for September 18
Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

As Jesus moves from village to town, as we hear in today’s passage from Luke, he is accompanied by ‘the Twelve,’ chosen from among his disciples and listed by name in a previous chapter. We also meet three women by name: Mary the Magdalene, who had been cured of great suffering, Joanna, who must have been independent minded and strong-willed to be following a teacher that her husband’s employer emphatically did not approve of, and Susanna, who must have been of such stature in the community that she needed no introduction beyond her name. These women (and many others, Luke tells us) provided for Jesus and his other followers “out of their resources.”

The Twelve are important to Luke. Their number recalls the twelve tribes of Israel, linking Jesus and his followers back to God’s mighty deeds for the chosen people. The Twelve will be close companions of Jesus during his life, and they will figure prominently in spreading the gospel after his ascension, as told in Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles.

Interestingly though, Luke does not make much of Jesus calling the Twelve. There are no stories in this gospel of leaving fishing nets, no giving of new names, just being called out from a crowd of disciples. Even so, we tend to think of the Twelve in terms of what they gave up, of what they left behind. In contrast, Luke’s gospel presents us today with the example of three women whose participation in Jesus’s mission came from something different; it came from what they brought with them.

And what was that? Money, certainly: that the Magdalene was known by her birthplace and not her familial relationships suggests that some of her resources were financial. But mentioned first, and perhaps more importantly, she was a person who knew suffering firsthand, and knew the experience of healing. Joanna brought strength of character; Susanna, a charism for leadership. These are the resources that these three women (and others unnamed) put at the service of preaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus brought.

Thus, Luke’s gospel seems to suggest, it is not the Twelve alone who can be counted among those who lead Jesus’s followers. Nor, perhaps, should it be so among their successors. As Paul tried so hard to convince the Corinthians in today’s first reading, it is God’s way to overturn our expectations. And so must we believe as well. Christ has been raised from the dead; the ‘first fruits’ of a new life; in what unexpected ways can we put to the service of that new life the resources that we bring with us?
—BJ Brown

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.