Commentators say that the 7th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, our lectionary reading this week, is where you can see Luke’s  theology best expressed. He is not following  Mark or Matthew in his presentation of Jesus. His arrangement of stories about Jesus and his teaching is entirely his own.  In fact, Luke adds a story in this chapter found nowhere else in the gospels– Jesus raises a widow’s son to life.

It happens at Naim, not Capernaum or the other towns around the Sea of Galilee where Jesus ministered. Not Nazareth, his hometown. Not Bethany, where Jesus responded to friends like Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus died. We are not sure where Niam was. 

 The woman has no name, no influential friends or family connected to Jesus; she is a widow with no resources. She is a nobody. Yet Jesus performs this great miracle for her. He raises her only son from death and gives him to her.

In yesterday’s reading we read the account of the centurion, whose beloved servant was cured by Jesus and whose faith amazed him. The story emphasizes Jesus call of the gentiles.

On Thursday we will read of the sinful woman who anoints his feet weeping and dries his feet with her hair in the house of a pharisee. Again, Luke presents Jesus reaching with mercy to someone, a woman, whom his society rejects. 

Jesus prefers  the poor and welcomes all in Luke’s Gospel.  Surely, Luke wrote his gospel for a community like 1 Corinthians, which we’re reading now with Luke’s Gospel, where the poor seem excluded and only the well-off are welcome at the Table of the Lord. 

On Friday Luke again mentions women as he describes Jesus evangelizing one town after another in Judea. (Luke 8:1-3) He’s  accompanied by the Twelve, but also some women. They’re obviously not women like the poor widow, but women with resources and talents. One of them is even connected to the court of Herod. They are vital to the mission, Luke insists. They stay with Jesus through his passion and are witnesses of his resurrection.