What is important to us? What are willing to do for it?

The Old Testament reading for today comes from Isa. 3:8-15.  The prophet speaks of those who grind the faces of the poor, who crush God's people.   Perhaps these oppressors do what they do for gain: the "spoil of the poor" is in their houses.  Perhaps they do what they do simply because they can, for the pleasure of exercising their own wills.

The Gospel reading for today comes from Luke 20:41-21:4. Jesus tells his listeners to beware the scribes who "devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers." He gives us some insight into what motivates these oppressors: they love being greeted with respect in the marketplace. Weirdly enough, some oppressors, at least, do what they do because they want people to like them. They want "validation" from other people. "See, he has plenty, people like him, he must be good," regardless of how this wealth was obtained and whether any apparent virtue is real or sincere.

The New Testament reading for today discusses how we ought to live. Paul writes, "But we exhort you . . . . to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we charged you; so that you may command the respect of outsiders, and be dependent on nobody."  We should earn the respect of others, but the source of well-being should not be dependent on other people.  The source should be God's love for us, and our love for other people. 

What is important to us is God, his love, and our love for his creation: to get it, we should sacrifice the false sense of esteem that other people can give us. To get that esteem, those around us and we ourselves must pay too steep a price.   The greater blessing comes to us for free.

We live world that is hardly concerned with responding to God's grace.  How do we live in that world?

The Old Testament reading for today comes from Isa. 2:1-11.  The first part of that reading reminds us that God has in store for us a wonderful future: not just improvements on our present state, but salvation.  But the second part serves as an acknowledgement that we have to hold that promise in our hearts while we live in a world that is not merely indifferent, but hostile and displeasing to God.

The Gospel reading for today is from Luke 20:19-26. In it, some religious authorities confront Jesus to ask him a question: is it permissible to pay Roman taxes? It may have been a sincere question. After all, the Roman coin had an idolatrous image of the emperor, and a pious person may have had scruples about doing any task that required handling anything of that nature.  But Jesus called for a coin and said, whose image is this? The emperor's, they answered. Then give the emperor what belongs to him, and give God what belongs to God, Jesus answered.  We live not just with God's promise of salvation, but with the understanding that we belong to God. 

Living with this promise of salvation, in the knowledge that we belong to God, can give us courage to confront outright evil, not just worldly indifference. In the New Testament reading for today, 1 Thess. 2:13-20, Paul recounts how he wanted to come visit his readers, but that Satan had hindered him--again and again. In other words, there were times when the bad guys won the battle, but Paul kept trying.  But he was bereft of them only in person, not in heart, he wrote.   What evil managed to keep him from accomplishing in the world, God allowed him to accomplish in spirit.

As we go through the day, dealing with indifference and perhaps even outright evil, may we always remember the future that God promises us and the fact that we belong to him, so that evil may not overcome us as we serve the Lord we love.

The Gospel reading for today comes from Luke 20:9-18.  It's the story of the man who sends his servants to check out a vineyard he owns, only to have the workmen in the vineyard abuse the servants. After several tries, the man sends his own son, who the workmen kill in the hopes of claiming the vineyard for themselves.

God sends prophets, messages, and signs about what he expects us to do.  Over and over, we reject those efforts so that we can do what we want to do.   It's a very old problem. In the Old Testament reading for today, Isa. 1:21-31, the prophet describes a world in which judges take bribes, rulers rebel against God, and on one defends the orphan or the widow.   It's a call to repentance, then and now.

The New Testament reading for today comes from 1 Thess. 2:1-12. There, we are encouraged "to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory."  God reaches out to us: he does not expect us to accomplish great things on our own, but only to refrain from rebellion and to follow the path that he set for us. 

May we lead lives worthy of God.

When God asks a question, how do I answer?

The Gospel reading today comes from Luke 20:1-8.  Some bystanders asked Jesus where he got the authority to do the things he was doing.  Jesus replied by asking them a question: where did John get his authority to baptize? His listeners were unable to answer, but not because they lacked the resources to figure out the answer.  They could not reply because they could not figure out a response that would avoid diminishing their stature in the community.  If they said, God gave John that authority, then everyone would ask, why didn't you follow him? But if they said, John had no authority, then the community would hate them, even stone them.

Jesus asks us a question, perhaps several questions, every day. Do we answer honestly?

We may try to answer in a way that shows those around us how much devotion we have.  But the Old Testament reading for today, Isa. 1:10-20, shows what God thinks of those answers. There, the prophet tells us that God was sick of fancy rituals, slavishly followed. He wanted worship in the form of seeking after justice and resisting oppression, helping widows and defending the fatherless.

The New Testatment reading for today, 1 Thess. 1:1-10, teaches us that the Holy Spirit wants us to answer the questions that God puts to us by acting with conviction.  We are to turn from idols, away from our conceits and our desire for esteem, and toward God, whose coming we anticipate in Advent.

