The Margins and the Marginalized!

Saturday, October 18, 2025

Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist

2 Tim 4:10-17b; Lk 10:1-9

The feast of Luke invites us to see Jesus as he really is – the Lord who loved the periphery and the people from the periphery.

In my view, the person of Luke is more understandable from the way he presented Jesus in his Gospel. In other words, because Luke could see what escaped the eyes of others, he must have possessed the very traits that he identified in Jesus. We know the tree from the fruit.

Luke’s success lies in his painstaking efforts to bring out the less-known, less-appreciated, and often-overlooked side of Jesus, without being carried away by the dominant views. 

In sum, Luke stepped away from the crowd to look at the outstanding personality of Jesus. 

I wish to highlight two special features of Luke’s Gospel. 

Lukan Jesus and the Margins: 

For Lukan Jesus, salvation begins at the margins. This is why the proclamation of Jesus’ mission manifesto happens in Galilee, a place away from Jerusalem, the religious power center of Jewish life. Other Gospels also attend to the Galilean mission of Jesus. But why would Jesus choose Galilee as the starting point of his mission? This strategic move of Jesus also explains his person. It was because Galilee was a city on the margins – culturally, economically, and religiously, Jesus began his ministry from there, as if to say that his entire ministry must be evaluated from where everything started. Hence, the choice of Galilee is a well-calculated and intentional movement rather than an accidental occurrence. In other words, for a person who embraced people from the periphery, the choice of Galilee is not something accidental. It is not only that Jesus started his public ministry in Galilee, but he also wanted to send his disciples into mission from where he himself started. For this reason, after his resurrection, Jesus meets with his disciples in Galilee (Mk 16:7) only to give them the mission mandate that they must ‘go into all the world and proclaim the Good News to the entire creation’ (Mk 16:15-16). By this, Lukan Jesus implies that those who follow him must bear his vision and focus. 

Lukan Jesus and the Marginalized

Yet another major focus of Luke’s Gospel is Jesus’ association with the marginalized. Luke’s portrayal pays special attention to Jesus’ preferential option for the marginalized or the people of the periphery. Luke, a physician by profession, showcases a careful attention to detail by highlighting the humane, sensitive, and compassionate side of Jesus, unlike other gospelers. This is the reason why the third Gospel contains some well-known passages unique only to Luke. For instance, the parables of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10: 25-37) and the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32) emphasize God’s mercy and forgiveness to the extent of upending the readers’ expectations. Luke’s Gospel is a special place to find Jesus’ affection towards those who were denied social communion. His voluntary visit to Zacchaeus’ house (Lk 19:1-10) changes the tax collector’s heart, and Jesus proclaims that ‘Today salvation has come to this house.’ Mary’s Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55) is another instance where we find Mary proclaiming the God-intended reversal by singing of a God who ‘lifts up the lowly’ and ‘fills the hungry with good things.’ Defying all our expectations, Luke presents the penitent thief moments before the death of Jesus, who then assures him, saying, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’ (Lk 23:43). Besides dining with the tax collectors and sinners, Jesus also turned the Gentiles into examples of faith and imitation for Israelites. Along with the Good Samaritan, we may recall the confession of the Roman Centurion (Lk 7:1-10), whose words we recite even today before receiving the Eucharistic Lord into our hearts.

Thus, Luke’s unique portrayal helps us discover the person of Jesus, who makes the periphery the center of his mission and puts forward the outcast as the frontliners of faith.

Let us pray that, aided by Luke’s narrative, we may find the humane Jesus in order that we may become like him. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar