centurion’s own petition:

Statement: “Lord, do not trouble yourself”

            Rationale : “for I am not worthy” for Jesus to enter his house

            Conclusion: “therefore I did not presume to come to you”

            Statement/Request: “But only speak the word and let my servant be healed”

            Rationale: “For I also am a man set under authority”

            Example/Analogy (from minor to major): “with soldiers under me” [including slaves who also obey his orders]

7:9 – Response of Jesus:

Description: Jesus “was amazed at him”

Speech: Jesus praises the centurion’s faith to the crowd

7:10 – Conclusion: Delegations return and find the doulos/pais in good health

 

Intertexture in Luke 7:1-10 in Dialogue with Inner Texture

 

Just as the inaugural statement of Jesus’ mission in Luke 4:16-30 provides the primary context for the literary context of Luke 7:1-10, it generates crucial elements of the intertextual texture of the story as well. Jesus, “as was his custom,” goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath. He reads from the prophet Isaiah. In socio-rhetorical terms, this use of scripture in Luke is a recitation (primarily from the LXX with omissions of such items as “the day of vengeance”), conflation, and reconfiguration from Isaiah 61:1-2 and 58:6 (cf. Lk 4:18-19, 21). The Lukan Jesus then announces that the scripture is fulfilled “Today . . . in your hearing” and recites a parabolē (“Doctor, cure yourself”)[39] and an aphorism (“[N]o prophet is acceptable in the prophet’s hometown”). More germane to Luke 7:1-10, however, are the two examples that the Lukan Jesus utilizes: He recites narratives concerning Elijah (1 Kgs 17:8-24) and Elisha (2 Kgs 5:1-19).

These words of Jesus continue the process in which the narrator attempts to persuade readers to conclude that Jesus was indeed a prophet. First Jesus claims that the scripture was fulfilled that day through him. Second he claims indirectly, by using the proverb in 4:24, that he was a prophet. Third, by comparing himself to Elijah and Elisha, he again puts himself in the category of a prophet. Fourth, the fact that he knows (it seems) the inner thoughts of the people in the synagogue implies that he, like a prophet, can know the minds of other people (cf. Luke 7:39, 47). Finally, the progression in the narrative, as readers encounter various prophecies being fulfilled by Jesus, attempts to lead readers to agree with this characterization.

The recitation of narratives about Elijah and Elisha thus performs a number of functions. Jesus identifies himself with such mighty prophets of Israel, but implicit in this identification is the apparent assumption that they do not fulfill the desires of healing by some in their own homeland[40] and that these prophets and their messages were also rejected by others (cf. Lk 4:28-29). The fate of “Israel” in Luke-Acts is a subject of endless debate in scholarship; however one reads the evidence, though, it is clear that in the days of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, God’s blessings were bestowed on Gentiles. These two prophets then become models for aspects of Jesus’ own healing ministry. The story (Lk 4:25-26) of Elijah being sent to the widow in Zarephath in Sidon, for example, prefigures for Luke the story of Jesus bringing back to life the widow’s son in Nain (Lk 7:11-17).[41] The story of Elisha and Namaan foreshadows, for Luke, the story of Jesus and the centurion (Lk 7:1-10).

Since the narrator—through the voice of Jesus—has already drawn readers’ attention to the story of Elisha and Namaan (Lk 4:27), the story of Jesus and the centurion in Luke 7:1-10 resonates more deeply with 2 Kgs 5:1-19. Although the stories show significant differences, Lk 7:1-10’s placement directly before the story of the raising of the widow’s son—which even more explicitly evokes the paradigmatic nature of Elijah’s action of raising the son of the widow in Zarephath—almost necessitates the implied reader making the connection between Jesus’ actions and the actions of Elijah/Elisha in these two stories.[42] In addition, some commonalities reinforce the intertextual connections between the story of the centurion and the story of Namaan:[43] (1) The centurion is a well-respected Gentile officer (Lk 7:2, 4, “worthy”); Namaan is a well-respected Gentile officer (2 Kgs 5:1-2, “great man,” in “high favor,” and “a mighty warrior”). (2) Both men, although well respected, are on the margins of Jewish society because they are Gentiles—Namaan even more so because of his leprosy. (3) Yet Jewish people intercede for both men: Jewish elders appeal to Jesus on the centurion’s behalf (Lk 7:3-5; the elders “appealed to [Jesus] earnestly”); a captive Jewish girl provides the necessary information to Namaan’s wife to allow him to seek healing in Israel (2 Kgs 5:2-5). (4) Neither men meet their benefactor face to face: The centurion sends a delegation to Jesus to request that Jesus come to his house and heal his slave but then sends a second delegation of friends to say that he isn’t worthy for Jesus to enter his house (Lk 7:3-7). Namaan waits by the entrance of Elisha’s household, but Elisha won’t even come to the entrance to give his prophetic message to Namaan. He instead sends a messenger to deliver his instructions (2 Kgs 5:10). Note, however, that Namaan returns after the healing, now that he knows that “there is a prophet in Israel” (2 Kgs 5:8) and that “there is no God in all the earth except in Israel” (2 Kgs 5:15). This aspect of the story resonates nicely with the story of the ten lepers later in the narrative of Luke, where the Samaritan is the lone person of the ten people healed who returns to “thank” Jesus and “give praise to God” (Lk 17:11-19). (5) Both the centurion’s slave and Namaan are healed from a distance. Elisha stays inside his house, and Namaan is healed after washing seven times in the Jordan River (2 Kgs 5:14). The centurion’s slave was healed while Jesus was in the vicinity (Jesus was “not far from the house,” Lk 7:6), and he was healed by the time the centurion’s friends returned from giving Jesus the centurion’s message (Lk 7:10).

