Today in the Spirit: Proper 27B
Though there is danger all around from the religious leaders of Jerusalem seeking to kill him, Jesus will still make time to teach his disciples. The appointed Gospel reading for Proper 27B, Mark 12:38-44, begins with Jesus warning the twelve to “beware of the scribes” (38). It is not clear if he is cautioning them to stay out of their way for their own safety or not to become like them. Probably both. From there, we find Jesus watching people putting money into the temple treasury receptacles and pointing out to the disciples that a widow who has given “all she had to live on” has shown more faith in supporting God’s work than wealthy people who contribute more “out of their abundance” (44). Courageous widows become a focus of the other readings, as well as their faith and God’s special care for them.
The assigned OT reading from 1 Kings 17:8-16 is the story of Elijah’s interaction with a widow from Zarephath in the northern kingdom. According to God’s word delivered to her by the prophet, she supplies what little she has to feed the man of God and receives miraculous provision for herself and her son in return. Psalm 146 is a psalm of praise assigned here (and at Advent 3A and Proper 27B) to encourage people’s faith in YHWH for all he has been shown to do for his people. This line is pertinent to the week’s focus in the list of evidence of his goodness: “The LORD cares for strangers in the land; he defends the fatherless and the widow” (10, BCP New Coverdale).
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As we come near to the end of our Year B series in Hebrews, this week’s assigned reading out of Hebrews 9:24-28 refers even more urgently to preparation for the second coming of our Lord: “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (28). So our worship in this cycle begins here to anticipate Advent even before the pre-Advent propers to come in the next two weeks. The assigned Collect also looks forward to the beginning of Advent with the plea: “Grant that…we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom.”
The Collect
O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
According to the Word of the LORD (1 Kings 17:8-16)
8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” 11 And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12 And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” 13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” 15 And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.
1 Kings 17:8-16
In our worship on this Sunday, this passage will come to us as the opening scriptural testimony of a faithful widow. Notice how the woman’s attitude changes suddenly in the narrative, not when she experiences the multiplication of flour and oil (though that must have been amazing), but before that, in her hearing the word of the LORD from Elijah, “‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty’” (14). Hearing the word “she went” and changed her intended course of action. Her hope is sourced in the revelation of YHWH–and this in a pagan territory (Sidon) where she receives precious little affirmation for her faith in the One God. Centuries later, Jesus will commend her faith, particularly to an obstinate group of Jews in his hometown of Nazareth (see Lk. 4:24-26).
Devotionally, this observation might cause us to assess the quality of our trust in the Lord. We have the word of God in abundance. But, is our knowledge of the sure presence of the Lord and his trustworthy promises in Scripture sufficient to change our attitudes, like this woman, from despair to hope and death to life? Or, are we waiting skeptically, “Lord, first give me a little of the ‘oil and flour’, and then we’ll see?” The exhortation to trust in God’s word is made explicit in the psalm we will recite after this reading: “Blessed is the one who has the God of Jacob for his help and whose hope is in the Lord his God” (Ps. 146:5).
Today, Holy Spirit, I confess to you that, though I have the word of God in abundance, I can give in too easily to doubt and dismay. Meet me in those times with a “word” from you, and grant me the widow’s faith in this passage to change my face.
Praise the LORD (Psalm 146)
1 Praise the Lord, O my soul;
Psalm 146
* while I live I will praise the Lord.
2 Indeed, as long as I have my being,
* I will sing praises unto my God.
3 Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man,
* for there is no help in them.
4 For when one breathes his last, he shall return again to the earth,
* and in that day all his thoughts perish.
5 Blessed is the one who has the God of Jacob for his help
* and whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is therein;
* who keeps his promise for ever;
7 Who does right to those who suffer wrong;
* and who feeds the hungry.
8 The Lord sets prisoners free;
* the Lord gives sight to the blind.
9 The Lord helps those who have fallen;
* the Lord loves the righteous.
10 The Lord cares for the strangers in the land; he defends the fatherless and widow;
* but the way of the ungodly he makes crooked.
11 The Lord shall be King for evermore,
* even your God, O Zion, throughout all generations. Praise the Lord.
