The role of women in the Gospels has become of increasing interest in both the academy and the church over the last fifty years, often guided by a key question: what is the attitude of Jesus toward women? Luke’s Gospel is central to the conversation for its inclusion of many female characters and is widely considered to portray a positive attitude toward women. Problematic for this conclusion, however, is Luke 8:19–21 in which Jesus seems to reject, or at least diminish, his relationship to his mother.
Jesus’ response to the arrival of his mother and brothers and his assertion that anyone who hears and does the word of God is his family is in line with the corresponding pericope in Matthew 12 and Mark 3. The apparently negative tone, however, is at odds with the positive presentation of Mary in Luke 1–2. Little work has been done in the field of biblical studies to understand this passage in context of both the overall structure and message of Luke as well as its synoptic correspondences. This paper will argue that Luke’s incorporation of the pericope achieves two purposes: first, like Matthew and Mark, the Lukan passage emphasizes the creation of a new family of God, discontinuous in many ways from the old. Second, this paper will read Luke 8:19–21 in context of 1:42–45 and 11:27–28 as exemplary discourse that not only includes Mary in those who hear the word of God and do it, but also presents her as an imitable exemplar of the new covenant family and its highest virtue: faithful response to God.