The impact of these intertextural elements includes reinforcing the characterization of Jesus as a “great prophet,” as well as a rationale for such a prophet assisting/healing Gentiles. So some of the primary intertextual elements stem from the Hebrew Scriptures, but there are still numerous inner textural and intertextual aspects to this story that only will become more clear after additional social and cultural elements are integrated into the interpretation.

 

Social and Cultural Texture in Luke 7:1-10

in Dialogue with Inner Texture and Intertexture

 

Robbins carefully—and correctly—differentiates between social, cultural, and historical intertexture and social and cultural texture. Intertexture denotes the phenomena in the text that raise the issue of social meanings that interpreters investigate with data outside of the texts, whereas social and cultural texture refers to a texts social and cultural nature as a text.[44] The relationship between these differing textures, though, is dialogic—note, for example, the intertextual social roles, institutions, codes, and relationships that inherently interact with the common social and cultural topics (e.g., honor and shame, purity rules, patron-client relationships, kinship, etc.). For that reason, I will include social, cultural, and historical intertexture in this section.

The necessity of a social, cultural, and historical matrix for the interpretation of a text does not mean a return to the elusive search for “the” specific historical event that may or may not lie “behind” the text. Such an event is unrepeatable and unrecoverable, and readers actually produce such reconstructions “in front of” the text. The quest for “history” in that sense produces tentative and more-or-less probable reconstructions of what may have been. The horizon of such “historicity” always recedes. That is one reason why—as Robbins notes—that interpreters tend to disagree about whether such social, cultural, and historical intertextural elements are present in a text.[45] But the Lukan narrative was not written in a literary, social, cultural, or historical vacuum; it partakes vigorously in such dialogical discourse. The literary, social, cultural, and historical worlds intersect with each other dialogically. Since texts are produced by particular writers working in particular cultures and at specific historical moments, the text is, in part at least, created and influenced by those factors. An examination of the social, cultural, and historical intertexture, as well as that social and cultural texture of this narrative will reveal many new insights into the narrative, social, cultural, and perhaps historical worlds that are in dialogue with Luke-Acts.

One of the key elements in all of the textures of this text is the role of the centurion. Therefore an extensive analysis is necessary in order to shed more interpretive light on Luke 7:1-10.

 

Centurions

 

Centurions provided the Roman army with officers and administrators of proven military experience, reliability, and efficiency. The office also provided a Roman citizen soldier with “glittering prospects of social advancement” (after long years of military service), especially upon retirement.[46] The hope of becoming a primipilaris was the primary stimulus for men both to seek the centurionate and to persevere as a centurion beyond the normal length of service of others in the army below their rank. The establishment of a fixed term of service and a gratuity in land or money made long service not only the goal, but also the norm. Since retirement gratuities were linked to pay scales, this meant that centurions—because they received a higher rate of pay—could receive large sums of money upon retirement (see Suetonius, Caligula 44). Centurions usually rose through the ranks after 13 to 20 years of service, although other avenues to the office did exist.[47]

The presence of a centurion in Capernaum according to Luke 7:1-10 leads many commentators to observe that Roman troops were not stationed in this area prior to 44 CE—or especially 66 CE, when Vespasian set up army camps in places like Sepphoris. Such commentators tend to argue that the centurion would have worked for Herod Antipas, performing police work or—more likely—“customs service.”[48] The text does not delve into these issues—although I should note that the increased presence of Roman soldiers in Palestine was indeed a reality at the time when Luke-Acts was written. The narrative itself seems to assume the straightforward identification of the centurion as a Gentile, a Roman citizen, and as a (former?) commander of 80-100 men.[49] The narrative also assumes that readers place this official in the context of other soldiers mentioned in the story so far (Lk 3:14; 4:27).

