Ordinary Time

Dec 12 2024

Flung into the Arms of God

When I was small, my three older brothers and I shared a shiny black two-wheeler bicycle. Gregg was eight, Rex and Scott were six, I was the little sister. Gregg fit the bike well. My feet could barely reach the pedals. My dad had run behind me and taught me how to ride. I loved the freedom of rushing in the breeze. Except . . . I didn’t know how to stop. I would pedal up the driveway, ride into the grass, launch into the air and fling myself onto the lawn. It was a test of my agility. It was a test of my five-year-old courage.

The Sadducees give Jesus a test. A woman shared seven brothers as husbands in this life (Lord have mercy!); when she dies, whose wife is she? It is a trial of mental acuity for the man they consider

just a yokel from Galilee. Jesus cleverly flings their expectations into the air. He speaks of the freedom of heaven, like rushing in the breeze. There will be nothing to hold us back; we will be free among the living, to spend eternity praising God.

The Greeks put seven Maccabean brothers to the test—would they eat pork and abandon their religion? Or would they refuse and die a horrible death? One after another, the brothers offered themselves to martyrdom. It was a test of spiritual fortitude. How firmly did they believe? Their mother, after watching her first six sons die, encouraged her youngest lad also to hurl himself toward resurrection.

Life is full of tests, especially the final one. We pedal as hard as we can, but we are not in charge of the brakes. We don’t know when our lives will stop. Do we have the courage to trust in the resurrection? Are we willing to launch into the air and fling ourselves into the arms of a loving God?

Consider/Discuss

Many life experiences do not come with an instruction manual (and sometimes too many and conflicting ones)—the birth of a child, the loss of a spouse, the rebellion of a son or daughter, the moment of death. These are often bigger experiences than we know how to handle. What have you gone through in life that you’ve had to grow into? How did God walk with you through that?
Launching into the unknown can be filled with fear. We could get hurt. Those we love could get hurt. What kind of unknowns are you stepping into right now?

Living and Praying with the Word

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, you are with us here, now, surrounding us with your love. This day we ask you to handle this test: ____________. Please take this trial and transform it. Give us the strength to handle our lives. You are our strength. You are the source of our fortitude. Take our troubles and surround us with your peace. When we get to the final test of death and leap into the unknown, give us the courage to fling ourselves into your loving arms.

Dec 12 2024

Scripture Study for

The Second Book of Maccabees recounts the efforts of devout Jews to oppose the Hellenist rulers who sought to undermine their adherence to their faith. One such ploy was to try to force them to eat pork; more than one Jew accepted death rather than disobey the Law at the command of secular rulers (6:18–31). Aside from its edifying tale of seven faithful brothers and their mother, the present passage gives us the clearest expression in the Old Testament of belief in bodily resurrection (along with Daniel 12:1–3). Hope that they would be raised up by God even if they died faithful to God allowed all seven sons to die excruciating deaths. Both fidelity and great hope are on display in these early tales of Jewish martyrs.

In the face of social disapproval, perhaps some civic persecution, and the confusion and disturbance caused by the claim by some that the parousia has already occurred (a claim that, if true, would have to lead one to question everything that one had been taught, since nothing had changed in the world), Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to calm down, ignore the false claims, and remain steadfast. Divine encouragement will strengthen them against the profound temptations to abandon the faith and their way of life in Christ. Paul too has his work to do, spreading the gospel as far as he can while he has time, in order to bring as many as possible to salvation. No matter what, they must remember a central claim of scripture: God is faithful. Just hold fast, keep steady, trust in what they have been taught, and above all, trust in God’s love. In this, as in all things, they should look to Christ as their model.

The Sadducees were a Jewish group who rejected any doctrine not clearly taught in Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy). Thus, unlike the Pharisees, they did not believe in resurrection. They take the opportunity here to argue with Jesus about the question by trying a little reductio ad absurdum. The challenge they pose has to do with the institution known as levirate marriage, in which a brother of a deceased man was required to marry his widow if they had had no children. What if that same woman ended up marrying seven brothers? What a complete mess in the age to come! This is taken as an argument against resurrection. Jesus breezily dismisses it as misunderstanding the nature of the age to come. Since people will no longer die, there will be no need for marriage or to raise children. Using an authoritative source they will acknowledge, he points out that God could hardly be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob centuries after they had left this earth if they were not in fact still alive to God.

Dec 12 2024

Seeing Past the Presumptions

Zacchaeus is the only grown man in the New Testament who is described as little in stature. Otherwise, that particular Greek word is used for children. What was it that stunted his growth? Disease? Genetics? Malnutrition? Whatever it was, he was the size of a child.

At first glance, this looks like another of Luke’s “scoundrel conversion” stories. We expect that a chief tax collector is a cheat and a liar. The crowd assumes so, too. Zacchaeus is the rascal who needs conversion.

But that presumption may not be accurate. Look carefully. Jesus never asks Zacchaeus to repent. The little man does not beg for mercy. It is the crowd who calls him “a sinner.” Zacchaeus’s response to their judgment is not in the future tense of “I will repay.” What he actually says is, “I do repay.” This is his continual and customary action. If he finds someone who has been defrauded, he pays them back four times.

As the chief tax collector, could he quietly be rendering justice to the poor when his underlings cheat them? Might Jesus know something about this little man that the crowd does not?

Interestingly, in this cycle of Lectionary readings, we just skipped Luke’s passage about Jesus and the children. The disciples rebuke the people and tell them not to bother Jesus. The Son of Man says, “Let the children come to me.” Jesus likes little people. He loathes nothing that God has made.

