The Gospel for December 3, 2004
Luke 20:41-21:4
He then said to them, ‘How can people maintain that the Christ is son of David? Why, David himself says in the Book of Psalms: The Lord declared to my Lord, take your seat at my right hand, till I have made your enemies your footstool. David here calls him Lord; how then can he be his son?’ While all the people were listening he said to the disciples, ‘Beware of the scribes who like to walk about in long robes and love to be greeted respectfully in the market squares, to take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets, who devour the property of widows, and for show offer long prayers. The more severe will be the sentence they receive.’ Looking up, he saw rich people putting their offerings into the treasury; and he noticed a poverty–stricken widow putting in two small coins, and he said, ‘I tell you truly, this poor widow has put in more than any of them; for these have all put in money they could spare, but she in her poverty has put in all she had to live on.' -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
A Study
The question Jesus puts to them about being David's son can be seen in at least two lights. On the one hand, Jesus may be saying that his messiahship will not be of the footstool-enemy type, not a bloody overthrow followed by dominion over the former oppressor. On the other hand, there are many scholars who assert that Jesus was even at this point wrestling with the concept of Messiah as it applied to Him, and that this was a thinking-out-loud rhetorical question of Himself.
His attack on the haughty teachers of the law, however, was exactly what it seems. He had lost patience with these religious elitists, and put them on notice that their appearances deceived no one, least of all the Father.
A Reflection
One version of an old saw is that half of evangelism is comforting the afflicted, and the other half is afflicting the comfortable.
Neither can occur, of course, unless the recipient hears the message and internalizes it. If I don't believe that the Paraclete will be with me always, any message about him is of little comfort. And if I don't feel the pain of those in poverty, personally, my motivation to do good will pass quickly.
"Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these," Jesus began, and told those around him that they had done it to Him. Whatever it was. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. House the homeless. Visit the prisoner.
Destroy a country, killing tens of thousands of civilians, to eliminate the threat of weapons that never existed? Did we do that to Jesus, too? As the dollar counter climbs well past one hundred billion, have we thought where a "Christian nation," as our very own religious elite like to say, would have spent the money? Would it have spent the money half a world away in a poorly planned assault on a tiny country ruled by a madman, or would it have spent the money on making life meaningful in Africa, where many countries' expected lifespan is less than 40 years for children born today?
Or would it have spent the money finding a cure for cancer? Or AIDS? Or Alzheimer's? Or....
Unlike the teachers of the law, we're not even trying to look good to everybody else. Few people around the world, and slightly less than half of the electorate here, seem to believe that we're wearing the white hat anymore. We're just spending the money because it feels good, like the neurotic teenager with daddy's credit card. Except this time, it's our grandchildren's credit card.
Almost within spitting distance of my nice house, one family in five lives below the poverty level. It was people like these, with nothing, from whom the widow came. And she gave all she had to enhance YHWH's Temple.
How much then shall we give, to enhance God's planet?
A Collect
Almighty God, you set the stars and planets in the firmament so that we must wait through longer physical as well as spiritual darkness, anticipating the yearly remembrance of your Incarnation; keep your Holy Spirit with us that we may rightly join with the angels to welcome Him once again as our darkness turns to joy.
3:59:28 PM 
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