Although we cannot impose specific aspects of historicity—that is, whether or not in the event “behind” this story in Luke the man was indeed a Roman centurion—the social, cultural, and historical intertexture and social and cultural texture provide much helpful data. The Lukan centurion, in this context, stands in an ambiguous position—both as a Gentile oppressor and as a broker of imperial favor. The Romans, as Richard Horsley notes, both during and after their conquests “terrorized people into submission . . . through the ruthless devastation of the land and towns, slaughter and enslavement of the people,” and “crucifixion of people along the roadways or in public places.”[50]

The ambiguous social/cultural position of the centurion in this text is also reinforced by an analysis of the social-economic influence of the Roman army. Since Roman soldiers received a good salary, in later rabbinic literature centurions were seen as very wealthy.[51] Thus, for a few people in occupied lands, some economic benefits resulted: An army base was a large consumer of services and supplies, which led to merchants providing those supplies (although such supplies often came at the expense of local populations). The army also provided and built services for occupied territories—roads and aqueducts, for example, although such projects often came at the expense of local rural residents who often found themselves participating in the paving of roads or providing for their upkeep.[52]

Later rabbinic literature demonstrates the differing attitudes that could exist with regard to occupying Roman forces. Ze’ev Safrai,[53] Martin Goodman,[54] and Benjamin Isaac[55] helpfully detail some positive elements and some negative elements in this relationship. In spite of some benefits (for a few) that may have accrued from some of the contacts, there were many disadvantages: the exaction of dues payable to the army, forced labor and transport (cf. Mt 5:41; n.b. the absence of this saying in Lk is quite interesting), and confiscations of shelter, food, and wine. Like the Roman government, these activities show a concentration on extracting as many goods and services as possible from native populations. Significant hostility, of course, resulted from such mistreatment. Both Goodman and Isaac note that it was considered very unwise for a Galilean to oppose the wishes of a centurion, because his power to punish those who offended him was even greater than that of a city councilor.[56] So, in the environment of the first century, it is likely that readers would understand that the Jewish elders in Luke, even if they were indebted to the generosity of the centurion, were well aware of the centurion’s power (just as the Lukan centurion was well aware of his power over others, Lk 7:8). As Isaac notes, subjugated people were helpless before the power of the Roman military.[57]

On the other hand, there is also historical evidence of some Roman soldiers serving as patrons/brokers for Jewish individuals and communities.[58] Thus the role that the centurion plays in Lk 7:1-10 fits well within the historical, social, and cultural evidence we find concerning Palestine.

 

Patron-Broker-Client/Limited Good

Most persons in the first century were at the mercy of power-holders outside their social realm. Their sense of powerlessness was often reinforced by the climate and lack of natural resources in many areas of the Mediterranean world. Such persons had little or no control over the conditions that governed their lives. This more-or less determined existence was verified by experience and led to the cognitive orientation that all desired goods—social (e.g., honor), economic (e.g., land), and natural (e.g., health)—existed in a finite quantity and were always in short supply[59]

One of the strategies in limited good societies is the formation of horizontal and vertical alliances. Relationships among those of equal rank (e.g., the “friends” of Lk 7:6) are based on an informal principle of reciprocity, an implicit obligation that is enforced by the honor and shame system. This implicit contract is an informal binding of pairs in an ongoing series of acts of mutual support.[60]

Asymmetrical contracts can also be established between people on differing social levels. Persons on a higher social level can serve as patrons for their clients on a lower social level; the goods or services in this reciprocal relationship will not be similar. Patronage thus occurs whenever someone adopts a posture of deference to another deemed more powerful and therefore gains access to resources as a result.[61]

James C. Scott describes how patronage works in the “moral economy of the peasant.”[62] Peasants are like people who are standing permanently up to their chins in water, so that even a ripple is sufficient to drown them. Such peasants are not radically egalitarian but instead—living in a limited good society—believe that all persons are entitled to a living out of the resources of the village.[63] The peasants’ “subsistence ethic” involves both a norm of reciprocity and an ethical belief in a right of subsistence. Patron-broker-client ties, then, are a ubiquitous form of “social insurance.” Although clients often do what they can to cast this relationship in moral terms since their mere bargaining power is minimal (e.g., the Jewish elders’ praise of the centurion as “worthy” and that he “loves our people,” Lk 7:4-5), patronage is more to be recommended for its resources than for its reliability (cf. the synagogue “built” by the centurion, Lk 7:5). Yet patron-client relations do include an expectation of moral obligation; people who have resources are expected to help in difficult circumstances.[64] In a similar way, I would argue, the narrator of Luke-Acts uses this centurion as a moral example in an attempt to persuade readers that they should—if they have the economic means—behave in a similar fashion. Thus the centurion is one of many models in Luke-Acts of the proper attitude and behavior of socially-advantaged patrons should have—both to Jesus and to members of their local community.

