Preparing and sharing the table: The invisibility of women and enslaved domestic workers in Luke’s Last Supper

When most people imagine the Last Supper, they picture Jesus with his 12 disciples, an all-male scene. Consider the well-known painting, Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci. This particular reimagined scene portrays the meal of the last supper with plenty of food and dishes but portrays only men sitting on either side of a table and engaged in contentious conversation, except Jesus, who is sitting in the center looking at peace and gesturing toward the food. Yet, important when considering this meal, both biblically and theologically, is its historical background within first-century Judaism. While some scholars debate whether this meal was actually a Passover Seder, the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) each identify this last meal of Jesus as part of the observance of the Jewish religious holiday of Passover. ¹ Because Luke’s gospel is clear in its connection to Passover, I place the Last Supper of Jesus in the context of second temple Judaism, and this article assumes Jesus and his disciples were celebrating Passover in a similar way as other Jews were remembering Passover during this time. In this context, the scene of a traditional Jewish Passover in first-century Palestine would have looked quite different than what da Vinci painted and what many contemporary readers imagine. In this exegetical article, I look to the Gospel of Luke to suggest that, in these biblical scenes involving food, women and enslaved domestic workers were likely very involved in the planning, preparation, and the partaking of meals. ² To make this argument, I closely examine the narrative of the Last Supper, or Passover, in the Gospel of Luke (22.7–38). Then, I describe what is known of how the Jewish community in first-century Palestine prepared and ate the Passover meal. Finally, I reimagine the scene as it might have happened historically, making women and enslaved persons visible in the preparations and during the meal itself.

In the Gospel of Luke, the writer notes it was the “day of unleavened bread, when it was necessary to sacrifice the Passover lamb (πάσχα)” (v. 7). In the Greek here, the word “lamb” is not specifically included, only the word for Passover. Slaughtering a lamb for the Passover meal was a tradition, however, and likely Jesus is asking the disciples to find and slaughter a lamb for their Passover meal. Jesus sends Peter and John and tells them to “prepare for us the Passover (πάσχα) in order that we may eat” (v. 8). As François Bovon points out, “Luke likes the vocabulary of ‘preparation.’” ³ Here, the male disciples are instructed to prepare the Passover meal. In this time, lambs for Passover were taken to the temple to be slaughtered there, then taken to homes to be eaten for the Passover meal. ⁴ Jesus is instructing Peter and John to take the lamb to the temple for slaughter and then oversee the rest of the preparations for the meal, which would include matzah bread and wine. It is likely that the two disciples were to oversee the preparations for Passover, but that much of the cooking and domestic work would be done, as was typical in this historical time period, by women and enslaved domestic workers.

Scholars have debated exactly how Passover would have been remembered and celebrated by first-century Jews and how similar this celebration would have been to contemporary Passover Seders. The festival of Passover remembers the events of the Exodus when the Israelites were freed from enslavement in Egypt and ate their food as they left Egypt (Exod 12:11). While the ways in which the Jewish community celebrated Passover is not clear, some scholars surmise that for many years prior to the second century BCE, the Passover meal was eaten quickly, as described in Exodus. Joel Marcus refers to the book of Jubilees as well as texts from Philo to suggest that by the second century BCE, the Passover meal was a meal of lamb, matzah bread, and wine and was a “domestic celebration, at least in some circles, by the beginning of the first century CE.” ⁵ The evidence from the New Testament seems to support this assertion; even though the day the meal occurs differs in John versus the Synoptics, all four gospels portray Jesus and his followers in a domestic space eating matzah and drinking wine. Moreover, the Synoptic Gospels represent Jesus placing symbolic meaning upon the bread and the wine, as is a part of the Passover celebration as well. One aspect upon which scholars seem to agree is that the Passover would have been held in domestic spaces within family circles. This detail is also true of the Passover meal described in the Gospel of Luke, which is held in a large domestic space in Jerusalem with those around Jesus who have become his family.

