November 17 - Ordinary Time

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Isaiah 65:17-25 Isaiah 12:1-6 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Luke 21:5-19

Today’s Reflection: One thing I like about working in education is that every school year comes with a fresh beginning. The previous year is boxed away (literally - grade and attendance documents are stored away until it is legal to destroy them) and teachers have new students and students have new teachers. Whatever happened the year before has been forgotten and we start the new year with new hope and energy. Unfortunately, the rest of our lives do not operate quite the same way, so we do have some hope when we see the hope a new beginning from God. The Isaiah passages consider God’s role in our lives and the world he wanted. The verses from Chapter 12 celebrated God’s forgiving power in that even when we are doing wrong, God loves us enough to put aside his wrath and be our salvation. Chapter 65 describes the right and orderly world, as God intended, that he will bring about for the well-being of the faithful. God’s care for us is intentional when we do as he expects. The passage in 2 Thessalonians reminds us that our work as Christians does not stop when we believe - that is where it begins. We all have a purpose and a job to do. Being idle or a busybody were people taking advantage of the generosity of the early church. The lived off the church without contributing anything to their own well-being. Others in the church worked to support themselves and then gave to the church. Paul reminded them, that regardless of his stature in the early church, he and his companions worked to pay their way, not expecting gifts from others. Jesus shares a world of chaos and calamity in the Luke passage. Wars, famine, earthquakes, plagues will happen on the earth but we should not be tricked into believing that any of those things mark his return to the earth. The people acting in faith will always find themselves at risk by powers, religious groups, and even their own families, yet he assures them that not even a hair on their head will perish. This was not a physical promise Christ made, but a spiritual one. Many were martyred - but their souls have eternity through enduring in the faith. New beginnings. Fresh starts. Our Christian faith, built on grace, accepts that none of us is perfect: we are human. Fortunately, we worship God who values us enough to let us be works-in-progress during our physical lives with the promise of becoming the perfect creation of his vision in the New Jerusalem.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org

 

November 10 - Ordinary Time

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Job 19:23-27 Psalm 17 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 Luke 20:27-38

Today’s Reflection: Whether I am feeling it or not, I make an effort to present a confident face in my work and public roles. For those positions where I am in a position of leadership it reassures those following me and bolsters their own confidence. Inside I may be feeling everything but confidence, but my posture, words, and actions mask it as much as possible. Each of today’s passages offer words from some of the greatest exemplars of faith in the Bible. Job’s passionate declaration that no matter what happens, no matter what discouragement comes his way, he knows God, his redeemer, will be at his side in the judgment. Despite the lowness of his circumstance, he is confident that his right-ness with God will end in justice being done. He is so confident, his declaration opens with the wish that the words are recorded in a book and on a rock so they will last forever. Likewise, Paul, in his assurances to the church at Thessalonica, knows that circumstances do not always merit confidence when we see them from our earthly perspective. The world was changing around them making many of them wonder if they were in the right. Paul reminded them that Christ had warned of such circumstances and that regardless of what happened in the world, his word was constant. Being connected to the eternal truth, as Job knew, ensures justice in the end despite the challenges that intervene. The religious leaders in Jesus’s time never did learn the lesson about arguing the Word with the Word.  This time the Sadducees, leaders who did not believe in a resurrection (the Pharisees did) thought they found a loophole in the law that would cause chaos in a resurrection world. Their fault, like ours often is, came from seeing the situation from a human, earthly, finite viewpoint. The earthly order is not the heavenly order. In the heavenly, infinite, experience where there is no beginning or ending, there is no need for the institutions we employ. In heaven, we may or may not see grandpa. Even if we do, that powerful emotional connection we have with family on earth pales to nothingness compared to the connection we will have with God when we are in his presence. Like Job and Paul, we also possess the justification for confidence. Job, Paul, and Jesus gave us the key to that confidence: focus on the eternal not the temporal. When we get drawn into human understanding, everything has limits. With God, no such boundaries exist and our assurances are well placed. It is hard to do those things that we have never seen, but we have directions - we just have to get past ourselves to follow them.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org