It's the first Sunday of Advent, and the Gospel reading comes from Matt. 25:1-13.  It's the parable of the 10 virgins who were waiting for a bridegroom to arrive late one night. Each had a lamp. Five brought extra oil, and the other five didn't.  As the oil burned low, the five foolish virgins who had no extra oil had to go out to the merchant. While they were away, the bridegroom arrived. By the time they got back, the feast had started and they were locked out. No one would let them in.

I've always had problems with this parable. Why couldn't the five wise virgins share some oil? Why couldn't the foolish virgins just send out one of their number for some oil? For that matter, why did they need oil? Couldn't they just wait in the dark?

It's not meant to be taken literally, this parable.  The point of this story is that time passes.   For practically everything, there comes moment when it's too late.  We have to be alert, aware, waiting for the moment, living in the moment, prepared and ready for the grace that God brings to us.   We must, as Jesus says at the end of the reading, "Watch, therefore." Otherwise, the moment comes and we are asleep, in the dark, our resources exhausted.  Things can pass us by, and they do.

The New Testament reading comes from 2 Pet. 3:1-10.  Peter teaches us in this passage to be patient: in the eyes of God, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like one day.  But that doesn't mean things are not happening.   

The Old Testament reading for today comes from Ecclus. 51:1-12.  The writer remembers how God saved him when he was in danger, when no one else would come to his aid.  The passage is a wonderful response from a person who knew first hand a lesson that is difficult to learn: it is in our time of need that God is most real to us, that his love for us is most evident. When we are down and out, God can be there for us in a way that we often fail to appreciate when we are prospering.

The Gospel reading comes from Luke 14:1-11. A man with dropsy (probably heart disease) comes to Jesus on the sabbath.  There is uncertainty among onlookers about whether Jesus will heal this man on the sabbath.  Jesus does so, reminding his listeners that their own understanding of the law allows them to save an ox who was in danger on the sabbath.  In other words, if the life of an animal is important enough to allow you to serve your own interests by working when work is otherwise forbidden, isn't the well being of this man important enough to allow the Messiah to do what he came to do (that is, to repair the world) even on a day when work is otherwise forbbiden. This man belongs to me, he is saying, stopping his suffering isn't merely good for him, it is what I do.

We are important to God, Jesus is saying. But what about our importance to ourselves? Jesus goes on to observe how his listeners choose the best places for themselves, the places for honor, when they sit down to dine. Choose the lowest place for yourself, he says. Let your self be unimportant to yourself. If someone wants you at the head of the table, they will tell you. You are important to God: let that be enough, let that substitute for your importance to yourself and others.

Where does self-importance and temporal glory end? The New Testament reading for today comes from Rev. 18:1-14.  It is a vision of the fall of Babylon, the most important place in the world, the most important city to the world. It is a literally apocalyptic collapse.  What amounts to glorious wonder in the eyes of the world ends in horrible collapse.  The moral of the story: it isn't worth it, and don't let it distract you.

We all need to feel important. May we satisfy that need by knowing that we are important to the creator of the universe and the Savior of mankind, so that we can face our times of need knowing that he cares for us, and so that we focus our energies on furthering his healing mission.

What do we want our lives to be like? And what are they like? And how do they reflect God's plan?

The Old Testament reading for today comes from Ecclus. 50:1,11-24.  The writer praises Simon, a great priest in the Temple, where he served God and was surrounded by what the writer recalls as a sort of perfection.  After recounting his fond recollection of Simon in his days, the writer concludes with this benediction:

"And now bless the God of all,who in every way does great things;who exalts our days from birth and deals with us according to his mercy. May he give us^[gladness of heart   and grant that peace may be in our days in Israel  as in the days of old. May he entrust to us his mercy And let him deliver us in our days!"

In other words, "Give us, God, the good old days, as we remember them, perhaps better than we were." 

The Gospel reading for today comes from Luke 13:31-35.  Some Pharisees warned Jesus that he should flee, because Herod wanted to kill him. It's unclear how these Pharisees otherwise related to Jesus: perhaps they were friends who were engaged by his teaching, perhaps they were enemies.  In any event, Jesus's situation had become such that even those who well may have been his enemies might take pity on him to warn him.  But Jesus disregards the warning. He came to Jerusalem to save Jerusalem: he came as a prophet, and saw Jerusalem as a place for prophets to die.  We might recall the glory days of Simon the Priest as a golden era of peace and perfection, but we are called to follow a Savior who traveled a hard path to which he was committed, even if it appeared to lead to disaster. 

The New Testament reading comes from Rev. 17:1-18.  Written years if not decades after the crucifixion, this passage records the vision of a man who had followed that Savior along a different, but still difficult path.  It was given to him to reveal the plan that God had for him and for salvation. It made sense to him: it may make no sense to us, unless we perhaps we analyze it to the point of reducing it of all meaning.  But the vision is there, and the plan is there, and we may be given to understand either or both, but perhaps only after a lifetime of longing for the good old days and dealing with the trouble at hand.