After Peter and John ask Jesus where they should go to prepare for the meal, Jesus sends them into the city and instructs them to look for “a person carrying a jar of water” (v. 10) and to follow him into the house. In Greek, the “person” here is ἄνθρωπος, sometimes translated as “man,” but ultimately the gender of the water-carrier is not clear. Regardless, one can reasonably assume this person is enslaved, because this tended to be the work of domestic enslaved persons in this time. ⁶ To further this assumption, Jesus instructs the disciples to tell the “master” of the house that the “teacher” (meaning Jesus) asks him, “Where is the guest room where I may eat Passover with my disciples?” (v. 11). The master of the house will then lead them to a large room upstairs where they will be able to spread out (v. 12). These verses are instructive regarding a number of things.

First, the word here for “master,” οἰκοδεσπότης, means “master of the house” and is used in contexts of slavery, especially in the New Testament. For example, Luke uses this word in the Parable of the Great Banquet (14:15–24), in which the “master of the house” instructs his enslaved attendant to bring the poor to the banquet he is hosting. In a similar way, here at the Passover scene, the master of the house was likely to have a number of enslaved domestic workers running his house and preparing meals for his family and guests. Historically, the Greco-Roman world was firmly rooted in the context of slavery, and first-century Palestine was a part of this system. As the work of Catherine Hezser shows, slavery was a part of Jewish life in antiquity. Jews enslaved others just as the Greeks and Romans did, and the perpetuation of slavery supported and sustained Jewish society. ⁷ This reality is clearly evident within the New Testament, written in an ancient Jewish context, including references to enslaved individuals and employing slavery as a metaphor. ⁸

Second, the indication that this house has a large room upstairs with plenty of open room reveals that this is a wealthy and elite household. The Greek verb στρώννυμι means “to spread out” (v. 12) and is often used in situations where guests sat and relaxed on carpets or blankets. ⁹ So the master of this house has a large space available for welcoming guests or hosting meals. Therefore, this house was likely a wealthy, large house. In Jerusalem excavations, in the Upper City, archeologists have uncovered numerous elite houses dating to the first century. These homes, which Helen Bond refers to as “mansions,” included many large rooms decorated lavishly with frescoes and mosaics. ¹⁰ The houses also followed Jewish law as the mosaics and frescoes did not include representations of humans and usually included a miqveh, a “ritual bath,” within the house. While the text does not indicate exactly where in Jerusalem the man with the jar led Peter and John, a house with an empty room on a second floor indicates a wealthy household, so one of these excavated mansions could have been similar to the space Luke is describing. In such a domestic space, numerous enslaved domestic workers would have been required to keep the house running efficiently.

After the preparations were complete, Luke states that Jesus “reclined and the apostles were with him” (v.14). Of interest for this study is the adjustment Luke makes to Mark’s narrative of the events of the Last Supper (14:12–25). ¹¹ Luke seems to use most of Mark’s narrative in his own recounting of this event, with only a few small but important edits. First, Luke names Peter and John as the two disciples he sends into the city, while Mark does not name them (Mark 14:13). After the meal is prepared, Mark indicates that Jesus came to the Passover with the “twelve” (Mark 14:17), while Luke changes the “twelve” to “apostles” (Luke 22:14). This slight redaction might seem insignificant, but it allows for a larger number of people to be present at the meal, while Mark’s narrative could limit attendance to a precise number, when understood literally.

