Naming Women

Gospel: Luke 8: 1-3

Luke is the only Gospel writer who names the women who accompany Jesus in the ministry, and for him naming is a significant component to discipleship.  Peter, Andrew, James, and John are identified when Jesus calls them, as was Levi.  Luke goes on to name the Twelve as well, and here he names the women of the group in a way that is equal to the naming of men in these previous passages that identify those called and engaged in the ministry of Jesus.

This naming continues the Gospel's profile of women in the prominent roles of salvation history.  Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna play significant roles in the opening chapters, overshadowing the men in these scenes.  Peter's mother-in-law is made the ideal of discipleship and response to the healing of God, an example against which all other encounters will be measured.  Now we have these women engaged in the work of Jesus fully identified, placed side by side with men in the work of healing, liberation, and feeding of others.

It is obvious what all this means for us in the life of the Christian community.  While people in the world have great needs of infirmity, grief, addiction, and hunger that need attention, the Church will respond with yet another study commission on who can minister and who cannot in various roles.  Let us - all of us - instead just be about the work of Jesus.  Let us go into the world and bind up wounds, lift people up, free them from their demons, and feed them in their needs.