Joanna: wife of Cuza
Luke 8:1-3.
The teaching of Jesus for today is a radical call to live and think and feel in a way that is counter-cultural; i.e., that radically contradicts the prevailing culture within which we live. The lives we are to live are, however, a continuation of the spirit of those men and women who followed Him around Palestine 2000 years ago. They, too, were counter-cultural in their following of Him; they too walked out against the wind of prevailing wisdom and the expectations of those around them.
When we turn to study Joanna, we find ourselves right up against an example of this. Lk. 8:3 implies that the women who followed Jesus, and Joanna is named as one of these, basically supplied the funds and material backing for His mission.
The male disciples had left their homes and their families were expected to manage economically without them, whilst they followed the Lord around Palestine. The group who followed Jesus were generally poor. Yet their expenses were being met by these few wealthy women.
Generally, the man was seen as the economic supporter of the family. It must have been hard for those men to accept the ministrations of Joanna and of the other women for them. It was almost a sociological impossibility that wealthy women should support men in such an itinerant lifestyle. But this was just the kind of inversion of values which Jesus sought to inculcate in the new community which He forged. Further, the wealthy simply didn’t mix with the lower classes; it was unthinkable for a woman to go travelling around with a group of lower class men , and added to that some of the women were former prostitutes. It could only have been the compelling personality of Jesus which led Joanna to do something as scandalous as she did.
Joanna is introduced as “the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza” (Lk. 8:3). Yet as a married woman the right to dispose of her money and goods lay not with her but with her husband; and it’s unlikely that a man of such great social rank as Chuza would have allowed his wife to use his wealth like this. And not only this for his wife to go wandering around the country with a band of men was unthinkable. Thus if Joanna was married at this time, she braved public condemnation by leaving her husband to follow Jesus.
The Jewish rabbis taught that women should not socialize with men who were not their relatives, much less travel with them. In fact, Jewish men were to say little to women. Disregarding such traditions, Jesus allowed Joanna and the other believing women to accompany His group.
All who set out with Jesus had to be prepared to make adjustments in their everyday life. Regarding such followers, though, Jesus said: “My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8:19-21; 18:28-30)
“From their belongings,” Joanna and many other women ministered to Jesus and the Twelve. (Luke 8:3) Luke is not telling his readers that the women cooked the meals, washed the dishes, and mended the clothes . Perhaps they did . . . , but it is not what Luke says..
Neither Jesus nor his apostles did secular work during their preaching tours. Hence, they probably did not have the means to pay for all the food and other things needed by a group of perhaps 20 people. Although they may have been received hospitality, the fact that Christ and his apostles carried a “money box” suggests that they did not always rely on hospitality. (John 12:6; 13:28, 29) .
A question arises how did these women especially Joanna - a married woman- fund Jesus' ministry.
Contemporary texts indicate that among the Jews, a woman may have acquired resources in various ways:
(1) as an inheritance if her father died without sons,
(2) as property given to her,
(3) as money stipulated in a marriage contract as due her in case of divorce -ketubah
(4) as maintenance from a deceased husband’s estate, or
(5) as personal earnings.
Someone like her may have provided the expensive seamless garment that Jesus wore. This was an item that fishermen’s wives could not have supplied.—John 19:23, 24.
It is hard to understand, how Joanna got the right to use wealth in the way that she did. Perhaps she simply left her husband and insisted on taking some of their wealth with her. Perhaps he was supportive; but at such an early stage in the Lord’s ministry, this seems to me unlikely. However we have the story of the royal official in John 4 where the entire family believed. Even if a woman made money from her own business, the money would be under the control of her husband. So we are left with the question, from where did Joanna get her money?
The more likely option comes from an awareness of the practice of ketubah. This was a sum of money promised by the husband to the wife in case of divorce; it was part of the marriage contract. With this money she could attract a second partner if the husband divorced her. And this, I submit, is what happened with Joanna. Because of her illness or because she followed Christ after her healing - Luke 8:1-3 - her husband divorced her; and instead of using her money to attract a second partner, she instead spent it on the true passion of her life- the cause of Jesus and His ministry. There is evidence that if her husband died, she still was not free to use the money that might come to her independently; his family and her male relatives had a major say in the matter. The Mishnah says that a wife cannot inherit anything from her husband, since otherwise his ‘property’ in any sense might be alienated from the man’s family . So it would seem that the only way a woman had large funds at her disposal would be if she were married to a wealthy man, who divorced her and gave her the ketubbah. Hence the significance of the way Lk. 8:3 introduces her as having been the wife of a wealthy man, and yet also in a position to financially support the ministry of Jesus.
Joanna would have lived with her husband in Herod’s court in Tiberias, not far from Nazareth. She would have heard of Jesus right at the start of His ministry; Lk. 8:2 comments how the Lord healed women of ‘demons’. When Herod invited his “courtiers and officers and chief men of Galilee” to the birthday party at which he beheaded John (Mk. 6:21), this would almost certainly have included Chuza. Manaen was a courtier of Herod- (Acts 13:1), and he later became a disciple . And one wonders about the ‘Herodion’ of Rom. 16:11- was he another of Herod’s courtiers? We can only speculate as to whether Joanna brought about the conversion of these two. And then there was the “royal official” of Capernaum who was converted by the Lord’s healing (Jn. 4:46-53); he too would have been one of Herod’s courtiers. And would have been a witness in the court. There, in the heart of the despised court at Tiberias, an ecclesia developed!