In Luke, Jesus calls 12 disciples, but other followers are important to Jesus’s ministry and can be viewed as disciples as well. The best example is in chapter 8, in which the group of 12 disciples is expanded to include women specifically. In the context of the gospel, Jesus is traveling through Galilee, and the text reads,

The twelve were with him and some women who had been healed from evil spirits and diseases, Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, who was the steward of Herod, and Susanna and many others who were providing from their possessions. (Luke 8:1b–3)

As this verse clearly shows, women traveled with Jesus and also supported his ministry financially. The names of three women are specifically listed: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna. As Turid Karlsen Seim observes, “None of the women who are mentioned by name receives her identity by her relationship to a man, as was the convention of naming.” ¹² Even though Joanna’s husband is mentioned, the inclusion seems to be in order to note her status and connection to Herod. In addition, Luke references “many others,” which in the Greek is gendered feminine, indicating that many other women followers traveled with Jesus and supported his ministry. ¹³ Important to note is that the Greek term here for “provided” is διακονέω (diakoneō, v. 3), which means “to serve, wait on, or minister,” and is the source for the English cognate word “deacon.” While the text is not specific regarding the work the women are doing for the ministry, options include domestic work, such as cooking or serving meals, as well as preaching. Following the usage of διακονία in the writings of the early Christian community, such as in Paul’s letters and Acts, scholars Ringe and Schaberg suggest these women could have been “significant figures in the table community and the intellectual activity that marked the original movement.” ¹⁴

When Jesus reached Jerusalem and gathered to remember the Passover, these women remained with him, as indicated in Luke 22:49 at the scene of the cross where the text notes that Jesus’s relatives (or those who knew him well) and the “women who had been following him from Galilee” were there, watching from a distance. These women were also at the tomb and the scene of resurrection, including two of the three named women from Luke 8:3 (Mary Magdalene and Joanna). Therefore, readers of Luke’s gospel might picture these women at the Passover meal with Jesus, since they have been following him since his ministry began in Galilee and are present later at the crucifixion and resurrection. Recently, Ally Kateusz has argued for the possibility that Mary, Jesus’s mother, could have also been present for this last meal of Jesus. ¹⁵ Several early Christian apocryphal texts follow this tradition by their narratives that include both men and women at the Last Supper, which is depicted as very similar to a Jewish ritual meal. These texts include the Gospel of Bartholomew, Didascalia Apostolorum, Apostolic Church Order, and the Life of the Virgin. Based on these texts and numerous artistic portrayals of Mary emerging from Christianity, Kateusz suggests that Mary, Jesus’s mother, could have even co-officiated a ritual meal, perhaps even the Last Supper. She writes,

These three texts together provide significant validation of the antiquity of the last supper tradition preserved in the Life of the Virgin, which says that the women were there, and also, that Mary, their teacher and role model, presided with her son at the ritual meal. ¹⁶

What if one imagines a Last Supper that is more historically accurate and inclusive of women and enslaved workers? ¹⁷ Using Luke’s narrative, one can imagine that the 12 male disciples are at the meal with Jesus, and Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna are also there, interspersed with the men, reclining on the floor (not sitting at a table). They are all eating the roasted lamb and matzah bread and drinking wine while having intense conversations about their fears and what is in store for Jesus during this contentious time. Enslaved domestic workers, such as the water-carrier that Peter and John followed from the city, come in and out of the large upper room bringing with them more wine and taking away plates filled with crumbs from the eaten matzah bread. The enslaved workers hear the conversation and the words of Jesus as he says to them, “I was eager with desire to eat this Passover with you all before I suffer, for I say to you that I may not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (22:15–16). When Jesus offers the cup and the bread, he hands it to his male and female disciples alike. They all, male and female, eat and drink together. And when the conversation gets tense and Jesus leaves to go to the Mount of Olives (22:39), the disciples follow him out, leaving their dirty dishes and leftover food and wine in the room upstairs in the house where they were guests. After they leave, the room is filled with people again, this time enslaved workers who clean the room, remove the dishes, and save the leftovers. As they clean, they talk among themselves, wondering where the group went and what would happen to Jesus and his group of followers.

While it is impossible for anyone today to know exactly what happened in that upper room during the last Passover meal celebrated by Jesus and his followers, perhaps this reconstruction might open our minds to the ways that women and enslaved persons were present and involved. Moreover, as we read other biblical passages about food and meals, may we strive to make the invisible visible in our retellings, studies, and sermons.