Patron-client relationships exist in a variety of concrete forms but have a number of similar elements,[65] two of which are the strong element of inequality and the necessity for reciprocity. Since the Jewish elders indicate that the centurion “built our synagogue for us,” they have entered into a patron-client contract. In addition, the centurion could also be seen as the broker of imperial resources for the local population (even if the centurion is an agent of Herod Antipas, since Antipas was a client of Rome). Readers should note, however, that the centurion also represents imperial control, since he is an agent and enforcer of the imperial status quo.[66] Yet none of the characters or the narrator explicitly recognizes or condemns such activities—although the centurion implicitly recognizes them (7:8)

The story in Luke 7:1-10 in some respects is an excellent illustration of patron-broker-client relationships, but there are, as we shall see later, some intriguing and some subversive elements as well. Since the centurion serves as a broker of imperial favor (or as a patron by building the synagogue), he sends his clients—the Jewish elders—to Jesus in order to request Jesus to come and heal his doulos. These Jewish elders are both obligated and loyal to their patron—one of the primary responsibilities of clients was to praise the patron and the benefits he brings. So their praise and recommendation of the centurion to Jesus are customary for those persons in a patron-broker-client position (Lk 7:4-5).[67]

Jesus responds without hesitation (this request should be seen as a positive challenge to his honor), and his response results in an awkward moment in the narration. As Jesus nears the house, the centurion sends “friends” with a conflicting message: The Jewish elders called him “worthy,” but his “friends” relate that the centurion considers himself “unworthy” for Jesus to enter his house; in fact he did not even “presume” to come to Jesus himself (7:6-7).[68] Did the centurion assume that the Jewish elders could broker the blessings that Jesus had to offer and that Jesus would not have to travel to his house?[69] Did he believe that he as a Gentile had no access to Jesus and therefore was surprised by Jesus’ willingness to come to his house?[70]

Those and other questions are left unanswered by the text, but we can evaluate the contrasting social relations portrayed in the text. The Jewish elders respond loyally to their patron-broker, and Jesus apparently acquiesces to this patron-broker-client relationship, because he agrees to go with them to the centurion’s house. Yet his “Sermon on the Plain” in the previous chapter actually undermined many of the aspects of the patronage system. Could it be, as Green suggests, that the motivation of the Lukan Jesus to respond to the centurion is more indicative of his words in the previous chapter to “Love your enemies?”[71] Green’s interpretation is intriguing, but it is more likely that the message of this story is more complex than that and more aggressively ideological: The patron-broker-client system of the Roman Empire is vastly inferior to the patron-broker-client relationship of the kingdom of God as proclaimed by Jesus (see “Ideological Texture” below).

The contrast between the messages of the two groups sent to Jesus is also intriguing. The clients—the Jewish elders—appeal to Jesus earnestly on behalf of their benefactor and praise him as worthy. They operate as good clients—to their benefactor the centurion. But the second delegation—the “friends” of the centurion—apparently ventriloquate the centurion’s true feelings: “Lord . . . I am not worthy. . . .” The centurion not only humbles himself by calling himself not worthy, he also addresses Jesus with a title of respect: “Lord.” This direct definition of Jesus is a key factor in the characterization of both Jesus and the centurion, and its presence in the centurion’s address to Jesus (via his friends) is in striking contrast to the address of the Jewish elders to Jesus on the behalf of their benefactor. In addition, the second delegation of “friends” recasts the readers’ perspective that emphasizes mutuality and commonality, not the debt owed to a patron-broker.[72]

The cultural script of honor and shame plays a role here as well. Honor, in the broadest sense of the word, is compliance with traditional patterns of behavior.[73] Thus honor, in this sense, is nearly identical with “goodness” or “virtue.” A man of honor is simply a good or virtuous man, with honor being attained and maintained by conformity to prevailing cultural norms. Yet honor also requires more than this passive acceptance of norms. Honor also depends on the achievement and of superiority and distinction.[74] The honor rating that the narrator and others ascribe to Jesus, though, goes well beyond these customary standards. Jesus, according to the narrator, is a prominent and a limit breaker who can transcend prevailing social and cultural norms (see note 30). Therefore, Jesus’ actions dictate a new pattern of behavior based on his own authority as God’s representative—or broker. The narrator’s strategy is to convince or confirm readers’ affirmations of the essential correctness of Jesus’ words and actions.[75] The crucial test for any character is whether or not he or she accepts Jesus’ authority as limit-breaker, broker, and, finally, Lord. The centurion accepts Jesus’ authority, proclaims Jesus identity as the broker of God’s blessings, and addresses him as “Lord.” The Jewish elders have not reached this position of faith, as Jesus’ words make clear (Lk 7:9).

It is here that Green’s analysis is indeed correct in my view, although he reaches his conclusion for different reasons. The centurion declares his lack of patronal control over Jesus and stresses Jesus’ superiority. He recognizes Jesus’ authority (and identity?), contradicts the Jewish elders’ assessment of himself, and provides an alternative rationale for Jesus’ assistance for his doulos/pais. He has faith in Jesus’ authority, capacity to act, and willingness to exercise that authority on his behalf.[76] The Jewish elders, on the other hand, are captive to an inferior patron-broker-client system and do not possess the centurion’s insight into the identity and authority of Jesus as the broker of God’s blessings.

