Reflection on the Gospel-22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time C (Luke 14:1, 7-14)

August 29, 2013

In Luke’s gospel, the Pharisees are generally depicted as hostile to Jesus. This almost certainly reflects the situation at the time the gospels are being written rather than the time of Jesus’ ministry when the Pharisees were a minority group of well-respected experts in the Law. After the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple some four decades after the death of Jesus, Sadduccean and Essene Judaism disappeared and there followed a sad parting of the ways between the Pharisaic Jewish leadership and the Christian Jews who accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ or Messiah.