This is a “praise the LORD” (Heb. hallelujah) psalm featuring a worship leader who is himself captivated by the greatness of God’s love as he seeks to inspire the congregation to join him in praise. Notice the loftiness of language at the beginning and end of the psalm. The psalmist cries out, “I will praise the LORD as long as I live” (1, ESV) and “the LORD shall be King for evermore” (11). We might wonder what exactly this temple prophet is “seeing” in his mind’s eye as he exhorts the people, “Put not your trust in princes…Blessed is the one who has the God of Jacob for his help” (3,5)? The text itself tells us that he is imagining the plight of the prisoners, the blind, the widows, all being delivered from trouble by YHWH.
Devotionally, we can and must identify ourselves with any one of the unfortunates in this psalm because, in our sin, that is what we are, “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 3:12). And yet, I believe it is not just God’s bending down to help any one of these, but all of them at once that so moves him. Imagine yourself one fine day at the water’s edge on a beach. You look up to see the sun shining in the blue sky, back to see people playing on the sand, out to see huge ships moving effortlessly over the water–and then, inspired by the whole picture, you say, “What a beautiful day!” That is how the psalmist intends for us to experience these words in our worship. Our God is everywhere, at all times, and without failure, helping everyone in their various needs. “Praise the LORD.”
Today, in the Spirit, look with the wide eyes of the psalmist on the sovereignty and compassion of God and lift up your voice in praise.
For Christ Has Entered (Hebrews 9:24-28)
24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:24-28
Hebrews 9 is particularly difficult to understand because it requires the most insider knowledge of ancient Hebrew religious rituals. We come to the stage in our Hebrews series concentrated less on the person of the priestly Christ (a “priest in the order of Melchizedek,” easier to grasp) and more on the work of the priestly Christ (like that of the high priest in the temple, harder to grasp). In his little commentary on Hebrews written in the early 1900s, the Anglican evangelical theologian W. Griffith Thomas points out that these verses, in particular, describe the ministry of Christ like those in Leviticus 16 describing the duties of a high priest in the Tabernacle: “The High Priest superintended the offering of the sacrifice outside the tabernacle. Then he entered into the Holy of Holies with the sacrificial blood. Thereupon, he presented the blood by sprinkling it around the Mercy Seat. And afterward, he returned from the tabernacle, having accomplished his work.” It is like Appearance, Atonement, and Reappearance.
Thomas, a dispensationalist, sees this language as not just descriptions of a task but stages in history, and by his reckoning, we locate ourselves in the stage of Atonement. The Atonement of Christ’s blood on the cross was, of course, a once and for all event, but until the second coming of Christ, we live in a period of God speaking out the good news of that Atonement on earth. See how later in 12:24, the author makes this point: “You have come…to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking” (see 12:23-25). So what we “speak” now is not of ourselves or the church but of the sacrifice of Christ until his coming again.
Today, Holy Spirit, though Hebrews is hard for me to understand, I rejoice over Christ’s priestly ministry on my behalf and resolve to speak of it for others to hear.
Watched the People (Mark 12:38-44)
38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” 41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
Mark 12:38-44
How does Jesus know this account’s “rich people” are rich? How does he know “the poor widow” is putting in “everything she had”? Is it a guess on his part based on appearances alone? Well, he no doubt sees the obvious. Still, beyond that, we know from the Gospels that Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, demonstrates a supernatural knowledge of the hearts of all people (Jn. 2:25). Combine this with the fact that Jesus is intentionally observing (“he sat down and watched”) the activity around the offering receptacles in the temple courts, and what do we find? Jesus knows, and he is watching.
There is no hiding anything from the Lord or keeping our motives secret. Is this not our confession whenever we (as Anglicans) begin to worship: “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.” We approach our Lord, declaring the thing we observe in the text. Thankfully, though, that is not the end of the matter or the final words of the prayer: “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” Jesus knows, and he is watching, and he purifies our hearts–again and again and again.
Today, Holy Spirit, you know my heart and my duplicity. Cleanse my heart to worship you not only on Sunday but every hour, offering to you everything that you want of what I have in time, talent, and treasure.
Today in the Spirit
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