The centurion, through the message delivered by his friends, signals that he does not consider Jesus as one of his clients. Instead he recognizes the superiority of Jesus—just as the centurion is a broker of imperial favor and the agent of imperial power, so Jesus is the broker of God’s blessings and the agent of the kingdom of God. In the world of Luke-Acts, God is the ultimate patron and benefactor (e.g., 1:46-55, 68-79), whose resources are graciously given and mediated through Jesus as broker. The outline of the patronage hierarchy can be graphed this way:[77]

 

Rome                           Luke

Patron             Caesar                         God

Broker             Elites/Retainers           Jesus

Client              Citizens                       Supplicants

 

In Luke 7:1-7, the patronage hierarchy is given specific shape:

 

Rome                           Luke

Patron             Caesar                         God

Broker             Centurion                    Jesus

Client              Jewish Elders              Centurion

Benefit             Synagogue                  Healing

 

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus transforms, in many respects, the concept of patron-client relations—note, for example, the theme of reversal (e.g., 1:51-53) and the stress on leaders becoming like servants (e.g., “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves,” Lk 22:25-26). In addition, in the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist and Jesus warn that the God of Israel is not an “exclusive” patron. That is, the Jewish people are not the only possible clients of the God of Israel (e.g., Lk 3:8; 4:25-27).

What happens in this story, then, is a series of fascinating honor and shame twists and turns. Jewish elders present the centurion as a man of great honor, who is “worthy.” The centurion himself then humbles himself “before” Jesus, even to the point of not feeling “worthy” to come into the presence of Jesus (an amazing amount of deference for a centurion).[78] This characterization, of course, elevates the honor of Jesus even higher. But it is through his humbling of himself as “not worthy” and the characterization of himself as—even as a centurion who is an agent of imperial power—inferior to Jesus, that the centurion reaches a state of honor far beyond what the Jewish elders had described. Jesus is “amazed” and praises the centurion: “. . . not even in Israel have I found such faith.” The real “miracle,” then, is not the physical healing of the centurion’s doulos/pais; it instead is the faith of this centurion (appropriately we hear no command for healing by Jesus, cf. 7:14). Note that Jesus is “amazed” by the centurion’s “faith” (7:9). Normally in the narrative of Luke, it is the crowd that is amazed—and not by someone’s faith, but usually by the miracles that Jesus does (cf. 4:22, 36, 5:9, 26)![79] Just as the centurion contrasted himself in his sphere of power as inferior in power to Jesus, so Jesus contrasts the faith of “Israel” as inferior to this centurion. The fact that Jesus announces this to the “crowd that followed him” reminds readers that this exchange is public—an important aspect of honor and shame. It is clear that the “crowd that followed Jesus” is shamed by this exchange. In contrast, the centurion is a prototype and foreshadowing of those persons “who humble themselves” and who “will be exalted” (e.g., 14:11; 18:14; cf. 13:30). The centurion is also similar to other characters in Luke who are willing to request Jesus’ help in spite of major social/cultural/physical barriers. Jesus responds positively to these characters, and each narrative includes a positive reference to the faith that led them to attempt to surmount those barriers (e.g., a “paralyzed man,” 5:19-20; a “sinful woman,” 7:36-50; a “woman suffering from a hemorrhage,” 8:43-48; a Samaritan leper, 17:11-19; and a blind man, 18:35-43). These characters who overcome barriers become models of faith for other characters, and, the narrator hopes, for readers.[80]

 

Purity Rules

 

The story in Lk 7:1-10 demonstrates that that the narrator and characters are keenly aware that Jesus’ actions are overturning cultural boundaries. Purity refers to the system of boundaries that human beings develop in order to make sense of their environment. To give their world a sense of order, human beings establish these margins in social time and social space. Purity and its antithesis, pollution, refer to the socially shared map of space and time, with special emphasis on boundaries. The boundaries become focal points because they separate the socially acceptable from the unacceptable and give a basis for evaluation of all socially experienced phenomena. The process of enculturation generates the ability to perceive reality through the lenses of socially shared conceptions: When persons, places, or things are within these specified boundaries, they are pure (clean); when they are outside these socially contrived margins, they are seen as impure (unclean or deviant).[81] The category of impurity, then, implies not only a system of order, but also a sense that this ordered system of values has been violated.[82]

 

Excursus: Centurions and Purity Rules

A few scholars—surprisingly few—have noted the possibility that the centurion’s relationship with his slave may have included a sexual dimension.[83] As Thomas Hanks notes, however, this possibility has been systematically ignored by most New Testament scholars, or what Hanks labels “heterosexist male advocacy scholarship.”[84] Yet the text itself and its cultural/historical contexts suggest this possibility (probability?).

Michael Gray-Fow argues that by the time of the late Republic, same sex relationships between centurions and younger males (slaves/servants) were “flourishing” in the Roman army.[85] He notes that the spread of same sex relationships among Roman soldiers increased after 107 BCE, after the army reforms of Gaius Marius, which admitted the “proletariat to the ranks” (456). The spread of the Roman Empire also contributed to the rise of this practice, because soldiers were brought into close contact with societies in which such sexual relationships were regarded as normal, under circumstances where it was easier to justify the presence of young men in camp than of “superfluous women” (454). The contact with such societies contributed to an awareness, the spread, and acceptance of pederasty. So the presence of “tent-sharers” (contubernales) became the way in which most soldiers were introduced to same sex relationships. Plutarch, for example, relates a story of a youth who was being “shared” by some of the soldiers (Sertorius 26). Such youths became a common feature of the Roman army; locally recruited, they sometimes grew up to join the auxiliary forces attached to legions.

