|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Job 19:23–27a |
Psalm
17:1–9 |
2
Thessalonians 2:1–5,13–17
|
Luke
20:27–38
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It is an old story, but well worth repeating. about a pillar of her small parish who specified that when she died, she wished be buried with a fork in her hand. To some it seemed a strange request, but to those who knew her well, it was her last witness to the faith she had exhibited so well in life. As her friends explained, when at the numerous dish-to-pass church suppers, those in the kitchen came out and said, “Keep your forks,” then she and everyone else knew that dessert was coming. There was something much better in store following the macaroni and cheese surprise or tuna noodle casserole.
In today’s Gospel, the question about whose wife of the seven brothers a widow would be, was possibly meant to mock or entrap Jesus. At the very least, the Sadducees wanted to prove their point that belief in a resurrection was wrong. Whatever the motive, the Sadducees wanted the ways of God to always fit in to their conceptions and thoughts. In effect, they were insisting that if their vision and imagination were limited, then God had to be confined to them, too. It is like a small child who thinks the world ends at the horizon. Did you ever try to explain to a young child looking out over the ocean, that there is another side miles away with seashores, coastlines and people on the beach or swimming? It is pretty difficult.
Jesus refuses to take the bait over trivial and petty debates of limited value, and enter into a spurious argument or offer a contrived explanation. Instead Jesus lifts up what the life of faith is all about. God is God of the living. How we treat others is really what we have to be concerned about. Indeed when we treat others with respect and dignity, then we have a foretaste of what God has planned for us. Fruitless arguments obscure and misdirect the opportunities we have right now. Therefore Jesus dismisses the silly argument and transforms the conversation to a higher plane, offering the witness of Moses and Abraham as the real focus for people of faith.
The point of story of the woman and her fork wasn’t that she held a fork instead of a spoon, or whether she liked cream puffs better than a mystery meat casserole. It was about anticipating and keeping faith with God’s promises. The woman was affirming that signs of those promises were being fulfilled and were happening within the walls of their small country church in the present, as well as in the larger world in the future.
In the next few weeks we will hear more about stewardship, specifically about our support of St. John’s. Perhaps it needs to be said that we are about a Sunday’s offering or about four to six thousand dollars behind from last year. That is, if all of us gave an extra Sunday’s offering, and we had a decent Christmas offering, we would be within reasonable striking distance of breaking even. I suspect going into next year, we will need to increase our support on average about 5%.
I do not feel comfortable giving you an “ain’t so” story. I cannot ask you to support St. John’s because the church has all the answers if you attend most of its services, or because I have all the answers, if only you would pay better attention to what I say, or even because the Bible has all the answers, if only you would study it more. I cannot promise that next year the staff and I will do things more pleasing to you. There is always a great temptation to trivialize God’s mission. That is really what today’s Gospel is warning us about. The Sadducees wanted to trivialize God’s promises and bring them down to their level and under their control. Arguing over how much a deficit is allowable or the exact percentage of increase we need, or where we could pinch a penny here and there confuses the real purpose of our being here together.
None of these concerns ever become the most important reasons why we should support the work of St. John’s. You should know that our outreach committee is pushing us to commit to an ambitious goal to substantially increase our work outside St. John’s. You should know that we intend to take our ministry here to a higher level. There are great opportunities for witness out there and we are called to be a wonderful part of them.
The basic message of stewardship is really very simple. “Keep your forks!” People of faith are those who will not let the world cheat them out of their hope. God is God of the living. The Gospel makes a difference in our world and we, with all the saints in days past, are part of that enterprise. That is why with confidence and enthusiasm we ask for your increased support, present and future.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