Being associated with Chuza and Herod’s court would have placed Joanna in a category of people that were very unpopular to ordinary Jews- for she would have been allied to the ruling class who so cruelly taxed and impoverished the ordinary people. Herod’s “steward” was basically the chief thug who made sure that the heavy taxations were paid by the populace. The disciples were thus being supported by a woman from the class they had naturally hated.
And so Joanna stepped out from Herod’s court, over to the ranks of the Galilean poor. She probably did this after her healing. For her, conversion was radical. Not only did she give up her financial security, she gave up her social standing, and like Moses walking out of Pharaoh’s court to suffer affliction with God’s people, she too had to do it alone. And she joined the rest of the group with Jesus. There is no reason to think that the 70 who were sent out in pairs were all male; Luke’s account of this in Lk.10 has been prefaced by the explanation in Lk. 8:2,3 that the Lord had many female disciples too.
Note that the great commission to preach is given to “the eleven and those with him” (Lk. 24:33) , i.e. the women, including Joanna. Acts 1:13,14 speaks of “the eleven and the women”- the same two groups. She would have known that she as a woman had no credibility as a witness in her society; and yet she was bidden go witness. This surely is an inspiring challenge to all who feel hopelessly unqualified to witness; it is our very lack of qualification which seems to make the Lord chose us. To have accompanied the eleven throughout the Lord’s ministry was a qualification to be His authoritative witness (Acts 1:21,22); and Joanna fulfilled that requirement, having been with the Lord from the beginning (Lk. 8:3) right up to the crucifixion (Lk. 24:9,10).
One evident reason for Joanna’s prominence was that when the male disciples fled, it was Joanna and Mary Magdalene and a few other women who stood by the Lord during His crucifixion, knowing full well that they faced death by crucifixion for showing such solidarity with the victim
The importance of Joanna and the other women as witnesses lies in the fact that it was they who had seen Jesus buried, and therefore could vouch for the fact that the empty tomb was in fact the very tomb in which Jesus had been buried. This piece of evidence becomes more crucial the more one reflects upon it.
An empty tomb was no proof that Jesus of Nazareth had risen- unless there were witnesses there present at that empty tomb who could testify also that it was in that very tomb that Jesus had been laid. And only a few women, not men, were witnesses of this. Hence the enormous significance of the way in which the Gospels repeatedly make the women the eyewitnesses of His death, burial and resurrection. - (Mt. 27:55; Mk. 15:40; Lk. 23:49,55).
The choice of women as the witnesses was made of course by God Almighty. Yet at that time, women were considered to be gullible in religious matters and especially prone to superstitious fantasy in religious matters. Of course, the disciples also didn’t believe the women. Peter has to go to the tomb to see for himself, after dismissing the women’s testimony as madness -Luke 24:11
The travelers on the road to Emmaus reported to the Lord what the women had told them about the empty tomb. They basically told Him that the women were right about the empty tomb, but were wrong in thinking Jesus had risen- because the men hadn’t seen Him. And what is the Lord’s response? He could have said ‘O foolish men for not believing all that the women told you!”. But instead He says: “O how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have told you!” (Lk. 24:22-25). The Lord cleverly equates the women's testimony about the empty tomb with the revered prophecies made by the male prophets of Israel. He is teaching that in His new community, the witness of the women - the disbelieved, the marginalized, the ignored, the testimony of the risen Christ of these insignificant women …was going to be as earth shattering as the Word of God itself.
It is possible that Joanna was among the disciples, including Jesus’ mother and brothers, who gathered together in Jerusalem at Pentecost 33 C.E. (Acts 1:12-14) Because of her court connections, Joanna may have been the source of what some consider to be Luke’s inside information about Herod Antipas, especially since Luke is the only Gospel writer who mentions her by name.—Luke 8:3; 9:7-9; 23:8-12; 24:10.
Joanna did not let her past, fear, family or friends stop her from following Jesus, and it is believed that she was an influence inside Herod’s palace by living out and speaking about her faith.
Commitment is not always valued these days as a quality. Yet commitment is crucial for those who desire to be authentic believers. Joanna was with Jesus when the crowds were all around Him, and she was with Him when they left. She stayed with Him during His crucifixion, knowing that she could face punishment/death for showing her solidarity with Him. She stayed with Him right till the end, accompanying Him on His last journey to the tomb and afterwards prepared spices, perfume and ointments for His body (Luke 23:55-56). God honoured her commitment to Him by allowing her to be one of the first witnesses to His resurrection and she went and told the disciples the news. She continues to be with the disciples and was more likely one of the women mentioned in the upper room during Pentecost (Acts 1:12-14), where the Holy Spirit filled all of them (Acts 2:1-4).
In allowing women to be the first to proclaim His glorious resurrection, Jesus the Christ acknowledged their faithful support and honored the love they had for Him. He gave them a role in His kingdom work, and commissioning them to be bold proclaimers of His Word and of His works.