Gray-Fow argues that by the end of the first century CE (when Luke was written), not only was the practice of pederasty “flourishing” in the Roman army, it was also apparently normal for a centurion to have such a “youth” (Mar. 1.31.1). He also notes that the “genuine affection which could exist for these boys” probably lies behind the story of the centurion and his sick “servant” in Lk 7:1-10. At the very least, first-century readers would be very well aware of this practice, even if twenty-first century New Testament scholars are not.[86] Sexual relations between owners and slaves (with slaves in passive roles) were accepted, whether the slave was male or female. What Gray-Fow does not discuss, however, is that even if “genuine affection” could exist between the owner and the slave, this oppression was part of the wider, general exploitation of human beings as slaves.[87] So, for modern readers, this relationship—because of the abuse of power inherently involved in an owner/slave relationship—is ethically problematic.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus overturns purity rules when he touches the leper in order to heal him (Lk 5:12-16; cf. Lev 13-14). Many scholars note that purity rules dictate that even entrance into the house of a Gentile, such as the centurion in Lk 7:1-10, would be a source of defilement for a Jew (cf. Acts 10:28; 11:12),[88] as would possible contact with a corpse (the doulos/pais was “close to death,” 7:2; cf. Luke 7:14; Num 5:2; 19:11-13). In addition, if the unclean (Gentile) centurion’s doulos/pais is also his sexual partner, both of them are unclean according to Lev 18:22, 24; 20:13.

 

Conclusion: Purity Rules

In the Gospel of Luke Jesus often heals persons who are unclean according to the purity rules; these persons would therefore be seen as incapable of full social relationships or are barred from the Temple (e.g., Lk 8:43-48; cf. Lev 15:25-31). Jesus even touches some of the unclean persons whom he heals (e.g., Lk 5:13). Readers learn also that such healings took place during a period of sacred time (e.g., Lk 14:1-6), as well as in a sacred place during a period of sacred time (e.g., Lk 6:6-11; 13:10-17). In addition, Jesus neglects to cleanse himself ritually before eating a meal (Lk 11:37-38) and even eats with toll collectors and sinners (e.g., Lk 5:29-30). Jesus also is not concerned about impurity that would result from contact with a corpse (e.g., Lk 7:14, cf. Num 19:11). Such challenges to the purity system may also include interactions with those persons whom others in the narrative might consider as having “inappropriate” sexual relations/behavior (e.g., Lk 7:1-10; 7:36-50). Jesus declares that “pollution” does not result from such things as unwashed hands—the outer surface of the body—but the sins that come from inside a person, such as rapacity and the evil of covetousness (e.g., Lk 11:39-41). Thus Jesus provokes debates about sacred persons, time, and space; he questions and indeed challenges the general social purpose of these rules and the way in which they are interpreted. The narrator of Luke presents Jesus as a limit breaker—someone who can transcend the socially-defined limits in a given culture in some socially accepted—by some at least—way.[89]

 

Ideological Texture in Luke 7:1-10 in Dialogue with

Inner Texture, Intertexture, and Social and Cultural Texture

 

As noted above, the centurion is one of many models in Luke-Acts of the proper attitude and behavior of socially-advantaged patrons should have—both to Jesus and to members of their local community. The centurion also represents imperial control, since he is an agent and enforcer of the imperial status quo. Yet none of the characters or the narrator explicitly recognizes or condemns such activities.

So the story in Luke 7:1-10 in some respects is an excellent illustration of patron-broker-client relationships, but there are some intriguing and some subversive elements as well. The Jewish elders are clients of the centurion; the centurion—although he participates in the system of imperial control—becomes a client of Jesus. The centurion accepts Jesus’ authority, proclaims Jesus identity as the broker of God’s blessings, and addresses him as “Lord.” The Jewish elders have not reached this position of faith, as Jesus’ words make clear (Lk 7:9). They are captive to an inferior patron-broker-client system and do not possess the centurion’s insight into the identity and authority of Jesus as the broker of God’s blessings. Instead, the Jewish elders respond loyally to their patron-broker the centurion, and Jesus apparently acquiesces to this patron-broker-client relationship, because he agrees to go with them to the centurion’s house. Yet Jesus’ “Sermon on the Plain” in the previous chapter actually undermined many of the aspects of the patronage system. Therefore this story is complex, inverted, and aggressively ideological: the patron-broker-client system of the Roman Empire is vastly inferior to the patron-broker-client relationship of the kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus transforms, in many respects, the concept of patron-client relations—note, for example, the theme of reversal (e.g., 1:51-53) and the stress on leaders becoming like servants (e.g., “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves,” Lk 22:25-26). In addition, in the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist and Jesus warn that the God of Israel is not an “exclusive” patron. That is, the Jewish people are not the only possible clients of the God of Israel (e.g., Lk 3:8; 4:25-27). Just as the centurion contrasted himself in his sphere of power as inferior in power to Jesus, so Jesus contrasts the faith of “Israel” as inferior to this centurion.