This is not a scoundrel story. Jesus doesn’t see a big splotch of sin high above the people. He sees rather a smudge on a face that has been crying. Up in a tree.

The crowd sees a little man who (they believe) is a great sinner. Jesus sees a great man who is a little (bit of a) sinner. Who is being called to conversion here?

Consider/Discuss

We live in a culture that passes judgement by group identity: those “others” are bad people. But sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes we exclude or demean or disrespect others because of assumptions that we have made. What can you and I do to get past that? Whom could we listen to anew, and in charity hear who they really are and what they have to say?
Zacchaeus is pretty bold in wanting to see Jesus. A grown man running? Climbing a tree? Enduring the ridicule of the crowd? That was pretty out of-the-box for a chief tax collector! What could we do this week to be more bold about looking for Jesus?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, forgive me for the little things that I do. I may excuse myself or laugh them off or pretend that they aren’t important, and be pleased that I am not one of those big sinners like a chief tax collector. But even if I am hiding among a righteous-looking crowd, you see me. You know. In little ways, you nudge me to clean up the smudges in my life. Which of my habits and behaviors do you want me to be converted from? In your mercy, show me. You are so good and gracious. You raise up all those who are small. Please, Jesus, clean up my life, for I want you to come home with me, too.

Dec 12 2024

Scripture Study for

The reading from Wisdom comes from a larger section that rehearses God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt as a demonstration of God’s power and providence (11:2 — 12:27). The notable feature of that deliverance is God’s control of natural forces, which is not surprising considering that God’s “almighty hand . . . had fashioned the universe from formless matter” (11:17). God is indeed master of the entire created world, which is almost nothing when compared to its Creator. Yet this same omnipotent God looks with mercy on all that has been created, giving them time to repent of their sins. Since God is the source of all that is, and nothing exists without God’s constant consent, it stands to reason that there is nothing and no one who exists unless God desires their existence. From this we can see that God hates no creature, in the sense of desiring or being indifferent to their destruction.

In his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, Paul urges them to stand fast in the face of deep social disapproval. The Christian faith does not bring prestige, but mockery, and this can lead to a sense of “unworthiness.” Paul assures his audience that in their steadfast adherence to the faith, they are proving themselves worthy of the call they received from God. This is what they must keep foremost in mind as they struggle to live out their faith. In doing so, the “name of Jesus” is glorified, in the sense that they publicly acknowledge him through words and deeds. They in turn are “glorified” in the truest sense, acknowledged and rewarded by Christ, whose estimation matters infinitely more than society’s. The second part of the reading alludes to some disturbance and confusion in the community that has been caused by a prophetic utterance or perhaps a forged letter from Paul that claims that the parousia has already occurred.

As a chief tax collector, Zacchaeus stood to make a lot of money by contracting with the Romans to collect a certain amount in taxes. He then employed many others to collect the taxes, keeping for himself whatever he received beyond what he owed the Romans. The system was tailor-made for corruption and abuse. This is the main reason tax collectors were “sinners”: they abused others economically and gained whatever wealth they had unjustly. His encounter with Jesus exemplifies why Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them,” not because he condoned their behavior but as a way to offer them the opportunity to repent and “be found” (15:1–7). Indeed he does seek and find Zacchaeus, and his self-invitation to stay with him—once again the cause of grumbling—leads precisely to the happy outcome of another sinner no longer lost but found.

Dec 12 2024

Scripture Study for

This passage from Sirach comes from a larger section on true worship of God, which consists not merely in offering acceptable physical sacrifices at the altar, but above all in following God’s will by keeping the commandments and avoiding injustice (34:21 — 35:22). Because God is inherently just, God does not favor one person over another because one is rich or poor, for example. Although God has a special care for the weak and vulnerable, they do not “get a pass” for sin or injustice. While God’s ear is particularly attentive to the weak, who often have no one to rely on but God, all those who seek to be faithful to God will be heard. These are the lowly, those who submit to the divine will and seek to live it. Their prayer, especially for justice, will always be graciously received.

Paul concludes his Second Letter to Timothy by reminding him, once again, that he must stay firm in his teaching of sound doctrine, “for the time will come when people will not tolerate” it, but “will stop listening to the truth.” So Timothy must be prepared to continue to put up with hardship to fulfill his ministry (4:3–5). Paul himself, who is in prison, has done this, pouring himself out like a libation, that is, like an offering to God. As he looks back on his work, he is satisfied that whatever struggles and failures he might have had, he has been faithful and thus is “crossing the finish line,” the reward for which will be presented by Christ himself. This same Christ has stood by Paul from the beginning, even when he has been abandoned by others, so that Paul too may fulfill his ministry.

There are perhaps few things so frightening to contemplate as the possibility that one has fundamentally misinterpreted one’s stance before God. The Pharisee represents the dangerous tendency in most of us to exalt ourselves at the expense of others. He is, in one sense, a good Jew; Jesus does not find fault with his fasting and tithing. But his words suggest that he does not consider himself a sinner, and in fact looks down on those who are. His “thanksgiving” is entirely self-congratulatory and he neither gives God praise nor asks God for anything. The tax collector, on the other hand, is a stereotypical sinner who, crucially, knows he is in need of mercy. He goes home justified because he asked for mercy and received it. The Pharisee did not go home justified because he did not ask for mercy; he did not think he needed it.