Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43 Christ the King Sunday bridges Ordinary Time and Advent, inviting us to shift our attention to preparation for the Incarnation, even as the retail machine already is shoving us headlong into Christmas. This Sunday also kicks off the week of Thanksgiving, with many in the pews focused on company coming or travel looming. For many, the reign of our Lord is not at the on the top of our minds as we consider all the other issues and tasks barreling towards us this week. Some of us worry about the non-stop news of impeachment hearings hijacking any hope of a peaceful family gathering. Others wonder if they will be alone on a day billed as being all about family and friends. Overflowing tables and endless calls to purchase Christmas gifts cast in stark relief for a lot of our neighbors the growing divide between the rich and the impoverished. The cultural shift toward the holidays is in full swing, and subsequently few … [Read more...]

Isaiah 65:17-25; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19 Ordinary 33C; Proper 28 God’s cosmic and total transformation hovers, lurks and looms this week. Depending on which text one looks to first, the feeling evoked around this massive change is more or less hopeful. Isaiah’s description drips with joy and delight. Luke’s comes with more foreboding and suffering. The epistle lesson from 2 Thessalonians comes across more practical than mystical: get to work, keep working, do what is right, now, always, until Christ returns. So, what’s the end of this age and the beginning of the next one going to look like? What’s it going to take for God to get the wolf and the lamb to feed together? For weeping and tragedy to be obliterated? Luke tells us that before that joy and delight and rejoicing comes false messiahs and incorrect assessments of what time it is and all manner of wars and disaster. Further, Jesus’ followers are far from exempt from the fall out. No, they are, in fact, … [Read more...]

Haggai 1:15b-2:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38 Ordinary 32C; Proper 27 Our human focus fixates on matters perhaps inconsequential to God. This entire scene of religious leaders questioning Jesus reveals the radical disconnect between divine perspectives and human ones. We seek vindication. We want clear evidence of God being on our side. We look to Jesus to affirm our righteousness and rightness. Jesus tells us: You are asking the wrong questions for misguided reasons and unhelpful ends. The set-up to this exchange gives away much about the questioners. They ask Jesus, through this convoluted scenario, to speak to a doctrine they explicitly reject. The Sadducees do not care about whose wife this woman will be in the resurrection because they do not believe in the resurrection in the first place. What, then, is their motivation? Well, what’s ours when we ask a question that is really posed to reveal our (correct) opinions and our (superior) knowledge? … [Read more...]

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10 Ordinary 31C; Proper 26 Public. Obvious. Communal. These three adjectives describe Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus. The setting of the story takes place in front of the crowd. There were so many people that Zacchaeus, being short of stature, must climb a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus. Jesus, in front of all those gathered, spots the lone man up in the branches and calls him out, by name no less. Everyone hears Jesus invite himself to Zacchaeus’ home. The Pharisees and scribes grumble because Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners — even this notorious scammer and cheater, Zacchaeus. Repeatedly Luke contrasts the Pharisees and scribes with the tax collectors and sinners and, in this great Jesus-reversal, the last and least become the first found and saved. Public. Obvious. Communal. Everybody sees. Everybody knows. They know Zacchaeus by reputation. They see Jesus call him out and go to his home. … [Read more...]

Joel 2:23-32; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; Luke 18:9-14 Ordinary 30C; Proper 25 I come back to this parable of the praying Pharisee and tax collector over and over again. Brief and straightforward, the story of the self-righteous, publicly pious Pharisee contrasted with the wailing, contrite tax collector draws me in with its honest depiction of human beings. Of course, I do not want to imagine myself the Pharisee. I know where most Pharisees stand in the eyes of Jesus: religious rule-followers who fail to see God right in front of them, judgmental, aloof, Godly know-it-alls who exploit the vulnerable. By this point in Luke’s Gospel, I know enough to know I do not want to be equated to the Pharisee. However, if I am being honest, I am not often where the tax collector of this tale is either. I may not think of myself as following God’s law to perfection, as utterly righteous and set apart, but neither do I go to worship and bare my soul to God and in front of others. If I don’t have … [Read more...]

Jeremiah 31:27-34; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8 Ordinary 29C; Proper 24 The days are surely coming when God’s people will know God’s law by heart, when all that training in sacred writings and righteousness will be evident and persuasive, when even the unjust and corrupt leaders will do the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons. Patience, persistence, relentless faithfulness will bear fruit, eventually. Truth be told, I marvel at the widows of the world, the women like that woman in Luke 18, who refuse to give up on justice, no matter how often, or how violently, or how utterly injustice apparently wins. Their persistence belies all logic. Their tenacity humbles people like me who’ve given up when faced with fewer and lesser odds. I once worked with a woman who drove an ancient powder-blue station wagon that was forever breaking down. Frequently, I would come in to the office and she would tell me that her car was in the shop again. She would have walked to work or … [Read more...]