Vernon Robbins notes that Lukan discourse in relation to Judean culture is “contracultural,”[90] that is, the discourse “reacts in a negative way to certain values and practices in another culture” and it “simply inverts certain well-known behaviors and values in that other culture.”[91] Robbins then argues that with respect to “gentile culture,” the Lukan Jesus exhibits a “subcultural stance,” because Jesus accepts the centurion’s statement and analogy about the “chains of authority” in which he Jesus participate. So, according to Robbins, when Jesus acquiesces and proceeds to the centurion’s house, he therefore does not challenge the authority of the dominant Roman culture or criticize it. The centurion recognizes, though, that Jesus not only shares a similar structure of power and authority and enacts the best values of Gentile society; the centurion also recognizes that Jesus’ way is superior.[92]

I want to expand Robbins’s insights, because I believe that Luke-Acts is more subversive and aggressive than it may first appear. As Robbins notes elsewhere, the Lukan Jesus is portrayed as a “Hellenistic-Roman benefactor-savior who engages in high artisan, low elite subculture rhetoric that challenges all leaders.”[93] The narrator makes the amazing claim that the God of the Jews is the ultimate patron, that this God works contraculturally within Jewish culture to invert values, and that God’s activity presupposes, advances, but inverts hierarchical structures within a the greater Greco-Roman society.[94]

Thus Luke-Acts is an amazing ideological manifesto that explicitly critiques Jewish culture but which actually inherently critiques many aspects of Roman culture as well. Warren Carter has effectively captured the essence of this ideological move in his book, Matthew and Empire: Initial Explorations. Carter argues that the Gospel of Matthew presents a social challenge to Rome’s authority which includes a religious dimension. Since Matthew comes from and addresses a world dominated by the Roman Empire, it envisions religion not as a personal matter, but as deeply embedded with political claims, visions of social organizations, economic structures, and ideological commitments (1). The Matthean Jesus calls his followers to form a community that is antithetical to most of what the empire’s ruling elite holds to be important (e.g., Mt 20:25-27, cf. Lk 22:25-27), a system of oppression that began with the emperor and continued through the ruling elite and their retainers.[95] The army played a key role in this forcible subjugation by coercing and maintaining submission (12).

Carter demonstrates that behind this oppression was what he calls a “Roman Imperial Theology” (20). This ideology, that was reinforced with words and rituals, holds that the emperor is the chosen agent of the gods (notable Jupiter), and the emperor’s tasks include manifesting the gods’ rule, presence, will, and blessings among human beings. So the relationship between the gods and the emperor—as the chosen one of the gods—manifests itself in certain relationships with the emperor’s subjects. They are to cooperate and submit to his divinely sanctioned actions. So the Roman “myth of supernatural character” identifies and sanctions those elite who rule, as well as creates and confirms the subordinate roles and compliant responses of those who are ruled. Included in this “myth” is the belief that the Roman gods direct history (21-23) and that the emperor—sometimes called “lord”/kurios in the east—is their agent-broker.[96]

Since Matthew was written in this social/cultural context, it “assumes this experience of Roman imperial power on every page” (25) and provides a “counternarrative,” a work of resistance (53). It disputes the claim that the Rome and the emperor are the gods chosen instruments, that the emperor is the agent-broker of the gods, and even challenges the perception that Rome should rule the world. Instead of a hierarchical, exploitative, exclusive system, Matthew creates (Carter believes) an inclusive, merciful, egalitarian community based on merciful, loving service to others (53).[97]

The claims in Matthew about Jesus (e.g., “God with us”) collide with the claims about the Roman Emperor being the agent-broker of the gods. The key issue is that of sovereignty, the belief that that the God of Israel supervises human history, that the decisive event in history is the advent of Jesus, and that God’s purposes especially run through Israel not Rome (60). This challenge subverts imperial claims and creates an alternative empire and way of life (61) which threatens the empire’s status quo (62).[98]

Carter recognizes, however, that as much as Matthew resists and exposes the injustice of Roman rule, as much as it points to God’s alternative community, as much as it offers a new vision of social and economic justice for non-elites, it, in the final analysis, cannot escape the “imperial mindset”: The alternative to Roman rule “is framed in imperial terms” (171).

The inferiority of Roman imperial claims is certainly implicit in the story of Jesus and the centurion. The centurion, after all, assumes the superiority of Jesus and Jesus’ patron-broker-client system. He also argues from the “lesser to the greater” that he and Jesus have similar roles, although Jesus and his patron are superior (Lk 7:8). But the positive aspects of Rome are also clearly seen and imitated.

Unlike Matthew, Luke-Acts is not as overt in its view about the emperor not having a right to rule—and thus Luke-Acts can be seen (partly) as an apologia—but is quite clear that the Christian movement, as envisioned by the narrator of Luke-Acts, is indeed a serious threat to that empire. Even Carter notes that Matthew ironically co-opts and imitates the very imperial worldview it resists (89)! It is even more true for Luke: The blessings or non-intervention of the emperor’s retainers are important for its ideological message. These more positive aspects are easily found in Luke-Acts: Not even in Israel had Jesus found a faith like the centurion’s (Lk 7:9); Pilate repeatedly stresses the innocence of Jesus (Lk 23:4, 14-16, 22); the centurion Cornelius becomes a Christian (Acts 10); the magistrates in Philippi apologize to Paul and Silas (Acts 16:39); Gallio does not accept the complaint against Paul and releases him (Acts 18:12-16); the town clerk of Ephesus calms the crowd and dismisses them (Acts 35-41); a Roman tribune, centurions, and other soldiers save Paul in the Jerusalem Temple (Acts 21:31-36; 22:22-29); the same tribune saves Paul from a conspiracy to kill him and stresses his innocence (Acts 23:16-35); even while in prison, Paul receives good treatment from Felix (Acts 24:23); Festus stresses Paul’s innocence of the charges against him (Acts 25:24-26, cf. 26:31-32, where Paul “could have been set free”); a centurion saves Paul during the shipwreck (Acts 27:42-44); Paul is allowed to live by himself in Rome with the soldier guarding him, where he taught “about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28:16, 30-31).

Luke-Acts is extremely ambitious in its efforts to co-opt Greco-Roman ideology. Walter T. Wilson, for example, argues that the narrator Luke-Acts structures the narrative about the founding of the Gentile church in terms related to the foundation narratives of colonies in the ancient world.[99] Like a Greco-Roman storyteller, the narrator of Luke-Acts chronicles the processes accompanying Christianity’s emergence as a social, political, and religious entity, which includes a testimonial character of emphasizing God’s involvement in human history. Christianity’s emergence and dynamic expansion are justified because of the claim of the Lukan Jesus and his followers that Jesus is “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36, cf. Lk 7:7-8) with divine authorization and guidance.[100]

Todd Penner goes even farther than Wilson. He argues that the discourse in Acts is about a citizenship in a new politea or oikoumene, a grandiose vision—one announced and promulgated by the God of Israel—that seeks to supplant the dominant Greco-Roman culture.[101] Luke-Acts thus presents Christianity not as a “religion” but as a politea that stands alongside the best of the Greeks and Romans; it seems to represent the best that the Greek and Romans have to offer: a model politeia with exemplary constitution and leadership, an “ideal” in Greco-Roman terms, and with a belief that its rules are divinely inspired.

If Penner’s argument is correct, then the Sermon on the Plain in Luke sets forth the agenda for this new culture, and the centurion—as an agent, representative, and participant of that dominant culture—recognizes the superiority of the new vision, authority, and empire/kingdom of God the ultimate patron and Jesus, the broker of that kingdom. The God of Israel accomplishes what the emperor and the “Roman Imperial Theology” could never accomplish.

The rhetoric is not just that of an apologia, one seeking for acceptance within the current imperial system; it is seeking to transform that system in a radical way. Yet, we must admit, the doulos/pais remains a slave and little hope is offered him, except for his physical health—the Lukan Jesus offers to him virtually no hint of the great reversal of which Jesus and others speak throughout the Gospel. The doulos/pais is healed from a (short) distance and (apparently) remains a slave of the centurion, still caught in the exploitative, hierarchical system of the Roman imperial system. Modern readers surely must be disappointed by this omission. Elements of the patron-broker-client hierarchical system also remain. Yet the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, although incorporating elements of that hierarchical (and patriarchal) system, actually provides a devastating critique of that system. Those higher standards, even while seen within the that social system and even though those higher standards are sometimes ignored by the Lukan Jesus and his followers, may serve as criteria by which all social systems should be evaluated.[102]

These higher standards include vertical generalized reciprocity, the redistribution from the advantaged to the disadvantaged that expects nothing in return (e.g., Luke 11; 14). They include loving your enemies, doing good to those who hate you, blessing those who curse you, and praying for those who abuse you (Lk 6:27-28). They include turning the other cheek, giving to everyone who begs from you, and being merciful just as God is merciful (Lk 6:29-30, 36). They include not only calling Jesus “Lord, Lord,” but also doing what he taught (6:46). These higher standards also include reaching out to people like the centurion, across boundaries of ethnicity, gender, culture, sexual orientation, or any other boundaries that human beings erect between themselves. And, finally, they include reaching out to people like the doulos/pais, who are victims not only of disease, hunger and poverty, but who also are victims of oppressive systems. The teachings of the Lukan Jesus, these higher standards, lead readers to the realization that although the doulos/pais is found in “good health,” he was still caught in a system of oppression. Let us hear his voice, cross those boundaries, and see his true plight, as well as the voices and the plights of the other people on the margins,[103] for the Lukan Jesus proclaimed release to such captives and announced that the oppressed should go free.